The integration of immigrants: housing and cities.

Antonio Tosi

A city is a space and also a system of social relationships, activities and resources. Both these dimensions play a part in the urban integration of immigrants and immigration policies may be applied to both. In this paper the accent is placed on the spatial dimension, the dimension which is most closely connected with the urban visibility of immigration and which plays such a large part in conditioning public interest in the question. Nevertheless care will be taken to seek its meaning in the social processes that determine it. The housing problems of immigrants on the other hand provide a good example of the role of urban factors and policies according to the second dimension.

The importance of housing/settlement factors to inclusion or exclusion tends to be on the increase following the increasing role of territorial/local community dimensions of the question which is occurring in Italy also. This is due to two main reasons. One is the natural consequence of the passage to the second stage of immigration. As immigration has stabilised and immigrant families have grown for example, relations with ordinary government institutions and services have intensified, interaction with the social fabric of cities and daily life has developed and the presence of immigrants in the community has taken on forms of normal living together. The other is that the increased importance of these factors is an outcome of the new situation in which policies are constructed: the crisis of the welfare state also contains an attempt to redefine the boundaries of altruism and social citizenship and a conflict is developing around this process in which there is a manifestation of closed attitudes or even explicit refusal to accept and help or hostility towards marginal groups or groups constructed as “foreign”. And this redefinition of boundaries can easily take on territorial forms and the conflicts that accompany it can easily manifest in the local community.

The crisis of the welfare state and the passage to a post-industrial society constitute the basic context conditions for the integration of immigrants. Integration processes reflect and use the urban outcomes of this transition: the proliferation of spaces that characterise post-industrial urban society and on which immigrants «graft themselves»; urban fragmentation, a process that «was not started by immigration, but absorbs it within itself» [Bocco 1998, 10]. Fragmentation also means the crises of urban living together, separation and isolation, even spatial isolation and the tracing of boundaries and conflict: a set of processes that finds a fundamental basis in the ethnic dimension [Marcetti and Solimano 1998; Paba 1998].

(A fundamental principle to follow in studying immigration is to examine the relationship between the changes caused by immigration  and the general processes of change in society, looking for example, at the relationship between the urban settlement of immigrants and the wider dynamics of post-industrial urbanisation. The point is very clear in the debate on ‘immigrant territoriality’. The expression is used to indicate a specific territoriality that manifests in immigration determined to a large extent «outside» the local systems of arrival, a territoriality inherent to the logic of migration itself, the traits of which are outlined in the research literature of other countries: territory as mobility, the transnational scale of many circuits in which movements take place; the constitution of dual practices in space; the dissemination of belonging in a multiplicity of urban places; the creation of identities free from geographical/community ties [Tosi 1998]. As has been pointed out, these new practices do not just concern immigrants, but implement principles that lie at the heart of new urbanisation processes; immigration acts as an analyser of the new territorial processes that  characterise the «new season of the European city» [Tarrius 1992]).

1. Housing: inclusion and exclusion

Housing represents perhaps the most important of urban conditions for the settlement of immigrants and is certainly the most critical. (Housing allows us to illustrate the role played by the welfare system in immigration problems. The relative weakness in Italy - though having a wide variety of local models with local policies of differing effectiveness  - of immigrant integration policies is a result of the insufficiencies of targeted policies, but even more so of the limitations imposed by the general context and by general welfare policies).

Despite the great variety of conditions, which on the other hand reflects the variety of  types of immigration and immigrant, the general picture is that of huge numbers of immigrants suffering housing hardship and exclusion. Many immigrants who are not poor are badly housed and ordinarily poor immigrants are often without housing. Their accommodation tends to be worse or more expensive than that of the native population with the same level of income. Precarious accommodation is not unusual for immigrants with a job and an income.

First of all there are the extreme forms - homelessness in both meanings of the term: without housing and «of no abode» - that hit immigrants hard and it is significant that these forms also affect legal immigrants in work even if it is true that illegality/without documents is an important factor in housing exclusion. The reports of the Ismu-Province of Milan observatory clearly document both the relationship between the quality of housing accommodation and legal presence, stability and work integration and that this relationship is partial. In 1999, 3.8% of «resident» immigrants (a type «interpretable as having achieved a high degree of stability») in Milan and 11.3% in the province of Milan were in precarious accommodation; the figures rise to 11.7% and 33.1% for ‘legal non resident’ immigrants. (To give an idea: the figure for illegal immigrants is 30% both in the city and the province) [AA VV 2000].

Nevertheless the large majority of immigrants are not homeless: most find accommodation on some type of market. The wide resort to this type of answer can be viewed in different ways. On the one hand it shows that many immigrants are capable of solving the problem by themselves and in many cases it reveals stability and is a sign that integration has been achieved. It in any case suggests that normal paths to housing - not welfare assisted answers to the problem - are already a reality for the majority of immigrants. At the same time resort to «autonomous» solutions may mean that the problem is largely undealt with by public policies, that immigrants are left to themselves when faced with the difficulties encountered on housing markets. Many «autonomous» solutions involve precarious accommodation including much classified by the various studies (or defined by the immigrants interviewed) as «rented» or as (proper) «housing», or as «permanent».

In a number of areas a certain increase has been signalled of proper or «autonomous» housing accommodation, and a certain reduction in (explicitly) precarious and welfare assisted accommodation. The trend however still shows a problem situation  and at local levels there are signs that the situation may be worsening. Ismu-Province of Milan statistics reports document the persistence of extensive areas of hardship and also the increase in precarious conditions for groups of immigrants - Asians in particular - who in the past were exposed little to this problem. «This tendency, which appeared in 1998 above all in relation to the arrival of Asians in reception centres for the first time, seems to manifest today in an increase of the no abode». The last report also signals the worsening of housing conditions in towns around the city [AA. VV. 2000].

