Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe PDF

Housing Studies, Vol. 23, No. 4, 589–613, July 2008 (Re)Viewing Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern European Cities: Housing and Urban Regimes as Mechanisms of Marginalisation SONIA ARBACI Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London, UK (Received July 2007; revised January 2008) ABSTRACT Housing and residential marginalisation in Southern European cities represents the most critical and controversial of urban conditions for the settlement and inclusion of immigrants. However, these issues are conspicuously under-researched in both the international and Southern European comparative literature. The complexity of ethnic housing hardship and segregation is often de-problematised and misleadingly attributed solely to market mechanisms or inevitable polarisation dynamics. This paper reviews the distinctive features of ethnic residential segregation within wider societal and urban contexts, drawing on an analysis of eight Mediterranean cities with a special focus on the role of housing systems and processes of ethnic and social differentiation. Problems and drivers are reconceptualised within an holistic, comparative framework. It is demonstrated that low levels of ethnic spatial segregation conceal a real problem of social residential marginalisation. This paradox predominantly originates from macro-scale mechanisms of differentiation rooted in the welfare redistributive arrangements and dualist housing systems. It is additionally reinforced by current urban renewal strategies. KEY WORDS : Comparative housing, migration, welfare state, Southern Europe, ethnic segregation, housing and urban regime Introduction Housing in Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece) represents the most critical and controversial of urban conditions for the settlement and inclusion of immigrants. To a large extent, immigrants are economically incorporated but residentially marginalised (Foot, 2001). Increasing housing hardship, precariousness, substandard accommodation, over- crowding, rent premiums, peripheral settlement and residual access to social infrastructure depict the general picture for a huge number of immigrants, including those with a job, good Correspondence Address: Sonia Arbaci, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, Wates House, 22 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0QB, UK. Email: [email protected]; [email protected] ISSN 0267-3037 Print/1466-1810 Online/08/040589–25 q 2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/02673030802117050 590 S. Arbaci professional skills and educational levels (Fonseca, 1999; Martinez Veiga, 1999; Petronoti, 1998; Tabakman, 2001; Tosi, 2000). This current mismatch between economic and residential integration seems to reverse the pattern of migrants’ incorporation witnessed during the post-war rapid urbanisation of Southern European cities (henceforth S-Eu), when internal rural migrants were residentially incorporated before their slower integration into the labour market (Allen et al., 2004, pp. 60–61). During the last decade, across Europe housing has re-emerged on the political agenda as a strategic device for supporting social and ethnic inclusion and improving existing living standards (e.g. ENHR conference manifesto in 2004). Notwithstanding this trend, most S-Eu countries seem unwilling to recognise the growing problem of ethnic residential marginalisation and the negative consequences of their distinctive housing systems, reproduced in the newly liberalised market (Emmanuel, 2004; Pareja & San Martin, 2000). Whilst keeping low levels of universal transfers across tenures and social spectra (Balchin, 1996), these systems primarily foster owner occupation, residualise the social sector in a dualist rental system (Castles & Ferrera, 1996; Kemeny, 1995), and are incapable of dealing with issues of housing affordability and inclusion of migrants (Allen, 2000; Allen et al., 2004; Arbaci, 2007a; Leal, 2004a). Inclusive and strategic policies are consistently neglected in the broader political and urban agenda (La Cecla, 1998; Maloutas, 2003; Pareja & San Martin, 2000). At the same time, the mainstream S-Eu debate disregards the actual residential conditions of immigrants and the contextual mechanisms driving ethnic urban and residential marginalisation (Maloutas, 2004a; Marcetti & Solimano, 1998; Martinez Veiga, 1999). Both in academic and political arenas, the gravity and complexity of housing problems and segregation issues are underestimated, de-problematised and conspicuously under-researched (Ares-2000, 2003; Pallida, 1998; Tabakman, 2001; Tosi, 2000). Ethnic residential marginalisation is considered unintentional because it is often attributed to inevitable polarisation dynamics (Fonseca, 1999; Moren, 1998). On the other hand, it is regarded as a temporary phase because it is assumed that market mechanisms, third parties and immigrants themselves will accommodate the foreign presence (Collicelli et al., 1998; see debate in Tosi, 2002). When recognised as a threat, it is mistakenly “combined with poverty, unemployment, low quality of education. [This always carries] the danger of dragging poverty issues in the muddy waters of justifying inequality by difference” (Maloutas & Pantelidou-Malouta, 2004, p. 458). Immigration growth is then perceived as a potential for social distress and urban ghettoisation (Pallida, 1998). De facto, residential marginalisation occurs irrespective of urban concentration or dispersal of immigrants and is not directly driven by joblessness or poverty strictu sensu (Arbaci, 2007b; Iosifides & King, 1998; Kazepov, 2005). Forms of marginalisation are ingrained, hidden within patterns of ethnic residential dispersion and de-segregation processes (e.g. North Africans and Albanians in Milan and Athens; Colombians in Madrid), as much as within patterns of ethnic spatial concentration (e.g. Moroccans and Pakistanis in Barcelona or Genoa; Cape Verdians in Lisbon). This complex relation between housing hardship, geography and concentration of ethnic settlements challenges the assumption that ‘spatial’ concentration automatically represents ‘social’ exclusion or that dispersed settlement entails integration, as often implied in anti-concentration and assimilation programmes (Alba & Nee, 2003). The relationship between social distance and spatial distance is in fact multifaceted and contextually bounded (Brun, 1994; Chamboredon & Lemaire, 1970; see debate in Maloutas, 2004a; Maloutas & Karadimitriou, 2001; Simon, 2002). Furthermore, spatially dispersed forms of marginalisation Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 591 add another dimension to the problem. They cannot be tackled through typical S-Eu modi operandi, which