Abstract
This chapter first briefly outlines the history and structure of immigration to Germany. It then explains the diversity of its cities and of city neighbourhoods. This includes discussion of immigrant concentration, extent and features of spatial segregation and nation origins of the immigrant population. Drawing on our own ‘area explorations’ we present key features of the 50 neighbourhoods investigated in this study: the structure of diversity, its visibility, the character of the public space.
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Notes
- 1.
This concept replaced the sole focus on foreign citizenship and reflects the recognition of permanent immigration and the incorporation of foreign immigrants into the citizenry.
- 2.
This refers to the legal categories of Aussiedler and Spätaussiedler, individuals from former socialist countries deemed of German descent. Explicit reference to ethnic or racial minorities is not common in the German official and public discourse; statistics using such categories are unavailable.
- 3.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, ‘the population group with a migration background consists of all persons who have immigrated into the territory of today’s Federal Republic of Germany after 1949, and of all foreigners born in Germany and all persons born in Germany who have at least one parent who immigrated into the country or was born as a foreigner in Germany. The migration status of a person is determined based on his/her own characteristics regarding immigration, naturalisation and citizenship and the relevant characteristics of his/her parents.’ https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/Population/MigrationIntegration/PersonsMigrationBackground/MigrationBackgroundMethods.html, accessed 12 August 2014.
- 4.
The move of these populations from German lands to regions further east may go back to the eighteenth century. Many of the ‘ethnic German’ immigrants did not speak German. See Klekowski von Koppenfels 2009; Joppke 2005.
- 5.
Official statistics include only immigrants who arrived since 1950. In the 2011 Census only those who arrived since 1956 were included.
- 6.
Figures for all cities with at least 100,000 inhabitants were published based on the 2011 Census, see Statistisches Bundesamt 2013b, Table 6.2b. The lowest share for a West German city is 15.8 per cent, the highest share 48.9 per cent. In the large East German cities, shares are between 5.9 and 7.9 per cent.
- 7.
The ratio of foreigners to German citizens among those with a migration background is 1:0.78 for cities with at least 500,000 inhabitants, 1:1.1 for cities of 100,000 to 500,000 inhabitants, and 1:1.37 for the cities of 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants (Statistisches Bundesamt 2011: 40–41). These differences are mainly due to a larger share of ethnic German Aussiedler in the smaller towns.
- 8.
Of the 16 cities included in the DivCon survey, only Hamburg, Mannheim, and Konstanz have published estimates of national origin groups in their populations. Figures for foreign citizens are available for all cities. Those from Eastern Europe in particular are underrepresented when we rely on statistics for foreign nationals as they include many German citizens who came as Aussiedler. In Hamburg for instance, the group of those of Polish background is estimated to be more than three times larger than the group of Polish citizens.
- 9.
Here and wherever we refer to data for the cities investigated in this study, the data are official data provided by the cities as available in our DivCon dataset.
- 10.
Where cities make figures for the population with a migration background available, they are generally based on the population registration, not on the micro census. Because of different data sources and different information contained in them, the definitions of the category migration background used by individual cities differ from that of the federal statistical office. City data do, for example, not contain comprehensive information on parents’ place of birth, in other words data on second generation immigrants will be incomplete.
- 11.
Estimates of the population with migration background based on the 2011 Census (see Statistisches Bundesamt 2013b, Table 6.2b) partly differ from those published by the cities themselves. Thus for Frankfurt a share of 42.7 per cent was calculated, for Hamburg 27.5 per cent, and for Mannheim 35.7 per cent. Census data are not broken down to the level of districts.
- 12.
For characteristics of our 50 neighbourhoods we generally rely on a data set compiled on the basis of statistics provided by the cities. Data are for 2009 where not indicated otherwise.
- 13.
This is an estimate based on available figures for the surrounding district. The Frankfurt Gallus district as a whole in 2008 had 43 per cent foreigners plus 14 per cent Germans with a migration background. Thus we can assume that in our area of Gallus where foreigners account for 46 per cent of the population the share of those with a migration background is around 60–65 per cent. See also Chap. 2, note 4.
- 14.
See Chap. 2.
- 15.
As regards the number of immigrants, not only foreign citizens, we only know that, in the German cities with more than 500,000 inhabitants, foreign nationals, at the time of the first wave of our survey, accounted for more than half of the immigrant population, while in the smaller cities the majority of the immigrant population were German nationals (Statistisches Bundesamt 2011).
- 16.
Even if the average unemployment ratio of the top 12 neighbourhoods (6.9 per cent) is slightly larger than the average of all 50 areas (6.6 per cent), this difference is statistically not significant.
- 17.
This was the only available measure. It excludes the self-employed and part of the civil service (Beamte).
- 18.
Information on legal status, length of stay and so on is not available.
- 19.
For reasons of data protection, cities do not provide exact numbers for each foreign nationality in small areas. We had to ask for grouped figures.
- 20.
r = 0.74; p = 0.000; n = 50. However, the strong association between statistical and noticeable diversity holds only for share of foreigners. The correlation between the diversity index (measuring the heterogeneity of the foreign population) and noticeable diversity is statistically not significant (r = 0.09; p = 0.520; n = 50).
- 21.
The average perception of the diversity of the neighbourhood by the neighbourhood’s residents strongly correlates with the share of foreigners (r = 0.81; p = 0.000; n = 50) and with our own assessment of noticeable diversity (r = 0.67; p = 0.000; n = 50).
- 22.
‘How do you personally feel about this situation?’
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Schönwälder, K. et al. (2016). Diversity in Germany and Its Urban Neighbourhoods. In: Diversity and Contact. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58603-2_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58603-2_3
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