This data points to problem areas that may be the same for other urban areas of Central and Northern Italy, and which show that a new phase of insertion dynamics has begun. There is above all a certain polarisation in housing accommodation: improvement for numbers of immigrants already settled, but also persistent insecurity for the weaker components and for new arrivals. Secondly there is the wide variety of the insertion paths followed by different ethnic/national groups: these not only contain different models, but also large gaps between the different levels of satisfaction. Finally there is a change in the geographical distribution of immigrants in which housing variables act as both causes and effects. In Milan this change is seen by the different trends in the city and the province. In the Turin area, housing opportunities are an important factor in the geographical redistribution of the immigrant population, which has seen recent growth in some outlying areas and in the smaller local authorities of the metropolitan area [Davico and Mela 1999]

These recent developments are the combined effect of ongoing changes in immigration data and of changes that have occurred in housing markets. As far as immigration is concerned, different factors have contributed to the transformation of housing demand: the stabilisation of substantial proportions of the immigrant population, the growth of number of families (family members coming to join them or the formation of new families), the different composition of the new arrivals which includes new figures often equipped with more modest resources (motivation, education, etc.) than those of the previous phase [Zanfrini 1998].

The settling of families means a housing demand in the sense of genuine housing accommodation rather than hostel and boarding type facilities. The growth of this type of demand is in reality strengthened by all the changes typical of the «second phase» of immigration: all the processes of stabilisation move in this direction as do the strivings of individuals, the attempts at improvement that occur even in the absence of plans to settle. In the great majority of cases this demand means rented demand and in the majority of cases for economic or very economic housing.

The increased demand for rented housing runs up against the chronically restricted supply, and against the relative deterioration that has occurred in the meantime in the terms of the rent market, partly as a result of the liberalisation of the market set in motion in the 1990’s. While the gap between supply and demand for public sector housing persists, opportunities offered by the private (not submerged) market have decreased on the whole, the low-income rent market has become more rigid and in many areas the supply accessible by medium to low income groups has all but disappeared not to mention the “marginal” segments of supply. This supply bottleneck - in addition to making it more difficult to reproduce policies and innovative formulas employed in previous years - means that from now on it is more difficult to follow «housing careers», of  the type followed by many immigrants in the past. There could also be a further deterioration in the rent and «quasi-rent» markets and further submersion. This situation would greatly hinder the integration of immigrants and their progress. For the weakest, the choice is between recourse to welfare assistance and accommodation in the «submerged» sector which risks accelerating the drift into emargination, but the consequences could also be serious for immigrants with resources [Tosi 2000].

The demand trends also show a growing complexity, a growing variety of housing demands that is modifying the assumptions on which public policies must be constructed. For example the growth in the family component makes the polarisation between stable and  intermittent presences or those with short or medium term plans a central factor; the appearance of new problem figures with uncertain housing traits poses completely new problems which are not easily inserted in the systems employed to date.

2. Housing exclusion and policies

What occurs in extreme situations of genuine housing exclusion helps to understand the paths to inclusion/exclusion and the role of policies. The case histories of immigrants suffering homelessness and marginalisation are quite different from those of the native population, and housing exclusion plays an important role. While for Italians today paths that begin with the loss of a home are not in the majority, for immigrants - illegal immigrants in particular - the paths to marginalisation often start with situations of housing exclusion. Continued lack of housing can accelerate the drift into social exclusion and can result in marginalisation.

On the other hand, for immigrants there is a higher probability of housing exclusion occurring without strong elements of marginalisation and even more frequently without those traits of shattered personalities that characterise the no abode: they are simply poor people without housing. For them the lack of housing is nothing more than a phase in the path to settle in society. Put in other words, being homeless at a given moment may mean different things for immigrants: it may be a phase of initial precariousness common to many immigration stories, or it may be the outcome of a process of marginalsation, exclusion that has become chronic, which indicates the failure of a migration plan [Carchedi e al, 1999].

On the other hand the incidence of cases of social and housing marginalisation is high, higher than would be expected on the bases of the individual «resources» of the immigrants. According to recent estimates given by the Ministry of Social Affairs,  foreigners account for 35% of the 70-80 thousand no abode who have contacted governmental and voluntary services or associations; to these must be added another 30-40 thousand «invisible» no abode, who have not contacted services or associations: it is thought that at least 60% of these  are foreigners.

Taken as a whole immigrants are not ‘poor’, and to an even lesser extent can they be classified as in ‘extreme poverty’, if these terms are intended as meaning  the loss/absence of ties and personal resources that defines cases of chronic emargination. Generally speaking there is both a high risk present in the immigration experience, consisting of precariousness (work, housing, etc.) which normally characterises new arrivals and at the same time a system of resources, individual qualities, motivations and cultural resources that assist integration and which in any case put immigrants at little risk of marginalisation. Certainly differences exist according to the cultural profiles, the settlement context, etc. Nevertheless it can be said that in Italy too historically the passage from initial precariousness to stable settlement has been the predominant experience.

External circumstances, including public policies play an important role in determining the paths taken and housing polices have a great effect, given the importance of housing variables in determining the progress of individual cases. The responsibility of housing policies on the other hand is directly indicated by the extent of housing  hardship and exclusion among immigrants, and by the fact that these problems also affect legal immigrants in work.