privilege area-based urban programmes and emergency policies rather than forward-thinking comprehensive policies that readdress broad scale systems and welfare redistributive arrangements (Musterd & Ostendorf, 1998; Musterd et al., 1998). In this regard, both academics and policy makers face two major concerns. First, there is little recognition of the true state of affairs of immigrants and the theoretical obsolescence upon which immigration and housing policies are drawn (Tosi, 2000, 2002). This is additionally confused by the evocative North-American literature on ethnic segregation (Massey & Denton, 1989, 1993), widely resonant in academia, media, public opinion and politics, which reduces the segregation debate to merely ethnic concentration (Maloutas, 2004a). This further justifies urban immigration policy that “attempts to eliminate or hide the sign of immigration presence” (Tosi, 2000, p. 12). Instead, current Northern-European debates on ethnic segregation, inequality and housing (Musterd & Ostendorf, 1998) have echoed less across S-Eu academies and have only recently included Mediterranean cases within international comparative research (Alexander, 2006; Musterd et al., 1998; Van Kempen, 2005). Second, national and local governments do not adequately deal with the urban impact of immigration, and integration policies are delegitimised (La Cecla, 1998; Maloutas & Pantelidou-Malouta, 2004; Tabakman, 2001). Instead, measures aimed at control, rather than inclusion, have been further ideologically justified by current international geo-political developments and pressure from the Schengen Agreement (Baldwin-Edwards, 1997). Equally, there is a widespread de-problematisation of housing issues (Tosi, 2002), even though these are also rising across middle social echelons, given the tremendous property market speculation, escalating housing costs and the erosion of alternative modes of provision and production of affordable housing (Leal, 2004c). The neo-liberal pressure on S-Eu markets has further justified the de-problematision of those social issues that are tightly entangled with, and driven by, housing dynamics and urban growth (Emmanuel, 2004; Tosi, 2000). However, academics cannot tackle this second concern unless they address the first one. This paper presents a holistic interpretative framework for reviewing the distinctive features of ethnic residential segregation within wider S-Eu societal and urban contexts, and identifies some key driving mechanisms of marginalisation. Mainstream S-Eu approaches on segregation are introduced. Subsequently, a model of ethnic residential segregation (Malheiros, 2002) is discussed in light of specific macro-scale contexts (White, 1999) and draws on a comparative analysis of eight cities, namely Lisbon, Madrid, Rome, Athens, Barcelona, Milan, Turin and Genoa (Arbaci, 2007b). By placing the segregation analysis in a wider societal context, it focuses on the role played by housing and urban regimes and processes of differentiation. It is demonstrated that low levels of ethnic ‘spatial’ segregation conceal a real problem of ‘social’ residential marginalisation. It reveals how this paradox predominantly originates from wider mechanisms of differentiation rooted in welfare arrangements and dualist housing systems. This is reinforced by current urban strategies of growth and renewal. Problems and drivers are reconceptualised and policy concerns addressed. Putting Southern European Viewpoints in Perspective Few S-Eu scholars recognise the obsolescence of theoretical frameworks employed in analysis and policy making with regard to both housing and immigration (Tosi, 2000, p. 6). This can be explained by the absence of long-established fields of investigation on housing 592 S. Arbaci and immigration and by the only recent interest in segregation studies in S-Eu, which tends to over-rely on approaches from other historical and geographical contexts, particularly North America (Maloutas, 2004a). Despite excellent research centres on immigration in Portugal, Spain and Italy, and the wide-ranging studies on ethnic insertion in S-Eu labour markets (Baldwin-Edwards & Arango, 1999; King et al., 2000), ethnic urban and residential segregation is still under-researched and restrained by the paucity of adequate data. In particular, it is impossible to understand how segregation is perceived in S-Eu without understanding S-Eu approaches to housing. The mainstream academic approach to housing is generally dominated by economic concepts, e.g. market dynamics, supply and demand, etc., and overlooks the fact that housing is a system embedded in a broader state-market nexus, as discussed in Northern-European studies (Balchin, 1996; Barlow & Duncan, 1994). Since each welfare regime accounts for distinctive redistributive arrangements and selected areas of decommodification (Allen, 1998), it determines the types of universal transfers or residual benefits allocated, for instance, by the housing system in each housing tenure, within the housing market and across social groups (Balchin, 1996; Kemeny, 1995). The first wide-ranging and thorough examination of Housing and Welfare in Southern Europe (Allen et al., 2004) is very recent and has appeared primarily in the international circuit, whilst being still disregarded in the mainstream national literature of each S-Eu country (with few exceptions, see the work of Leal, Maloutas, Padovani and Tosi, most of whom are co-authors of the book). This disregard of the housing system is deeply-rooted in the way in which the S-Eu nexus of state-family-market, embedded in Christian social principles, circumscribes universal transfers primarily to health and education (the decommodified area) and allocates a secondary role to housing (a commodified area) in the redistributive arrangements of the welfare regime (Allen, 1998, 2000). For example, although inequality issues are fully addressed within wider social policies, they are tangentially and residually considered in relation to housing regimes, housing policies and urban strategies (Tosi, 2000). In academic and political contexts, housing provision and policies are considered primarily in relation to the fostering of owner occupation (Castles & Ferrera, 1996), which is regarded as a political-economic instrument that boosts employment and economic growth (Leal, 2004a, 2004b), and ensures political stability (Allen et al., 2004). This modus pensanti does not address the broader social aspects of housing and refers to them only in periods of crisis or in terms of residual provision of social housing in a dualist rental market (Allen, 2000; Leal, 2004c; Pareja & San Martı́n, 2000). This S-Eu approach to housing presents a more reductive and less problematised view of segregation, which reduces segregation and residential issues