berlin
migration
survey
2010-11.
Berlin migration and its political effects on
berlin
immigrant
migration communities
A project entry2010-11.
for Cornell University’s Europe in the World 2013 contest
survey
Image source: http://52suburbs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/the-original-prefabricated-Plattenbauten.jpg
Preface/Hypothesis
• For the first time since the guest worker
program of the 1950s and 60s brought
immigrant laborers to Germany, immigrants in
Berlin today are now forced to move from the
city center—which has historically been a
cheaper area to live in but has now seen
massive re-development—to the lesserdeveloped, cheaper suburbs of former East
Berlin.
Project purpose
• Part 1: Analyzing how internal migration patterns in Berlin
have changed from 2005 to 2010, specifically focusing on
where (i.e., which particular districts) members of Berlin’s
immigrant population have decided to move to.
• Part 2: Additionally, I want to see where non-immigrants
have been moving—which will either support or discredit
my hypothesis that there are rising amounts of nonimmigrants pushing others out of traditionally “immigrant”
districts of Berlin via processes of gentrification.
• This study is limited strictly to the districts of Berlin (see
Figure 1) and information compiled from the Berlin Amt für
Statistik.
Figure 1
Historical context
• A 2005 microcensus survey revealed that, out of 85
million inhabitants in Germany, 15 million of them are
“immigrants.”
• This is partly because due to the high influx of migrant
labor that came to Germany from countries such as
Italy, Turkey, and Greece in the 1960s and 70s.
• Many immigrants that moved specifically to Berlin
resided in Kreuzberg, Mitte and Neukölln, 3 districts
that still have relatively cheaper rent costs than in
other places of the city. (See Figure 2)
berlin
migration
survey 2010-11.
Figure 2
“Urban re-shuffling”
•
•
Things are now changing, however. Many upper-class, native German groups have
recently re-established their boundaries in Berlin (contrary to other major cities
such as Paris and New York) in the form of small “ghettos” of the wealthy that
suddenly appear in the middle of the city, in the form of upscale developments
with pleasant names such as “Prenzlauer Gardens,” “Chestnut Gardens” or
“Choriner Courtyards” (located, according to the urban sociologist Wolfgang
Kaschuba, “at the center of a working and living space for an intellectual elite”).
At the same time this urban “reshuffling” is being done by the German wealthy
elite, Turks began to develop their own community infrastructure in Berlin and
Kreuzberg, especially in the 1990s: community organizations were founded,
mosques were built, and local methods of political participation (i.e., protests and
labor strikes) became a commonplace practice for many of Berlin’s Turkish and
Arabic immigrant spaces. This is how populations were distributed and formed in a
city such as Berlin, which unlike its European neighbor Paris, kept the majority of
its immigrant population concentrated in central districts such as Mitte,
Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Neukölln, and Tempelhof-Schoeneberg (again, see
Figure 2).
Is migration to the suburbs of Berlin strictly
an immigrant phenomenon?
• As seen in Figures 3 and 4, however, it appears that
both immigrants and non-immigrants are moving to
the suburbs—the total net migration of all Berliners in
2010 saw flight from central districts as opposed to
migration towards them—this perhaps indicates that
gentrification and rising population levels are affecting
everyone, not just immigrants per se.
• Net gains in Reinekendorf and Marzahn-Hellersdorf
(both historically industrial and lower-income districts)
indicates that everyone, not just immigrants, is looking
to move to the outskirts of the city that remains the
cheapest.
Figure 3
Figure 4
Which suburbs are growing more rapidly than others in
terms of immigrant net migration gains?
• Wealthier suburban districts in former West Berlin such
as Spandau and Steglitz-Zehlendorf also saw gains in
total migration, though the same cannot be said once
one compares Figure 3 to the immigrant net migration
map in Figure 4; here, one can observe that immigrant
net gains in internal migration have shifted from the
former West to the former East, where rent prices are
much cheaper.
• This falls more in line with the hypothesis presented at
the beginning of this project, which is that while
everyone is moving to the suburbs in Berlin,
immigrants are statistically moving to “poorer” districts
more frequently as opposed to “richer” ones.
berlin
migration what does this mean politically?
survey 2010-11.
Image source: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/berlin-skyline-ii-alexander-voss.jpg
“Slums of the 21st century”
• The urban sociologist Hartmut Häussermann, who once said that
“the slums of the 21st century are threatening to form on Berlin's
outskirts,” authored a study called “Monitoring Social City
Development 2010” for Berlin’s city government. His study
describes these peripheral suburbs in former East Germany as
“areas with a low development index” and a high “concentration of
social problems.” Not much more is said in this report to address
these said “problem districts.”
• If the city planning department in Berlin truly wishes to improve the
economic standing of its city and reduce segregation, the question
that should be posed is whether they are able to keep internal
migration within the city at a pace that ensures immigrants and
Germans are living amongst one another, not in separated
“parallel” societies.
Sources
• “Wanderungen in Land Berlin (Migration in Berlin).”
Berlin Consul for Statistics. Potsdam, 2011. Accessed
from: < http://www.statistik-berlinbrandenburg.de/Publikationen/Stat_Berichte/2012/SB
_A03-02-00_2011j01_BE.xls>.
•
• Wensierski, Peter. “Berlin Fears Rise of New Slums.” In
Der Spiegel. March 2, 2011. Accessed from: <
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/gentrific
ation-s-victims-berlin-fears-rise-of-new-slums-a748532-3.html>.