Amsterdam's old town is tiny if you compare it to NYC, if you have limited capacity it's also rational to prioritize tourists who are likely to spend more per capita (I'm not sure if this will necessarily be the long-term outcome of the band though).

You can't compare Amsterdam tourists with "every town" tourists. Sorry that you have never visited but it is quite apparent if you have.

I live in NYC too, but imagine if all of Manhattan was midtown. That's basically Amsterdam these days. The suburbs are fine, but it's a nightmare in the city center. Imagine Times Square but like 6x the size.

The Dutch are quite pragmatic and they had years to think about this.

Sure, but cruse ship tourists bring in vastly less money so it’s not a constant benefit from a given level of harm.

“Towns”, yes, but NYC? It’s so dense that it can easily support the vast majority of amenities - as can most big European cities.

When’s the last time you went to Bubba Gump or Hard Rock Cafe? That’s the kind of crap most tourism usually supports. There is almost zero overlap between the restaurants locals go to and the ones the tourists do because locals usually can’t be assed to wait for a table. To them it’s not a special occasion like a vacation, just another day.

I’ve found this to be an almost universal rule east of the Mississippi (on the other hand Californians have a weird fetish for waiting in line an hour to sit at a brunch place with less than a dozen tables).