primarily to housing market mechanisms, thus failing to account for state-market relations (e.g. welfare and housing regimes), contextual macro-scale mechanisms and the crucial role of political and urban systems. Nonetheless, some groundbreaking studies on ethnic segregation patterns in individual cities are already contributing to the development of a more consistent corpus of analysis and far-reaching debates on S-Eu situations (Domingo et al., 1995; Fonseca, 1999; Fonseca et al., 2002; Malheiros, 2002; Torner & Gutierrez, 2001; Tosi & Lombardi, 1999). During the 1990s, most S-Eu segregation studies provided over-simplified and misleading explanatory accounts, often stemming from the over-reliance on US-based theories, uncritically applied in the S-Eu contexts (White, 1999). Theories on invasion and succession (the human ecology approach), the white flight hypothesis, and particularly the Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 593 polarisation thesis (Sassen, 1991), have already been tested and disputed in (Northern)- European urban studies (Hamnett, 1998; Musterd et al., 1998; Musterd & Ostendorf, 1998). Drawing on contextual interpretative views, these studies have developed a fertile transatlantic debate and a European corpus of references that still has a modest echo across S-Eu academies. Thus far, only Maloutas (2004a) has disputed the polarised or dualist way of interpreting ethnic segregation in S-Eu cities (Collicelli et al., 1998; Fonseca, 1999; Moren, 1998), or in the framing of a S-Eu spatial model of ethnic residential distribution (Malheiros, 2002). These approaches tend to see the dual spatial distribution of the ethnic groups too starkly (rich vs. poor; white vs. non-white; Westerners vs. non-Westerners), often attributed to intractable globally-driven polarisation processes. Moreover, by considering ethnic and socio-economic characteristics interchangeable, they presented a simplistic version of ‘choice and constraints approaches’ (Van Kempen, 2002), that stemmed from pure economic determinism and stereotypes (e.g. non-Westerners as poor or unskilful). This understates variety and differences, patterns of dispersal, profession- alisation processes and growing presence of middle-income groups (Hamnett, 1998; Petsimeris, 1998). It often overlooks the “contextual complexity of patterns, processes and mechanisms involved in the construction of segregation” (Maloutas, 2004a, p. 15), the urban distribution of native social groups and the social stratification of the city, as well as the specificities of macro urban and societal contexts, their legacies and changes (see the contextual structural model of White, 1999). It is only recently that S-Eu scholars have begun to contribute to a cross-European corpus of analysis on ethnic segregation (Baganha & Fonseca, 2004; Malheiros, 2002; Fonseca et al., 2002a; Maloutas, 2004a), thereby shedding light on the distinctiveness of the S-Eu contexts and variety of cases. However, little attention has been devoted to the role of urban and housing regimes and how their entrenched mechanisms of differentiation affect the patterns of ethnic residential segregation. On the other hand, the growing S-Eu participation in leading European comparative urban studies and research networks (Fonseca & Malheiros, 2005; Kazepov, 2005; Musterd et al., 2006; URBEX programme, IMISCOE clusters) focuses predominantly on social exclusion, neighbourhood effects and micro-area analyses. These contributions are remarkable, but, again, they do not address mechanisms and patterns of segregation at a macro-scale. Overall, there is still an uncontested vacuum on segregation issues that requires a greater understanding of the way in which macro-scale arrangements (market-state nexus, welfare regimes, housing systems, urban regimes, etc.) inform the social stratification of urban society and affect the urban insertion of the diverse immigrant groups. This paper draws attention to these macro-scale subject matters by reviewing and setting Malheiros’ interpretative model (2002) within wider social and urban contexts in order to identify some crucial drivers of ethnic residential marginalisation. Southern European Models Reviewed: Ethnic Residential Patterns Between Welfare and Urban Processes The idea that S-Eu cities share similar patterns of immigrant settlement, distinctive from the Northern-European ones, has often been suggested, yet not investigated. To date, only Malheiros (2002) has begun to explore such hypotheses in a brief, but groundbreaking, comparative study on a range of European ‘ethni-cities’. This contribution is extremely valuable. By framing a S-Eu model of ethnic spatial segregation, he complements leading 594 S. Arbaci Northern-European comparative studies (Musterd et al., 1998; Musterd & Ostendorf, 1998) and for the first time opens up a theoretical and analytical debate at a S-Eu level. While drawing on an extensive comparative analysis of eight S-Eu cities (Arbaci, 2007b), Malheiros’ interpretative accounts are reviewed here, to later set the analysis in a wider societal context, with an holistic focus on welfare, housing and urban regimes. Reviewing Malheiros’ Interpretative Model Within the context of the socio-urban development of S-Eu metropolises, Malheiros (2002, p. 108) identifies four distinctive S-Eu features of ethnic spatial organisation, namely (1) poorer housing conditions; (2) high informality levels in access to the real estate market; (3) lower levels of spatial segregation associated with more complex patterns of residential distribution; and (4) a higher degree of peripheralisation (or suburbanisation, as in the case of Lisbon). However, the first two features are also emerging in Northern-European cities (Kesteloot & Meert, 2000; Leerkes et al., 2007), partly given the characteristics of the latest immigration flows (e.g. increasing illegal entry, single-gender migration, informal access via transnational networks), and partly given the decreasing affordable housing stock due to recent welfare, housing and urban restructuring. However, scale and conditions deviate greatly between S-Eu and Northern- European cities. The last two features are distinctive phenomena of S-Eu cities (compare Figures 1a and 1b). They result from combined socio-urban processes, such as (1) a limited de- population of the central and pericentral areas despite the ongoing processes of tertiarisation and urban sprawl; (2) the continuing presence of middle-income and affluent families in central areas; (3) generally low levels of residential mobility (Maloutas, 2004b); and (4) the long-term effect of rent-controls, introduced in all four countries around the late-1940s and abolished around the mid-1980s (Allen et al., 2004, pp. 156– 186). These processes have led to high peripheralisation of low and middle-low income groups, given the scarcely accessible rented stock in the central and pericentral areas, magnified since the early-1990s by renewal programmes and gentrification processes (Bocco, 1998; Fonseca, 1999; Iosifides & King, 1998; Sargatal, 2001). Overall, Malheiros (2002) argues that the low degrees of ethnic concentration “seem to prolong the tradition of more reduced levels of [socio-]spatial segregation” (p. 125) among the local population, and that the high degree of ethnic peripheralisation mirrors the distribution of low and middle-low income population in the peripheral areas. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that other Northern-European cities display similarly moderate levels of class segregation (e.g. Paris) (Musterd et al., 1998; Preteceille, 2004), whilst also presenting lower levels of income inequality than in the S-Eu cases. Malheiros concludes that both S-Eu and Northern-European cities are characterised by a dual spatial distribution of ethnic groups, given the over-representation of Western immigrants in the most affluent areas and the non-Western immigrants in the poorest and most deprived areas. However, such an hypothesis of polarisation has already been strongly criticised because it disregards the large presence of the middle-income strata (Petsimeris, 1998) and the variety of settlement patterns among ethnic and native groups (White, 1999). Despite this over-simplification, Malheiros points out that more complex residential configurations exist in Mediterranean cities and that “clear images of an urban space patterned according to ethnic and social lines are apparently less clear than in the cities Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 595 Figure 1a. Geographic distribution (LQs) and degree of segregation (I.S.) of selected ethnic groups by country of origin in selected Northern-European cities, 1990– 96. Sources: compiled by the author; adapted from Malheiros (2002). Notes: a. 1.00=average spatial concentration; b % of total population. of the North” (Malheiros, 2002, p. 125), where “class differences have taken over the role of ethnic differences, with almost identical effect” (Musterd & Ostendorf, 1998, p. 14). Malheiros shows that there is a mismatch between the spatial distribution of foreigners and local population that share similar socio-economic profiles. He demonstrates how the urban fragmentation processes and the ethnic single-gender division of labour affect, respectively, the reduced presence of low-income immigrants in deprived central areas and the high presence of certain low-income groups in affluent areas. However, there are four important distinctions that need to be considered. First, fragmentation processes and socio-urban changes in S-Eu central areas need to be contextualised within the broader processes of urban renewal and gentrification and, more specifically, need to be compared with the time of arrival of the immigrants (White, 1999). Not all major S-Eu cities have experienced these socio-urban changes at the same time, pace and extent. Particularly in Italy, “since the mid-1970s, public policies have strongly promoted the rehabilitation of the oldest part of the cities, including their historical centre” (Allen et al., 2004, p. 28). As a result, scattered processes of gentrification began in the 1980s in Milan and Rome (Petsimeris, 2005) and are only occurring now in Turin (Bocco, 1998). This has limited the ability of less affluent immigrants to access housing in certain central areas after the first wave of immigration in the mid-1980s. In contrast, the ethnic presence in the city centres of Barcelona, Genoa, Athens and, to lesser extent, Lisbon is still significant since the renovation has been undertaken only recently. In Barcelona there 596 S. Arbaci Figure 1b. Geographic distribution (LQs) and degree of segregation (I.S.) of selected ethnic groups by country of origin in selected Southern European cities, 1990–96. Sources: compiled by the author; adapted from Malheiros (2002). Notes: a. 1.00 ¼ average spatial concentration; b % of total population. are localised cases of gentrification in central multi-ethnic neighbourhoods such as in the Raval and Casc Antic (Sargatal, 2001; Tabakman, 2001), whereas gentrification in Athens has been more limited due to the distinctive socio-spatial structure of the housing stock and of the restructuring processes (Maloutas, 2004b, pp. 202– 203; Maloutas & Karadimitriou, 2001). Second, there are significant divergences in the socio-economic composition of the central and pericentral areas (Arbaci, 2007b, pp. 183 –215). In the S-Eu port cities of Lisbon, Barcelona, Genoa and Athens, the affluent groups are not predominant in the centre but in distinctive pericentral areas and/or along the coastline. This contrasts greatly with the socio-urban stratification of most S-Eu continental cities, such as Milan, Rome and Turin, in which the presence of elite activities and affluent social groups has historically been over-represented in the centre. Ethnic urban distribution thus differs between port and continental cities (Arbaci, 2007b). Although the contrast between Barcelona and Milan is not representative of all port and continental cities in S-Eu, Figure 2 is a paradigmatic example of the point in case because it illustrates clear divergences in the distribution of native social groups between the two cities (see, centre vs. peripheral location between low and high-income groups) and their reflections in the distribution of some ethnic groups (see, the case of Moroccans and Western groups). Third, there is a weak presence of low and middle-low income immigrants in the traditional working-class neighbourhoods of the first peripheral ring of the majority of S-Eu cities. This is quite a distinctive pattern because it does not find a similar equivalent Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 597 Figure 2. Comparing native and foreign groups’ residential distribution (LQs, I.S.), according to income or educational levels, Barcelona and Milan, mid-1990s. Sources: compiled by the author. data: Idescat (1996), Tosi & Lombardi (1999), Petsimeris (1998). Notes: a. 100 ¼ average spatial concentration; b. Index of Segregation; c. Average population per unit; d. Quartile ¼ selected employment categories (Census, 1991); Barcelona: low ¼ blue-collar þ service workers, middle ¼ administrators; high ¼ professionals þ technicians; Milan: low ¼ working class, middle ¼ white- collar workers, high ¼ professionals þ business owners. 