Naturally the level of personal resources also counts: from this viewpoint the appearance of new figures equipped with more modest resources (motivational, educational, etc.) [Zanfrini 1998] may constitute a risk, but it is significant that housing precariousness hits immigrants harder in Italy than in other countries.
 
The weakness of general social housing policies, on different scales, has constituted the main reason for the housing problems of immigrants. Two areas have been particularly critical: the extremely limited supply of affordable rented accommodation and the insufficient attention to the processes in which housing poverty intertwines with risks or marginalisation and social exclusion. Most of immigrant hardship is concentrated in these two problem areas. At national, regional and local authority levels it has been for the whole of the 1990’s the interaction between  this type of limitation and the limitations of specifically immigration targeted policies that has weakened the effectiveness of public policy integration action. In the absence of adequate context conditions, the demands for emergency or traditional welfare intervention have been particularly strong. (This has not, however, prevented the construction of positive public policies and considerable innovation in the methods of intervention in many areas).

Essential innovation should therefore move in two directions: the development of a (social) rent market and the introduction of «more social» policies - more targeted and more closely co-ordinated with policies designed to fight poverty. (The latter should refer to two different types of recipient: family nuclei that have only economic difficulties and whose only problem is to be sufficiently financially solvent to get housing and those which having accumulated various handicaps require social work type assistance to a lesser or greater extent). As concerns the second type of problem, so far nothing comparable to those «very social» policies, which have for years constituted a very important field of housing policies in other countries, has been introduced in Italy.

(This is an argument against the «specialist» emergency type intervention of the 1990’s, separate from mainstream social welfare policies. It is not however an argument against the adoption of specific measures. The elements of suffering signalled suggest how ambiguous the formula is - today over popular - that immigration problems can be solved with general, mainstream, policies. It is a formula that risks assuming a negative attitude to any policy specifically targeted at immigrants. The specificities of the problem and the additional difficulties that immigrants encounter justify specific/adapted policies and also a special effort even institutionally explicit aimed at this population).

The directions of innovation are  now fairly evident. They are seen quite clearly in much of the local action developed by local government authorities and associations in the 1990’s to meet the needs produced by immigration trying to overcome the limitations of the legislative and policy frame. (The new immigration law has adopted many of the proposals that came out of these experiences). The problem now is the role of the context conditions: on the one hand the scarcity, at the various levels, of innovation to effectively increase the welfare capacity of housing policies [see Tosi 2000] and on the other the contraction of the space for good practices as a consequence of the growing gap between objectives of integration and objectives of control. 

If we look at the preceding observations as a whole, the  housing problem posed by immigration appears today even more serious than in the past, serious enough to require substantial efforts to produce innovative policies. It is not just a case of the historical weakness of the policies or their quantitative inadequacy. There is also uncertainty over current developments, difficulty in constructing positive policies at a time when the pressures in favour of repressive measures and intervention aimed at control rather than integration are growing. Furthermore, the development above mentioned has accelerated the obsolescence of the “theoretical” frameworks on which the policies - both immigration and general housing policies - were founded.

The wider variety and increased complexity of the demand and the appearance of new figures changes the assumptions on which to construct policies. In these conditions, the inadequacy and dangerousness of the abstraction «immigrant» becomes even more evident, and the increased complexity of the demand obliges more radical criticism of many practices and frameworks and of the assumptions on which the previous policies were based such as the recurring identification of immigrants as «poor» which lay at the basis of the emergency policies. Even the traditional approach of integration by phases (further) loses its value. The construction of policies has no choice but to start from the consideration of innumerable differences in situations and demands, different origins, models, plans and migratory itineraries.

These considerations show more critical points of general social housing policies.

1. The process character of the determinants of marginalisation also provides a methodological criterion for policy-making: the importance of examining the paths in which hardship occurs. Where arguments and policies proceed by reference to figures suffering hardship or to static groups of recipients, the effectiveness of the policies, nevertheless, depends on the capacity to act in relationship to the paths followed by individuals: what the house «does», how it enters into the path towards inclusion or exclusion at that specific moment - how it relates to different strategies, in which phases of the overall path and how it interacts with other hardships, other handicaps, etc.. The factors that determine inclusion or exclusion are not “given” - are not “data” - but constitute processes. Attention must therefore be placed on the conditions that determine the development of individual paths, the chances that immigrants meet in their path and are able to combine with their resources and their plans. The chances include public policies.

(In this light the homelessness of illegal immigrants must also be understood well. Insisting on the relationship between having documents and problems of security, between being legally present and criminality, or even between legal presence and non integration does not help our understanding. Being without documents (illegal) is a risk factor, it is not a condition, a fact that acts ‘naturally’ to lead into deviance or to determine the failure of an insertion path. Even cases of illegal immigrants may be free from social marginalisation and even more so from deviancy. After all, the real story of immigration consists to a large extent of success stories that started as illegal immigrants).

2. More systematic work must be done on the distinction, still not established in innovative culture, between ‘normal’ social demand and poor, marginal demand. There is a large gap between the innovative capacity that government institutions and associations show in the two areas. Innovation today is largely aimed at intermediate demand or at the medium-low income groups, which are situations more likely to be compatible with our institutional frame and with the cultural-ideological set up in which housing policies are produced: an ideology that extends the concept of «social» so that it covers and confuses different problems that cannot be treated in the same way). And there is considerable uncertainty in attempts at innovation in the area of emargination, an uncertainty that has  led almost to the automatic re-proposal of old recipes reminiscent of old fashioned social assistance methods, of the historical incapacity to plan solutions for the poor which are actually housing solutions, or that reveal the cultural difficulty of conceiving a genuine housing space when the need is not for conventional housing [Tosi 2000].

