The early-twentieth century neighbourhoods are more or less “terra incognita” within the field of urban geography in The Netherlands. In the past decade urban renewal programmes required the attention of planners and geographers. These programmes were almost entirely confined to the nineteenth century and inner-city neighbourhoods, the housing stock of which was badly in need of improvement. In addition, more recently many of the post-war neighbourhoods appeared to be suffering from various physical and social problems which needed to be investigated. The latent problems in the early-twentieth century neighbourhoods, however, as well as the importance of these neighbourhoods to the local housing market makes a better understanding of these neighbourhoods necessary. The issue of which policy measures are most apt for these neighbourhoods is often narrowed to the question of: “How can the process of downgrading be stopped?” The rising mobility rates and the influx of households of a lower socio-economic status or of ethnic-minority groups are often seen as indicators of this downgrading process. In this paper a different approach will be adopted. The process of population change will be related to changes in the evaluation of neighborhood attributes by the households occupying a dwelling in these neighbourhoods, instead of attaching a priori value judgements to the outcomes of this process. To this end, the changing composition of the population of the early-twentieth century neighbourhoods is described and explained in terms of the shifts in the relative position of these neighbourhoods within the larger urban fabric in general and within the aggregate patterns of housing demand and supply in particular. A comparison of population changes in the early-twentieth century neighbourhoods in two of the mayor Dutch cities (Utrecht and Amsterdam) will illustrate the importance of the urban context. The paper will conclude with an evaluation of up- and downgrading in terms of housing opportunities and housing needs.