598 S. Arbaci Table 1. Housing distribution across the social spectra (income quartile): owner occupation (c.f.) and single-family house (c.f.) in Southern Europe in a European comparative perspective (EU-11 and EU-15), 1996 a Concentration figures c.f. Portugal Spain Italy Greece EU-11b EU-15 Income distribution Owner Single- Owner Single- Owner Single- Owner Single- Owner Single- Owner Single- quartiles 1996 occup f. house occup f. house occup f. house occup f. house occup f. house occup f. house 1st quartile (low 97 123 94 128 94 89 104 138 67 75 76 86 income) 2nd quartile 92 107 96 110 95 93 97 100 84 91 85 93 3rd quartile 96 95 104 89 102 102 98 91 111 107 108 104 4th quartile (high 115 73 106 73 109 117 101 71 138 123 130 117 income) Distance between (2 ) 18 (1 ) 50 (2 ) 10 (1 ) 55 (2 ) 15 (2 ) 28 (1 ) 3 (1 ) 67 (2 ) 71 (2 ) 48 (2 ) 54 (2 ) 31 4th and 1st quartilec Notes: a Concentration Figures (c.f.) are used to adjust for differences in the composition of the housing stock between countries (SCP, 2000, p. 451). It can be regarded as a coefficient of concentration: 100 ¼ average, , 100 under-representation,. 100 over-representation; b EU-11 is EU-15 excluding Southern European countries; c (þ ) used when c.f. in the low income echelon (1st quartile) is higher than the high income echelon (4th quartile), (2) used when c.f. in the high income echelon (4th quartile) is higher than the low income echelon (1st quartile). Source: Compiled by the author, data: SCP (2000, p. 451). Calculation by the author for EU-11 and EU-15. Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 599 in Northern-European cities, which suggests that there are other important mechanisms at work beyond restructuring and gentrification. The explanation lies first in the widespread post-war process of housing self-production (e.g. single-family houses), which accounts for a high incidence of owner occupation in peripheral working-class neighbourhoods (Table 1, see owner occupation and single-family houses among low-income quartiles in S-Eu cases and compare it with EU-11). Second are processes of in situ upward social mobility among long-term working-class residents and their descendants (Leal, 2004c; Maloutas, 2004b), and third is the small provision of social housing estates, given the S-Eu dualist rental systems (Balchin, 1996; Kemeny, 1995). Finally, there are other distinctive structural or contextual factors that greatly, although indirectly, affect the spatial distribution of immigrants: (1) the extension, geography and span of owner occupation across the social spectrum (Table 1, bottom row indicates that the smaller the distance between lowest and highest quartiles, the wider the span across social groups); (2) the low residential mobility among long-term residents in all social strata (Maloutas, 2004b); (3) the role of the family in access to and provision of housing stock (Allen et al., 2004); and (4) the impact of current metropolitan sprawl on the formation of larger and more socially homogeneous residential areas (Maloutas, 2003). All these mechanisms of differentiation make the ethnic and socio-urban stratification of the city more complex and reveal that the patterns of ethnic insertion are not a simple function of their income. Malheiros’ study has shown that the socio-urban stratification of S-Eu cities, associated with urban and housing dynamics, has led to distinctive patterns of ethnic settlement, characterised by poor housing conditions combined with suburban scattered distribution. However, what are the actual distinctive macro-scale mechanisms of differentiation that underpin these urban and housing dynamics and scattered forms of ethnic residential marginalisation? The focus on macro-scale mechanisms (e.g. state-market relationship, welfare and housing system, types of urban development, etc.) is paramount as it sheds light on additional mechanisms and conditions affecting ethnic residential patterns (Musterd et al., 1998; Van Kempen, 2002). The need for these types of analyses is not purely an academic one. It raises the question of whether current conditions of ethnic residential marginalisation are structural, meaning embedded in wider societal and contextual arrangements, or just circumstantial urban conjunctions. It calls for the re-conceptualisation of causes and problems. Revising Immigrants’ Urban Inclusion in Wider Societal Contexts: Structural or Circumstantial Driving Mechanisms? A more comprehensive understanding of patterns of ethnic residential segregation in S-Eu cities can be undertaken by exploring mechanisms of differentiation within a wider societal context. Given the way in which welfare redistributive arrangements are reflected in the housing system, European welfare regimes differently inform the residential segregation patterns of most vulnerable ethnic and social groups (Arbaci, 2007a). Particularly in the case of S-Eu welfare and housing systems, these patterns have broadly resulted in a low degree of spatial segregation, associated with high levels of social and residential marginalisation (Arbaci, 2007a). A similar holistic focus on macro-scale contextual arrangements is developed here. By drawing on a comparative analysis of eight S-Eu cities (Arbaci, 2007b), and bearing on the groundbreaking study of Allen et al. (2004), the origins of the ethnic spatial 600 S. Arbaci organisation can be explored in relation to the combination of four distinctive S-Eu macro- scale contextual factors, namely the state of economic conjuncture, ideology of host society, immigration flows and socio-urban structures. This approach follows White’s (1999) ‘contextual structural model’, inspired by “the work by Anthony Giddens and the late James Coleman [which] has been very influential in using a new focus on societal problems in general and in research on spatial segregation in particular” (Van Kempen, 2002, p. 46). The attention is placed on non-Western foreign groups as they are generally more vulnerable to conditions posed by the host society and their ‘insertion’ into the urban fabric is more controversial than the insertion of the Westerners. From the analysis thus far it might be expected that some factors common to all four countries will facilitate immigrants’ insertion while other factors will tend to inhibit it. The first facilitating factor is the immigrants’ highly diverse characteristics, in terms of education and skills as well as urban origins (King, 2001), and the large presence of transnational communities organised around entrepreneurial activities (Al-Ali & Koser, 2002; Cohen, 1997). These enhance the possibilities for access to resources and for diversified strategies of insertion (Kesteloot & Meert, 2000). The second factor is a persistent demand for cheap labour, predominantly in the low productivity sectors (labour intensive) and in the family-care system (including nursing). This is rooted in the nature of the S-Eu welfare regimes that account for a segmented labour market, in which low and high productivity sectors coexist (King et al., 