The weakness of our housing policies from a welfare viewpoint is serious above all because policies targeted at poverty or the risk of social exclusion are inadequate. There is also a question mark over the preventative capacity of a system that on the one hand interprets «social welfare» too broadly, not selectively, and on the other is too centred on crisis situations, situations of clear and complete marginalisation. Finally, on a policy level, there is both a need for ‘more social’ policies and also a need for a more intelligent variety and range of social housing supply.

3. There is even more reason, after the increased complexity of the demand that has occurred in recent years, for the range of the demand to be taken seriously and made subjected to study. From this viewpoint the recurring classifications are not very reliable and the classification tables of the types of supply are inadequate.

The problem is not so much one of classification as of the relationship between the problems and the type of supply, as it is shown very clearly by the immigration experience. The policies of the 1990’s worked with a particular table of supply hypotheses and types: prima accoglienza («first welcome» hostels), seconda accoglienza («second welcome» centres: transition hostels), emergency intervention, «welfare accommodation», ERP (public sector social housing) and so on. It is now necessary to critically rethink this table, not just to redefine the types of supply required by the new demand situation, but also because this approach has been characterised by much ambiguity. For immigrants, the idea of standard paths towards normal housing (stages through which immigrants must pass in order to satisfy their housing needs adequately) must be abandoned or at least made more relative, and a priori identification of functions with types must be rejected.

The consequences should be particularly important for the area of temporary accommodation. The temporary character of the accommodation may apply to at least three types of needs corresponding to very different types of accommodation from the viewpoint of type and support services: transition accommodation (for the passage from temporary to permanent accommodation); temporary accommodation for very mobile populations with short to medium term plans; accommodation for persons or family nuclei who find themselves in temporary housing difficulty. None of these functions imposes the demand for particular types of housing. The welfare board and lodging (“pensionato sociale”) is just one of the  types possible. Ordinary accommodation is equally probable and often more appropriate  and from the viewpoint of the title could give rise to temporary forms of rented housing.

Similar problems have occurred with the «welcome/reception centres» this notion fluctuates between and at times confuses different types of need and supply: «first welcome» - hostels (temporary accommodation of new arrivals); genuine emergency accommodation (for urgent and unforeseeable need of accommodation); temporary accommodation for persons who suddenly find themselves in particular situations of housing difficulty; insertion accommodation (for marginalised persons and for whom the provision of accommodation forms the basis for a  social re-integration plan); temporary accommodation for persons present in the community for only a short period.

4. That of self-help housing was a fundamental theme of the renewal in housing culture that started to manifest during the 1970’s, a theme which nevertheless has remained on the margins of social housing in recent years. It is urgent to re-propose it as a central issue. Naturally it is a question of not reducing the issue to its material constructive aspects, but of underlining the role that involvement and control on the part of inhabitants can play with regard to problems of access and the sociality of the intervention. In this sense, self-help housing is an essential aspect of the construction of appropriate policies and action intended as policies that take account of the specificity of different housing needs, not welfare assistance policies but policies that recognise and use the resources of the inhabitants, etc..

3. Cities: integration and the multi-cultural 

Cities are devices for integration: systems of social relations and spaces that can facilitate or hinder integration. To construct an urban discourse on immigration is in one sense to develop this characteristic of cities. In another sense, the undertaking requires keeping at a distance from the notion of ‘integration’, or at least from the ambiguities involved in the common use of the word, from its pervasiveness in discourse on immigration policies.

The term varies in use from a generic use, indicating any positive relationship between immigrants and their host society, to very specific meanings linked to normative models with varying degrees of proximity to traditional assimilationist models. Despite it often being proposed as an alternative to assimilation, what lies behind its popularity is an ideological value that prizes the strong meanings of the notion which take it inevitably close to assimilationist points of view - at least with regard to the meaning attributed to the process of integration: a sequence of phases located along a continuum by which immigrants lose the cultural traits of their society of origin to acquire those of their new society, the traits of modern and urban civilisation [Hily 1994].

Indistinct use of the term hides the problems of the notion and hinders understanding of the processes by which integration occurs and recognition of the historical circumstances in which it occurs today. The concept of social integration is often based on the assumption that the host society possesses a static and clearly defined set of social structures and values and that the process of integration is a one way process. The truth is that «in many cases, immigrants have an impact on the social structures and cultures of the host societies, that are themselves engaged in a process of redefinition of their fundamental values, largely independent of the immigrant presence, as a result of the pressures of the modern world» [McAndrew 1997, 54].

Failure to recognise the process character of integration results in a series of interpretative shortcomings, which make it quite clear how the analytical implications are intertwined with the normative assumptions. First of all the time and cross-generation factors of the process are not recognised: integration «is often a long-term process [...] our studies will need to focus more on the secondgeneration rather than on the immigrant population itself» (ibidem). Furthermore, and consistent with the assimilationist perspective, integration theories have little perception of the variety of individual case histories and plans, and of the variety of ways of living together. This weakness is  aggravated because immigrant groups too are seen by integration theories (or at least by the functionalist versions) as stable entities that possess stable and comparable characteristics. Finally in the strong meanings of the notion, integration undervalues community elements in immigration processes - it focuses more on individuals than  on migrants as members of an ethnic group - thus proclaiming its relationship to a normative model based on the idea of individual assimilation. 

