Mascha ten Bruggencate, a city administrator who has been tasked with carrying out the new policies, said there was an obvious place to start. “The red-light district is symbolic of the problem,” she said.

On a recent Saturday night, Stoofsteeg, an alley in the district lined by red-lighted windows, was so crowded with tourists gawking at the women on show that walking 50 yards or so took at least 15 minutes of pushing and shuffling. A couple with a stroller gave up after a few minutes.

Last year, 20 million tourists visited Amsterdam. During the busiest times of the weekend, as many as 6,000 visitors can pass through that alley — or attempt to — every hour, according to city estimates.

Residents have complained that there are not enough police officers to guarantee everyone’s safety, and that De Wallen is now so overcrowded that ambulances have a difficult time reaching the injured or ill. Arre Zuurmond, the city’s ombudsman, described the scene as a lawless urban jungle, in an interview with the newspaper Trouw published in July. The prostitutes complain that the throngs of tourists deter paying customers.

Pim van Burk, 33, a corporate headhunter who lives above one of the brothels in the area, said that the noise did not bother him but that the crowds could make it difficult to get home. He said he had tried to solve the problem by installing a second bell on his bike. “That way, people think it’s more than one bike behind them,” he explained.