1997), and that transfer delivery for the care of the children and elderly to the family. S-Eu regimes have ensured the continuity of both arrangements even since the mid-1970s, despite the rapid transfer of native workers from low to high productivity sectors (King, 2001) and a steady increase in levels of female employment, which has altered the female role in the family division of labour (Riba-Mateos, 2001). They have thus ensured the continuity of two necessary labour niches that can hardly be supplied by native populations. S-Eu welfare regimes are therefore at the root of the persistent and high demand for live-in maids and concierges (stronger in Italy and weaker in Portugal), which often results in a unique residential niche for single-gender ethnic migration, scattered in affluent and middle-income urban areas (e.g. Sri Lankans in Rome; Filipinos in Turin, Milan, Athens, Barcelona, etc.). Similarly, they account for certain dispersal patterns of ethnic settlement given the scattered geography of workplace accommodation in low productivity sectors (e.g. construction, SMEs). The third factor facilitating immigrants’ insertion is the role played by the informal labour and housing markets as temporary stepping-stones to more stable conditions. Finally, the extent of socially and functionally mixed areas facilitates forms of socio-economic inclusion, based upon opportunities of market exchange or redistribution or reciprocity (Kesteloot & Meert, 2000). However, mixed areas do not necessarily imply interaction and support (Chamboredon & Lemaire, 1970; Maloutas & Karadimitriou, 2001). Overall, the combination of some of these factors leads to scattered spatial distribution and low ethnic residential concentration, given the dispersed geography of the labour sectors (e.g. construction, domestic labour, care services and SMEs) and given the dispersal patterns of settlement, typical of those ethnic groups with a medium level of education and skills, and urban origins (e.g. Eastern Europeans, Latin Americans, political refugees; see, for example, the middle column in Figure 2). In contrast, one might expect that transnational communities and ethnic groups with particular religious bonds tend to cluster, thus developing aggregative residential patterns irrespective of the socio-urban Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 601 structure of the host city (e.g. Bangladeshis, Hindus, Iranians, Chinese, Orthodox Jews; see debate in White, 1999; also Peach, 2002, 1996). In addition, where there are significant occurrences of informal and non-conventional housing in central areas (hotels, subletting, residual rented housing and overcrowding), then higher degrees of ethnic spatial concentration are expected (Bocco, 1998; Fonseca, 1999; Leerke et al., 2007). At the same time, it can be observed that the access to territory is greatly curtailed along at least four distinctive dimensions, similar in all four countries: dominant social discourses, labour market segmentation, socio-urban processes influencing a ‘recast of social groups in place’ and housing regime. First, ‘dominant social discourses’ (White’s ideology of host society)—which depict the relationship between the host society and immigrants—foster utilitarian, non-inclusive and repressive attitudes, despite the universalistic concerns embedded in the Christian and leftist traditions. Differential exclusionary principles are applied to different extents, for example, to a less extent in Portugal and more extreme in Greece (Fonseca et al., 2002; Kandylis, 2006; Maloutas, 2004c), depending on the general perception of immigrants and type of immigration flow and on the scale of the role played by the third sector, such as non-profit and religious organisations and trade unions. This ideological non-inclusive attitude has indirect but enormous consequences on the ability of immigrants to access housing. Their large presence in informal and substandard accommodation scattered in peripheral urban areas is often not by choice (e.g. Africans in metropolitan areas of Milan, Rome or Lisbon; Fonseca, 1999). Second, ‘labour market segmentation’, reinforced by the dualist labour market (formal/informal), makes ethnic insertion extremely vulnerable and reproduces the stratification of income along an ethnic dimension (King et al., 1997). It has direct implications for immigrants’ capacity to secure rent payments and rental contracts since they are constrained by scarce and temporary wage-based incomes. This is further restrained by the self-perpetuating bond between the dualist labour market and the promotion and expansion of owner occupation (Allen et al., 2004; explored later). Third, “socio-urban processes influencing a ‘recast of social groups in place’” (Maloutas, 2004b, p. 197) indirectly create a barrier for non-Western residential insertion. These are associated with at least two dynamics. First, processes of ‘gentrification and/or renewal’ of the central, pericentral and waterfront areas account for the inflow of affluent and young middle-income groups and for housing tenure changes biased towards owner occupation and the tertiary sector (hotels, aparthotels, leisure and tourism amenities, etc.). This frequently leads to the displacement of low-income former tenants (especially immigrants) to peripheral areas, and consequently, to the formation of more socially homogeneous areas (Tabakman, 2001). However, gentrification processes are often discontinuous and uneven and might result in a partial replacement of the local population and the long-term co-existence of gentrifiers and vulnerable groups (e.g. Genoa and Lisbon central areas). Thus, the magnitude and impact on segregation varies in each city according to the timeline of the process, urban morphology, social scope of renewal programmes, historical significance of the areas, and quality of the built environment and its social infrastructure (Arbaci, 2007b, pp. 287 –295; Maloutas & Karadimitriou, 2001; Petsimeris, 2005; Sargatal, 2001). Second, ‘processes of in situ upward social mobility’ in certain former working-class areas of the first peripheral belt prevent the relocation of the inhabitants to other urban areas (Maloutas, 2004b for Athens; Leal, 2004c for Madrid; Petsimeris, 1998 for Milan, 602 S. Arbaci Turin and Genoa). The absence of spatial mobility precludes the opening of residential vacancies in working-class neighbourhoods to other low-income groups, thus inhibiting processes of filtering up and down. This dynamic, largely linked to the low levels of residential mobility among long-term residents, and the structure of the family and the housing market, not only obstructs the residential access of immigrants in these areas, but also generates a “broader impact on segregation tendencies in the wider