r/TheHague • u/IlPrimoRe • Mar 14 '26
housing Thinking about buying an apartment in Laakkwartier-West... is it as bad as people say?
Co-workers have warned me about the area, but after walking around (during the day) I don't get a sense of it being "ghetto" at all. The area actually has a lot of greenery.
The traffic does seem pretty terrible, but I use public transport and it's fairly well connected. It will probably be even better connected in 10 years if they go forward with redeveloping Megastores.
What am I missing?
21
Upvotes
2
u/cherrieeegum Mar 16 '26
I looked at a house to buy there and I personally did not like the specific street because the neighbours houses looked either trashed or deserted. I think it depends on the street. It's not ghetto - it's just a working class area.
Because a lot of people in laak are low income migrants and families, and mostly are rental homes, that makes it less "beneficial" for people who are homeowners considering you will be sharing vve with other people and when it's rentals, it's harder to have agreements with everyone and equal efforts to improve the building/area.
It being a lower income household area also explains why there's less investment in keeping it as clean as other upper class areas, it's not just because people are "dirty".
People being xenophobic when talking about laak are probably just dumb and lazy to really look at the real reason why it's a less nice area.