These observations can be transferred directly to the level of urban analysis and policies. From an interpretative viewpoint, the immigrants-city relationship cannot be reduced to integration. As the criticisms made above suggest, the concept risks overlooking fundamental aspects of the processes by which immigrants relate to the city: the variety of different paths, the role of community processes, the transactional nature of the relationships, etc. Above all, the city as integration is a ‘poor’ model of urbanity, which assumes the ‘closed’ character of urban societies as its point of reference. «True integration occurs when society is closed, when organisations progressively take responsibility for people coming in» [Raymond 1988].
 
To speak of immigrants, this notion needs to be contrasted by another notion of urbanity, with an illustrious past in the history of urban studies: the city as a «set of practices connected with the art of using material devices available in cities, of occupying spaces», and «a set of rules that settle conflicts over the use of these devices». This set constitutes «the mental and material means for living together, the devices necessary for a permanent living together of individuals more or less organised in groups and social classes in a circumscribed territory that it is convenient to use collectively and according to common rules». The city then has no integrating function: no urban culture exists according to this notion. «By regulating the coexistence of different overlapping cultures, urbanity characterises citizens not by their cultural homogeneity but by competence on how to exist in a city, marked by an aptitude for intense exchange of presences and practices». Urbanity would be «a sort of habitus, the acquisition of which would make people suitable for living a multi-cultural coexistence» [ibidem]. 

Inevitably then, correct construction of the problem requires distancing oneself from the notion of integration, or at least that sort of integration extremism - integration for everyone, now - that characterises public discourse. 

‘Multiculturalism’ is a construct that follows that of integration historically, and opposes it as a model of analysis and also, perhaps, as a normative model. This notion guides thought today on the settlement of immigrants, even when it is viewed negatively. On the other hand, the notion appears more powerful than that of integration even from the viewpoint of analysis.

The opposition between the two viewpoints is clear if the typical characteristics of a positive view of multiculturalism are considered: respect for private differences; recognition of identity problems; the need to apply principles of equality, fairness, and equal treatment in relations between immigrants and old inhabitants. The key element in the new construct is a viewpoint that is symmetrically opposite to the assimilationist viewpoint and that has very great interpretative importance: the idea that there is a transactional quality in relations between new arrivals and old residents, a mutual adaptation [Cohen 1997].

The idea of multiculturalism has important urban and territorial implications. The critical element in changing to a multicultural paradigm is the ‘recognition’ if the immigrant presence. A whole series of qualifications have been proposed around this which establish just as many principles for urban immigration policies: the idea that differences must be able to express themselves; the accent on immigration as a resource which means valuing the resources of immigrants, involving them in finding solutions that concern them, and valuing the presence of immigrants as a resource for the city. Translated into spatial/geographical terms these principles produce the opinion that the visibility of immigrants is a necessary basis on which to construct effective policies [Tosi 1993].

Multiculturalism is not just a project: the idea grasps the real characters of the transformations in progress following or coinciding with migration phenomena. The multicultural hypothesis is also a theory of the city, an interpretation of how it is restructuring with immigration and of the new spatial and social fabric that is thus emerging. The idea is that our cities are reconfiguring in such a way that the multicultural syncretism is becoming a powerful factor in the production of new social and cultural forms. We have a wide range of terms to designate these new phenomena: hybrid culture, syncretism, cultures of the diaspora, creolisation etc. What is common to these terms is that they place the accent on the creative and propulsive nature of these new processes and on the final disappearance of the previous mono-culture.

Multiculturalism is not the simultaneous existence of immigrant and local cultures. The heuristic capacity of the notion, as far as the quality of new relations between indigenous and foreign populations is concerned lies in the interaction that is seen between the cultural dynamics brought by immigration and the cultural restructuring underway in the countries of arrival: «the social fields that new arrivals were once asked to identify with are themselves undergoing change» [Cohen 1997, 11]. Referring to the case of Stockholm, Ulf Hannerz [1996] described this process as a «double creolisation». On the one hand there is the creolisation of Swedish national culture that is seen particularly in the interaction between Stockholm and world metropolises. On the other hand, there is the creolisation of the immigrants as they adjust to Swedish social institutions, culture and language. As the indigenees of Stockholm reach out to embrace international experiences they become aware of the multicultural possibilities in their midst; while both  long-standing residents of Stockolm and recent arrivals are responding to cultural and social demands, images and information at a global level.

The notion of multiculturalism is one of the vaguest and most abused in the field of immigration. The rhetoric of multiculturalism - compatible with attitudes of rejection (‘differentialist racism’, etc.) - risks a failure to understand the conditions of functioning. As regards urban conditions of multiculturalism, the multicultural option leaves fundamental and critical aspects unsolved. The idea, for example, says nothing about forms that the co-existence of different cultures or ethnic minorities might take: cosmopolitan cities? juxtaposition of small countries... ? Finally the vagueness of the notion allows categories contradictory to the construction of multiculturalism itself to survive in use. These categories must be examined if only in terms of examples.

4. Categories and policies

In all countries, the debate on urban space and immigration has been dominated by the topic of residential concentration/segregation. The label covers a range of phenomena felt to be problematic: a large number of immigrants in a certain area; a high percentage compared to the total number of inhabitants; specific forms of settlement such as ethnic district; the presence of high percentages of immigrants in certain problem districts, etc.

