Trying to stop conflict and working against prejudice at the level of an apartment block is something that we haven’t seen in other cities and which seems to be a successful approach. It focusses on personal contact on a small scale and improving relations between neighbours .

In the city of Terrassa, two characteristics are striking: firstly that international immigration is relatively new (from the last ten years) en secondly, that the housing market is dominated by owner occupied houses. This report is part of the Eurofund "Cities for Local Integration Policy" (CLIP), which started in 2006. Terrassa is one of the 20 European cities that cooperate in exchanging information on their Integration Policies, first regarding the issues on housing.

Researcher: Dr. A. van Heelsum, IMES, University of Amsterdam.

Since the housing stock is mainly owner occupied, first the president of the owners associations are visited, and then all inhabitants. The information booklet about living in apartment buildings is presented and in case there are social problems, they are referred to offices that can help. These activities are focussed on breaking the cultural walls within the block, at living together in a good way and at mutual respect. An exercise in three sessions on first aid and fire protection is used as a first step to get to know the people and to stimulate them to join in a communal activity, but this is a kind of excuse to get in and to look further at conflicts and prejudices.

Communication is improving between inhabitants of a block, conflicts are getting solved.

Evaluation of house visiting was positive. This is also true for the conflict mediation solves three out of four conflicts, before they escalate from a complaint into a bigger conflict. Most complaints are about rubbish, cleaning, not paying the common fee for maintenance and noise. With the larger number of kids and often 8-10 people in the house, there is a lot of noise. Beds have to be moved to let all these people sleep and the neighbours downstairs wake up. The combination of young Moroccans with many children and a lot of activity on the one hand and elderly Spanish living alone or as couples increases the chance of conflict. About 90% of the complaints come from the Ca n’Anglada neighbourhood.

In the end all inhabitants of Terrassa will benefit of better intercultural relations. First of course the inhabitants of the block where communication improved.

Temporary funding from Catalan government.

Municipality of Terrassa
Terrassa
Spain
http://www.terrassa.cat
Joan Chicon (Head of Department of International Relations Terassa and CLIP contact person), tel. 00-34-93-73973323

02/10/2008

case

Urban Policy

Housing