TelePolis writes about a new catalogue of principles the European Union adopted regarding immigration. ¹ Reading the article, it seems that basically the content makes sense but fails to go into the tricky details. It demands, for example, that “something” be done to prevent the (automatic) concentration of immigrants in poor neighbourhoods. What needs to be done to prevent this, however, remains unclear. And I must admit that it is a hard problem. Here in Zürich it seems to work, more or less. We’re basically surfing along the fault line: Kreis 4, Schwamendingen, Schlieren, Spreitenbach – we know the problem, but solve issues “just in time”. It could be better, but we’re not suffering. As the immigrants join the middle class, they move out of these neighbourhoods. They don’t stay, and these neighbourhoods don’t develop into ghettos.
I guess there was just no way to formulate any specific steps to take, because we just don’t know what works and what doesn’t. We need more urban development research.
Strangely enough I was unable to find this catalogue in the “What’s new” section of europa.eu.int. The Telepolis article just links to a provisional document... PDF