Interview with Hartmut Häußermann 
Mr. Häußermann, could you please describe the situation of immigrants in Berlin. Where do they mostly come from and how are they spatially distributed in the city?
As you know, Berlin was a politically divided city until 1990, so we have two different situations with respect to migration in the two parts of the city until today. In West-Berlin, after the construction of the wall in 1961, no more commuters could come from East-Berlin to West-Berlin to work in the industries there, and so the so-called "guest-workers" were attracted, mainly from Italy and Turkey. Since that time an immigration flow from Western European countries was going on to West-Berlin, but not one of the commuters or immigrants from West- could go to East-Berlin. In East-Berlin there were also guest-workers, but very few, from Vietnam and Africa. And now, after unification in 1990, there is a growing immigration from Eastern European countries. They mainly aim to East Berliner locations, because in the west there is a bigger shortage of housing. We have no migration of immigrants from West-Berlin to East Berlin, so we still have a divided city regarding the immigrant situation. In West-Berlin you have the immigrants from the western countries, in East-Berlin you have the immigrants from East-European countries. The flow of immigration today is relatively low. Over the last three or four years we've had declining numbers of immigrants and we have had only immigrants from Eastern European countries and Russia. 
As in all big cities immigrants live segregated, also in Berlin. The main district of immigrants is Kreuzberg. Kreuzberg was an area designated for urban renewal in the sixties, many houses were empty at that time, and so immigrants could go into these empty houses. They were supposed to live there for only two or three years, until the houses would be demolished for urban renewal. But then the situation changed, and the houses have been maintained and renewed and modelled, and so in Kreuzberg there has grown a Turkish community. It's a real Turkish community with all infrastructure you need for an immigrant community. Also other western European immigrants came to Kreuzberg and the next districts around Kreuzberg. So we have a sharp segregation in general in Berlin, but it's a growing dissemination of immigrants starting from this centre of immigrants.
Since when is immigration an issue of urban policy, and especially an object of the planning policy in Berlin? 
As soon as a certain concentration, a certain degree of concentration of immigrants arose in certain parts of the city, mainly in the old working class areas, it became a political issue, because these communities of foreigners were a problem for planners and urban politicians, maybe also for some parts of the urban population. 
From the beginning the political aim was to deconcentrate the immigrants and to avoid spatial concentrations, to avoid the emergence of foreign communities in the cities. In the seventies it was a real political issue for urban planning and for urban development. There was the idea of controlling the districts regarding the share of foreign population living in the districts. Though in some districts, especially in Kreuzberg, but also in Wedding in the north, the old working class area, and in some other parts of the city, there were established limits for the immigration of foreign populations. So when you came to Berlin as a foreigner, you got a stamp in your passport that you are not allowed to live in certain districts of Berlin. This control was abolished only in 1989, when Berlin became united, but it was not very successful, because there were a number of exceptions. Family members for example could move where already another member of the family was living. There were certain ways to overcome these limitations by the politicians. 
Until today or still today there are many debates about how immigrants should live, how you can cope with the growing number of foreign people living in Berlin, should we allow or even support urban segregation and concentration in some parts of the city or should the politics try to deconcentrate the foreign population. This is I think everywhere along with the growing number of foreigners a growing issue of urban policy. Because the concentration of foreigners is a strange thing for the domestic population.
But what does "domestic population" mean, in Kreuzberg for instance?
The domestic population is the people with the German passport of German citizenship. And we always make the same observation that also people who were immigrants in the first generation or second generation, regard themselves as domestic population as soon as they have German passports - and they have a good right to do this. They also try to remove from these concentrations when they have achieved a certain social status in the German society. It's just a question of social construction who is domestic, who is foreign, it's not a question of race or of ethnic origin. It's a question of decision. 
Which recommendations would you give for dealing with immigrants? What should urban policies rely on?
The main questions everywhere are questions of labour market and secondly of housing market. The integration in the labour market in the past was a question of full employment. Full day, full employment for the whole population. And this is, as we all know, not possible any more in big cities. And so we have to develop new forms of labour, new forms of earning, new forms of a mix between informal and formal work and so on. But this means that the foreign population, which is usually very successful in this mixing and very innovative in finding new forms of work, should not or must not be controlled as criminals as soon as they do anything which is not in the order with the German laws. We have a foreign population with foreign ideas for Germans, but these foreign ideas or behaviour are seen as criminal.
Prof. Häußermann, thank you very much!

The interview was conducted by Max Welch Guerra and Mareile Walter, technically supported by Tobias Höpner.