Migration and the City: Social Cohesion and Integration Policies

Abstrakti

One of the dominant features of the postwar era is the phenomenon of globalization and internationalization. This development is manifested in a number of areas. The financial world was one of the first to emancipate from national borders and authorities and to go worldwide. Following the free movement of capital, economic activities and products are now also much less restricted by national boundaries than they used to be. The development of technology in information, communication and transport has evidently contributed to this new economic and financial world order. And in its wake it has assisted internationalization in cultural and political matters. The coming into existence of the European Union is a manifestation of the latter. These developments in itself have brought more external influences and diversity particularly to larger cities that are the local spaces of internationalization.

Two specific consequences of this general process do have in practice a great influence on larger cities. The first is that this globalization in all those domains has inevitably consequences for the movement of human beings: a growing number of people linked to the internationalization move across borders. There is a substantial migration directly linked to multinational companies. In general one might say that the labour market of the highly skilled has become increasingly international. This kind of migration – which often is temporary – is generally not seen as problematic, although it contributes clearly to growing diversity.

However, these are not the only people who move. A far greater number of people move as an indirect consequence of globalization: the increased reach of communication and transport, the higher density of networks globally and thus the increase of intermediary structures that facilitate migration, have significantly contributed to the growth of immigration of workers and refugees and their family members. Until 1974 their arrival was welcomed and even stimulated by recruitment because of the demand for their labour, but after the restructuring of European economy in the seventies they kept coming unasked for. It is particularly this category of newcomers that is perceived as problematic in the eyes of the societies of settlement.