It is important to challenge the applicability of the subject as a major category for the analysis of the urban settlement of immigrants. As its very domination - which exceeds the objective dimensions of the problem by far - indicates, around concentration/segregation an ideologically very potent system has been constructed, which has large distorting effects on the communication and construction of policies. From this point of view, the objective facts are less interesting than the pervasiveness of the topic itself and than the forms of designation of the concentration/segregation phenomena in the discourse. Concentration and segregation are first of all discourse categories that construct the concentration/segregation subject in the policy and inter-ethnic conflict game. This is indicated on the other hand by the irreducible ambiguity of the notions of concentration and segregation in the discourse: the uncontrolled use (the application to absolutely incomparable types and size scales); and the continuous sliding from a descriptive use (concentration and segregation to indicate the structured character, the uneven geographical distribution of a phenomenon) to an interpretative and evaluative/normative use.

The interest in this topic is based on a dual assumption. On the one hand a sort of natural concentration is assumed as if - instead of being one of the settlement models, and the outcome of specific conditions and constraints given by the contexts in which the settlement occurs - it were the natural response to typical problems of  immigration (e.g. spatial proximity as a natural solution to the demand for supportive relations, etc.). At the same time it is assumed - even if it is usually admitted that concentration may favour adaptation and integration (e.g. it may provide support for the initial integration of new arrivals in their ethnic communities before they become integrated in society as a whole) - that the concentration normally brings risks, as is shown by the common associations between the idea of concentration and those of segregation and ghettos, etc. - terms with connotations that «invite us to pass from the analytical register to the ethical register» [Vieillard-Baron 1995]. Concentration is supposed to hinder integration or would indicate segregation; it is supposed to produce itself pathologies and would (inevitably) arouse negative reactions from and conflict with the local population.

Certainly situations differ according to regional contexts, settlement circumstances, and the different models found with different components of immigration, but on the whole the settlement of foreign immigrants in Italy shows little sign of concentration models; and for that little concentration that occurs, none of the negative consequences attributed to concentration seem necessary or automatic. In some cases positive effects of concentration both for the immigrant population and the host society have been documented [Lanzani 1998].

Naturally this does not mean that settlement is geographically undifferentiated, that areas cannot be identified with a greater presence of immigrants and even that there are no areas marked by the immigrant presence. Nevertheless, these are small geographical differences when compared to the major cities of other countries. Furthermore, and most importantly, the presences do not usually take on the forms talked of in the debate on concentration. Even where the presence is more conspicuous, it is always a co-existence where immigrants account for completely minority presences. There are no ‘ethnic districts’, even if residential proximity of persons from the same country is quite common. The areas with higher quotas of immigration do not usually take on those forms that the debate associates with the risk of segregation (ghettos, enclaves). Finally there are not normally any particular concentrations of immigrants in districts classified as «districts in crisis».

This does not at all mean that concentration phenomena may not increase in the future, nor that on this basis spatially organised segregation processes are not already underway. Increases in concentration phenomena have been signalled in various cities. What this might mean for the future, however, will depend to a large extent on the policies and the ability to govern tensions that might arise positively and on the level of rationality that is conveyed to the social construction of the ‘immigration problem’.

The scarce concentration of immigrant settlement within Italian cities can be easily linked with a number of traits typical of the Italian situation: a housing market that is less segregated than in other countries; there has been no ethnic management of social housing in Italy; there is still a social mix to be found in the urban fabric of Italian cities; geographical concentrations of poverty are rare, etc. Nevertheless even in other countries where instances of concentration are much more conspicuous, objections have been raised over both the real entity of concentration phenomena and the segregating or confining consequences. Even elsewhere, it has been signalled that the figures most characteristic of the concentration discourse are in fact rare or absent from the realities [Wacquant 1992].  

The undoubted exaggeration in emphasising the negative aspects of concentration processes along with the excessive attention that is paid to the phenomenon, lead one to dwell on the ideological character of the subject. An ideological system that moves on two levels: rejection of concentration due to the risks it involves and the celebration of its virtues arguing that there is a supposed tendency for immigrants to group together.

Seen from within the migratory experience, the concentration may in effect be a convenient situation or a rational strategy. For newcomers an ethnic/national environment may protect them not only from inhospitality, from disorientation and the hostility of local populations, but also from the seductive force of the host society [La Cecla 1997]. Nevertheless one cannot generalise in this direction either. There is not a single settlement model of immigration, not even if it is intended as an immigrant model, evaluated on the basis of the convenience for immigrants.

As regards the ‘natural’ tendency of immigrants to group together, in the case of Italy it is clear that what little concentration there is, is to a large extent induced either directly in the sense that it is the direct effect of policies or indirectly  in the sense that it reflects location factors, such as housing, that are the subject of policies. From this viewpoint the ethnic concentration of immigrants may express constraints, reflecting the difficulties that immigrants encounter in their host societies.

Confirmation of the ideological functioning of the subject can be seen in that most of  the anti-concentration arguments come from external worries that concern the context rather than the immigrants or that meet the demands of the local population - legitimating themselves by their communicative function rather than by any empirical evidence. In its ideological functioning the discourse on the ghetto indicates what not to do: «the risk of ghettos is paraded up and down  to reject any new «social» settlement within the confines of the municipality. Housing is refused to the poorest categories of the population in the name of the law and of living well» [Vieillard-Baron 1995]. On the other hand the criticism of the ghetto associates different and incomparable situations. «The term is used as a jemmy for forcing different locks: it is used to condemn the grotesque suburban dormitories in which groups of new immigrant arrivals are confined and also to condemn any «assembly» of persons coming from the same country» [La Cecla 1997]. There is no distinction between ghetto and ethnic community. It comprises not just residential concentrations in the rejection but any aggregations of immigrants.

