Now that integration is more difficult to achieve through labour market, urban space and particularly the neighbourhood take on growing significance in the integration process as places where immigrants spend large amounts of their time. Therefore, "Immigrants in the City" focuses on the integration space of the neighbourhood, habitat and home. Breaking with tradition, the project assumes the following fundamental premise: Voluntary ethnic segregation is neither avoidable nor does it necessarily thwart integration of immigrants.

The capability of the labour market to act as an integrating force is continously declining, due to structural and cyclical trends. Conversely, neighbourhoods are becoming increasingly the principal places of daily encounter. Both the market and subjective reasons incline many immigrants to seek accommodation in the lower price range, with demand focusing on specific locations. Therefore, they often have German neighbours who face loss of social status. Such constellations foster “overextended neighbourhoods” in which the ethnicization of social and economic problems blocks integration. Immigrants in the City focuses on the integration space of neighbourhood, habitat and home.

The pillars of the project are the Expert Forum, consisting of academics and practitioners, and a Practice Network made up of eight large cities. The Expert Forum's recommendations for urban integration policy mark the conclusion of the first phase of "Immigrants in the City". Beginning in February 2005, the recommendations are adopted and tested for applicability to specific local issues in the Practice Network municipalities. Accompanying research monitors the situation before, during and after measures have been taken in the cooperating cities.

The segregated concentration of immigrants in certain neighbourhoods in our cities is the result of an inevitable decades-long process. Cities’ integration policies must therefore try to prevent the spatial segregation of immigrants leading to social exclusion.  All urban policy measures must be applied in those neighbourhoods where the immigrants actually live. This is the best way to avoid isolating them from the rest of society. Possible neighbourhood measures concerning the following subjects: School and other educational facilities, language promotion, ethnic economy, mixed use of urban districts, public spaces, neighbourhood safety, neighbourhood image, participation and Real estate ownership.

Schader Foundation
Karlstrasse 85
64285 Darmstadt
Germany
http://www.schader-stiftung.de/
Gudrun Kirchhoff (Scientific officer), tel. +49 (0)6151.1759.14

01/01/2005

Schader Foundation, Darmstadt - German Association of Cities (DST) - German Head Federation of Housing and Real Estate Associations (GdW) - German Institute of Urban Affairs (difu) - Institute for Housing, Real Estate, Urban and Regional Development at Ruhr-University Bochum (InWis)

research

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Integration of social groups

Refugees, Asylum seekers, Ethnic minorities