Why New Amsterdam?

New Amsterdam is what we were. New Amsterdam is what we can become. New
Amsterdam can be American cities that are strong, cohesive, clean, safe,
healthy, and vibrant. New Amsterdam can mean movement that is mindful,
fun, sensible, clean, healthy, and constructive. New Amsterdam can refer
to a movement to establish and sustain healthy movement. New Amsterdam
can mean energy independence. New Amsterdam can mean reversing the need
for self-destructive foreign engagements predicated on the need for oil.
New Amsterdam can mean cultivating the health and virtue of our people.
New Amsterdam was our past. New Amsterdam can be our future.

In one year New Amsterdam has been established, not just in the minds of
a few, but in the world, for all to see. How is this possible? There
is another, more essential, way of posing this question: While the same
repetitive and destructive patterns of human behavior are readily
discernable upon even the most superficial examination of human history,
the student of history is nevertheless unable to predict the future with
any degree of certainty. Why not?

Because while human beings are endowed with a capacity for
destructiveness that is unsurpassed relative to other species, we are
also endowed with another, equally conspicuous characteristic: the
capacity to create something new. It is this capacity that must be
cultivated if our nation and our world are to be saved. It is this
capacity that manifests in the New Amsterdam Project. It is this
capacity that serves as justification for a hope which is not based on
wish and illusion, but on reason. It is this capacity that induces me to
invite all of you to contribute to our effort. Please feel free to contribute
your ideas and comments to this section of our site.

Andrew O. Brown, CEO and Founder