One possible meaning of the rejection of immigrant concentrations is the undervaluation of their presence, a negative representation which assigns to policies the main aim to defend against the risk of immigration. Alternatively, this rejection translates into particular integration models of the assimilationist type based on the idea of individual settlement. In the former case the rejection ends up as a resource used to construct conflict connected with immigration, revealing a main sense of the entire ideology: concentration is constructed in/for conflict. In both cases the outcome may be the idea of eliminating visible traces of immigration from the urban fabric. 

Visibility has been a fundamental issue in the construction of the discourse and urban policies on immigration, as the discourse system  on concentration itself shows. The hostility towards concentrations or gatherings underlies a practical attitude that has influenced urban policies enormously: a horror of the visibility of immigrant settlement. Attempts to eliminate or hide the signs of immigrant presence have been a constant feature of urban immigration policies.

Conventional arguments on concentration contain various risks. The first is the lack of discussion of the social processes that produce the problems of immigration. The insistence on concentration hides the underlying processes. The focus on the physical dimension often reveals a belief in physical-environment determinism and consequently the attribution of a causal role to concentration as such and a vision of segregation, «ghettoisation» and inter-ethnic conflicts as a consequence of ‘numbers’  or of the physical dimension of spatial processes [Alpheys 1993]. While residential concentration is naturally a “problem” where it is an expression of difficulties with access to housing, discrimination on housing markets, urban distress and so on. These are the dimensions that settlement policies should deal with to be effective. Seen in term of social processes, the issue of concentration becomes first of all the factor that orders the spatial distribution of immigrants. On an urban scale, as we have seen,  a determining role is played by housing factors. The districts in which immigrants are most likely to live are those which offer housing at (very) economic rents.

Secondly the conventional accent on concentration/segregation risks failing to recognise the importance of segregation and exclusion processes that have no substantial or evident spatial dimensions, e.g. the segregation of social networks, or of processes in which spatial dimensions are important, but for which the base is not residential, for example processes connected with the use and appropriation of public spaces.

On the whole in Italy, the neighbourhood and residential settlement/location do not seem as important in constituting the basis around which the problems of immigration and coexistence play as do non spatial processes of segregation (isolation, separation of immigrant social networks, etc.) and - as far as space is concerned - presence in public places. It is above all through the use of public urban places that the presence of immigrants makes its impression on a city. On the one hand it is a presence in/of business places, restaurants, meeting places and so on, and on the other hand, in some way like a mirror image and complementary to their scarce residential visibility is the intensive, specific and highly visible use of public places in cities - squares, parks, streets - as meeting places, places for exchanging information, for business and so on.

It is possible that the ways that immigrants settle in cities in Italy correlate with the inclusion strategies that are prevalent in the policies and that reflect the most diffuse models of interaction between natives and immigrants in the country. Certainly there is a considerable variety of local policies and competition between different strategies and conceptions - some more oriented toward the integration of foreign populations, others toward control or welfare assistance, but a predominance, above all in central and northern cities, can be identified of strategies that Vitttorio Cotesta [1999] defines as ‘subordinate inclusion’, «a mixed strategy based on the principle of moral indifference and pragmatic opportunism. Immigrants are seen as a resource, an opportunity to be grasped. Their status as citizens is not important... It is an ambiguous strategy: those that pursue it are in favour of including immigrants in the economic system and are indifferent to or against their cultural and political integration». The collective attitude that lies behind these policies can be summarised in the phrase «wanted but not welcome» (Zolberg cit. by Ambrosini) which characterises the viewpoint of much of the population in the central and northern areas of the country and which constitutes a «contradiction between the profitability of their presence as economic actors and the undesirability of their social presence» [Ambrosini 1997].

All this also manifests in ‘inter-ethnic conflicts’ (in reality: conflicts between groups of immigrants and groups of native inhabitants). One probable consequence of the importance in Italy of subordinate inclusion strategies is the limited nature of the conflict [Cotesta 1999] and the predominance of diffuse forms of conflict compared to that of actual residential cohabitation or at the neighbourhood level.

The point brings one to the different dynamics and the different bases that exist with tensions and conflicts located on different scales. Urban dynamics are different and  those mechanisms of immigrant visibility in urban spaces, commonly evoked  in relation to inter-ethnic coexistence, come into play differently. The point was made quite clearly by Michel Wieviorka [1991] talking about ‘popular racism’. «The tensions that multi-ethnic or multicultural  coexistence feed are not of the same order as fear of invasion and the feeling of insecurity, even if they do mutually reinforce each other». «The projection of the feeling of going under and of abandonment by the working classes onto immigration is a mechanism that has no need of a concrete presence of the other in order to function. It is even more powerful when constructed at a certain distance from the other, when the other is seen as a threat that is advancing, rather than perceived as an integral part of actual experience». The urban mechanisms it feeds on are not related to residential proximity. If anything (and that is the point) it is visibility in public places that it feeds on, relations at a distance that allow the signs of immigrant presence to be relocated in prejudice. 

In a context of diffuse conflict, inter-ethnic conflict is easily interconnected with causes that cannot be brought down to competition for scarce resources. They include both the variety of the motives  that lie beneath the hostility of local populations (questions of status and mobility, the fear of seeing the quality of local life compromised, problems of identity, etc.) and also the growing sense of insecurity and widespread social alarm that exists  in urban contexts. The diffusive character makes visible the political meaning of the conflict  and its position in a political arena that is much wider than the local context.

One last note on the role of urban policies in immigration processes. Urban policies are properly speaking also local social policies: local housing, welfare and education policies etc. These policies produce resources and opportunities on which inclusion in and exclusion from the city depend. They also act on proximity systems that provide opportunities and deal with relations of coexistence and so on. It is in this policy area that we find the most interesting experiences and the main innovations that have been implemented in the field of integration policies in Italy. 

Little attention, however, has been given in Italy to immigration in terms of  “urban” (planning) policies. The most important elements in this area are the implicit, not intentional, consequences of general policies and it is easier to point to the negative implications of these policies and how they have acted to hinder rather than to support or facilitate the insertion of immigrants.
Specific policies for immigrants have suffered from the emergency philosophy that has oriented much local action and this includes territorial aspects. Furthermore, and above all in recent years, they have had to put up with the restrictions induced by growing worries over controlling immigration, that has resulted - under the pressure of «law and order» visions and security ideologies - basically in control of the territory (exasperating on the other hand  a philosophy that was implicit in the emergency welfare assistance approach). Even if the variety of local policies must be acknowledged, specific positive urban policies to assist integration have been quite rare, and there is no lack of models to import from other countries: social development policies at the neighbourhood level, policies that plan settlement relations, policies to assist with settlement practices, policies for positive management of conflict, etc. 

As far as the negative implications of general policies are concerned, we have first of all the penalising role that may be played by policies such those for urban renewal or regeneration [La Cecla 1998, Tosi 1998]. Then there is a management of space in which the traditional limits - the traditional modules of urban planning, its obsession with regulation, etc. - converge with those induced by new crisis tendencies and the new political and ideological situation: the growth of tensions around immigration and also the growth of the «immigration alarm» and its political use, risk strengthening the arguments of policies that are negative towards immigration. Urban policies and local immigration policies risk seeing a further expansion of the space for direct control of the territory where immigrants are physically moved out of a given place. Already in many cities today evictions constitute the only visible public policy.

Policies based on an emergency logic and aimed at mere control have been repeatedly indicated as important factors in causing marginalisation among immigrants («the widespread slum is the result of emergency treatment of the immigration problem, of a genuine fight over the use of urban space based on a strategy of inhibition, prohibition and containment», Paba 1998). These policies are also a waste of immigration as a resource, which also means as an urban resource: it produces urbanity, reconstitutes the primary dimensions of urban life, re-proposes forgotten uses of the city and proposes new uses. It is also an urban planning resource: it induces processes for urban re-use and renewal and can contribute to the revitalisation of city centres, etc. [Lanzani 1998].

Finally, the growing lack of balance between control and integration policies threatens the urban insertion of immigrants not just directly but also because it strengthens conditions unfavourable to the construction of settlement policies and feeds a vicious circle between bad policies and reinforcement of the immigrant alarm. And it also reinforces the concept - increasingly more popular among policy constructors - that assumes an ontological distinction between immigrants with documents and those without, clandestine immigrants, and it links lack of documents with deviance and dis-insertion.

The criticism of the ideologies regarding the territoriality of immigration confirms - if still necessary - not only the scarce effectiveness from the viewpoint of control, but also the perverse effects that may derive from territorial control/repression policies in terms of immigrant integration and social cohesion. They are measures that can directly prevent the settlement progress of individuals, and damage the attempts of the more fragile components in particular, but they are also measures which legitimate - as we have seen - ideological schemes that work against the arguments for the integration of immigrants.

This requires attention to the developments of the cultural situation, of the public defini0tions of the problem. In July, on the sidelines of a conference on migration held in Rome by the Agency for the Jubilee, a curious re-proposal of the housing problem for immigrants - which tells us the situation in which the question is considered - was put forward by the president of Ance: «Solidarity means giving a house to anybody who comes to work in our country (...) The question of housing must be faced thinking of a multi-ethnic city where different ethnic groups maintain their own cultural identities, planning everything by means of  new social housing».

The proposal is easily inserted into a sort of re-legitimation of immigration, which ran through the  speeches at that convention: immigration is inevitable and we need it. «More immigrants are needed in Italy even triple the number» (Nicola Mancino). The quotas allowed to enter must be increased because: «our country needs labour, new vital energies, because it is ageing rapidly» (Enzo Bianco). Recognitions punctually accompanied by an accent on the need to guarantee «all the conditions of legality», to not overlook problems of the «safety of citizens» (Antonio Fazio). «Clandestine immigration must be opposed with force» (Enzo Bianco).

The risk is that of reinforcing the tendency already underway: the equation no documents/clandestine equals deviance and criminality, an equation that does not help us to understand, but which facilitates consensus on some improbable criteria of control, that seem to relate to the symbolic character of the policies rather than to their actual effectiveness in terms of control. One is the idea of distinguishing - as if it were possible in the same way you look in the telephone directory, defined a priori - between suitable and unsuitable immigrants. «The proposal (of giving a house) is acceptable provided it is addressed to immigrants who come to Italy to work and not to commit crimes»  (Roberto Maroni). It is necessary to distinguish «between those who come seeking a better life and who are willing to accept the rules and laws of the country in which they are initially only a guest and those who come with dishonest intentions» (Antonio Fazio). It is the same with the idea that the numbers of immigrants must be determined by our «’welcoming’ capacity», as if this capacity was a given quantity and as if there were no possible contradiction between capacity to welcome and the demand for labour. If our capacity to «welcome» or absorb immigrants were measured on housing, this would mean that at least a third of those present, including large part of those that meet the mythical demand for labour in the North East would not be here. In actual fact no mention was made in that debate of why there had been no new housing before then and why, despite the construction of houses for years, there is so much unsatisfied demand from Italians and immigrants. (The citations are taken from the Corriere della Sera, 14th July 2000, the Repubblica, 13th July 2000 and the Manifesto 13th July 2000).

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