city” (Maloutas, 2004b, p. 197). Although working in different ways, both processes reshape the tenure and social composition of localities within the city and increase the differentiated social distribution across housing tenures (later referred to as socio-tenure differentiation), particularly along ethnic lines. Fourth, the ‘housing regime’ accounts for an imbalanced tenure distribution (Balchin, 1996; Pareja & San Martin, 2000) since it reproduces a dualist housing system (Arbaci, 2007a; Kemeny, 1995) and is heavily dominated by owner occupation. This translates into an intractable and enduring problem of housing affordability for low and middle social strata. Moreover, since the first immigration wave in the early-1980s, the problem of affordability and precariousness has been reinforced by a steady, yet dramatic reduction of the rental sector and escalating rents. This has been triggered predominantly by the rapid expansion of owner occupation (Figure 3), typically fostered by the S-Eu welfare and housing systems (Leal, 2004a), and fuelled additionally by the abolition of rent controls (Allen et al., 2004), the expanding credit system (Emmanuel, 2004) and the privatisation of the social rental stock (except in Portugal, given the PER-Special Rehousing Program and the expansion of the social housing stock; AML, 1997). Simultaneously, the need for both private and social rented housing has grown due to societal changes (e.g. family and household structures, expansion of university students, etc.) and the volatility of the labour market. This has further limited the immigrants’ access to the already scarce affordable rental stock, particularly in the centre and pericentre. The seriousness of this problem is magnified by the fact that the residual rental market is not an alternative affordable solution for the immigrants, given its scarcity and rent premium (Ares-2000, 2003; Tabakman, 2001). Furthermore, as “owner-occupation is now the most common means of gaining access to a home” (Allen et al., 2004, p. 27), the possibilities for immigrants, even the middle-income ones, are severely hampered. Among other factors, the access to financial services is still heavily discriminative against immigrants. In addition, most migratory projects require a reduction in housing expenditures as a crucial saving strategy for meeting other agendas (e.g. remittance, access to education and skills, entrepreneurial take-off, intra-national mobility, family reunification, etc.). “It is clear that the long standing solution to satisfy housing need by expanding owner-occupation is likely to be ineffective in meeting these new types of demand for rental housing” (Allen et al., 2004, p. 31). All four macro-scale dimensions have led (or are leading) to patterns of disperse ethnic settlement scattered in the peripheries and metropolitan suburbs, as well as to a decreasing ethnic presence in central areas (de-segregation) and to growing forms of socio-tenure differentiation. Despite significant differences among the S-Eu cities, these patterns of low spatial segregation among immigrants often hide a real problem of marginalisation and social exclusion when associated with poor quality housing, rent exploitation, precarious living conditions, overcrowding and poor access to infrastructure (Ares-2000, 2003; Baganha et al., 2000; Bocco, 1998; Domingo et al., 1995; Martinez Veiga, 1999; Petronoti, 1998; Tabakman, 2001; Tosi, 2000, 2002). Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe Figure 3. Housing tenure (%) in Southern Europe in European countries and selected cities: owner occupation and rented sector in a European comparative perspective, 1971– 2001. Sources: compiled by the author. Data: by nation: Allen et al. (2004), Balchin (1996), Fonseca et al. (2002), Ghekiere (1992), INE (2003), SCP (2000); by city: URBAN-Audit (1998), Fonseca (1999), Fonseca et al. (2000), INE (2003). Notes: MA, metropolitan area; EU-11, EU-15 excluding South European countries (average calculated by the author). 603 604 S. Arbaci Reframing some Structural Driving Mechanisms of Ethnic Residential Marginalisation: from Macro-scale Structural Arrangements to Current Urban Regimes These ethnic residential patterns, coupled with conditions of housing hardship and social marginalisation, have been mistakenly regarded as the ‘contingent’ consequence of supply and demand market dynamics, characterised by the growing discrepancy between employment opportunities and scarce housing availability (see, debate in Tosi, 2000). On the contrary, they result from structurally embedded mechanisms and not from contingent situations. Three of the four dimensions discussed in the previous section take the argument back to structural societal arrangements of the welfare regime (dominant social discourses, labour market segmentation and housing regime), rather than to circumstantial urban conjunctions. In particular, the problem of housing affordability and marginalisation is a direct consequence of the high promotion and production of owner occupation, which is a mainstay condition of the S-Eu societies (Arbaci, 2007a; Leal, 2004a) and which is reproduced both in the national and municipal agenda. National context. The fostering of owner occupation is a conditio sine qua non for the reproduction of most pillars of S-Eu welfare systems. In terms of economic regimes: state expenditure directed towards housing serves other objectives than guaranteeing access to housing for those who have less purchasing capacity. The construction sector has been used as a counter-cyclical instrument of economic policy, compensating for the decrease in economic activity and consumption during periods of economic downturn. The main instrument of housing policy expenditure is income tax relief, which means that middle- and high-income households with high [marginal] income taxes find housing investment an effective way to reduce their taxes. At the same time, there is little direct monetary aid for lower-income households seeking to buy or rent a home. (Allen et al. 2004, p. 40) Simultaneously, as argued by Allen et al. (2004): the highly dualistic labour market creates strong biases in housing policy towards home ownership, both as an anchor of security for those outside the formal labour market and as a significant form of investment within the black economy (Castles & Ferrera, 1996). In addition, self-provision and illegal provision also create flexibility in the pattern of payments for housing in circumstances in which income streams are uneven over time and unpredictable. In contrast, the financing of social rented housing requires either that the majority of tenants are in guaranteed sector employment or that the state shows a high level of willingness to subsidise such housing. (p. 111) In particular: direct state provision of housing is hardly relevant in Southern Europe, and, more generally, it is not clear whether state intervention to limit profits supports the commodification or decommodification of labour. In Northern Europe, the provision of social rented housing has been associated with the Fordist commodification of labour, but it is not clear whether it would perform the same function in the context Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 605 of economic change in Southern Europe, where a largely agricultural population has moved directly into a rapidly expanding tertiary sector. (Allen et al., 2004, p. 89) In this context it is important to remember that in S-Eu both Catholic and Orthodox social policies and the distinctive type of capitalist development, based largely on small entrepreneurs, have promoted the partial proletarianisation of the society, or rather inhibited the full proletarianisation of the society as it happened in Northern-Europe (Mingione, 1995). This process was possible because the widespread ideology of access to home ownership, through self promotion and self building, had been well established by the Christian democratic policies in operation since the end of the nineteenth century. It was regarded as a means of stressing Christian family values rather than collective interests of workers and to keep workers away from the cities and socialism. (Kesteloot & Meert, 2000, p. 54) Overall, this process was largely implemented via “the function of the extended southern family [in welfare delivery in general], in ensuring access to housing for its members and its role in protecting labour against commodification in a tertiarised economy” (Allen et al., 2004, p. 89). The spatial expression of this process has resulted in a distinctive type of urban sprawl and the suburbanisation of low and middle-low income groups, developed either upon an aggregate spontaneous growth, often of small scale production and self-production (Portugal, Greece and Italy), or upon planned corporate developments (Spain and Italy). Both cases have produced diverse forms of owner occupation across the social spectra, particularly among working-class groups (Table 1). One of the most idiosyncratic consequences has been that the working-class suburban belt has been transformed into a distinctive ‘red belt of semi-proletarian owners’. Although low-income, this latter group has been lobbying for a policy agenda similar to the one fostered by the middle and high-income urban bourgeoisie, based on individual interests, high protection of ownership and associated tax reduction. In a Southern way, collective social welfare interests have been defeated via owner occupation (Allen, 2000). Therefore, the fostering of owner occupation is embedded not only in the relationship between state and market of these countries (welfare system), but also in wider social relations (Allen, 1998; Allen et al., 2004). Consequently, the problem of housing affordability in S-Eu has never been a circumstantial situation that can be addressed solely through a localised readjustment of housing market supply-demand mechanisms. Instead, it is the result of permanent conditions associated with macro-scale structural and societal arrangements informing the housing regime in terms of provision and production, its distinctive tenure imbalance and its distinctive process of social division of space. These are the crucial structural mechanisms that hinder the urban and residential inclusion of immigrants. As Tosi (2000) states, “the weakness of general social [concerns in] housing policies, on different scales, has constituted the main reason for the housing problems of immigrants” (p. 4). Municipal context. Since the early 1990s, the aforementioned macro-scale structural arrangements have found continuity at the governance level and in current housing and urban dynamics, and have developed further barriers for an inclusive ethnic insertion in S-Eu urban societies. Thus, before drawing any final conclusions, some additional key aspects of the urban regimes need to be considered briefly. 606 S. Arbaci Concurrently with the EU accession (1980s), there were significant political and economic pressures for the liberalisation of the S-Eu housing market, later translated into the abolition of rent-control (mid-1980s), and changes to policy instruments, credit systems, housing production and the control over land. Most city restructuring programmes fully embraced the liberalisation of the housing market and strongly fostered the provision of owner occupation as an instrument of local economic policy and as a major device for urban growth and renewal (La Cecla, 1998; Leal, 2004c). In most cases, these programmes have critically penalised low-income and non-Western foreign groups, whilst benefiting mainly affluent native groups, land and property owners, as well as foreign investors and financial institutions (Emmanuel, 2004; Leal, 2004b; Torner & Gutierrez, 2001). Even in cases that are regarded as successful examples of urban restructuring (e.g. Barcelona’s centre and seaside), the actual result has been (1) a rapid and highly profitable social and spatial reconfiguration of those areas potentially appealing to a middle-income and upper market (Sargatal, 2001; Tabakman, 2001); and (2) a sharp decline of the affordable segment of the housing stock in all tenures (Tosi, 2002). With regard to new housing development, the increasingly strong planning control over the urban territory has altered the way in which land enters into housing production and the possibility for small developers to participate directly in its production. As a result, the characteristic forms of affordable production developed during the post-war rural-urban migration, based on small developer firms, self-production, informal land acquisition and informal housing production, have been inhibited (Arbaci, 2007b). Furthermore, increasing land prices and the selling of public land have curtailed the production of affordable housing for low-income groups by the co-operative sectors and other non-profit bodies. Overall, we can start to see that planning tools, such as planning gain, provision of municipally owned land and indirect land-cost subsidies, are used exceptionally in S-Eu urban regimes for triggering property-led markets, whilst they are completely disregarded as devices for a more equitable social division of space and the provision of affordable housing (Leal, 2004b). Given the erosion of (self-)production of affordable housing, monetary resources, credit systems or patrimonial inheritance become the sole means for accessing the property ladder. These means, often scarce among immigrants, not only curtail the possibility for more stable ethnic residential insertion, but also widen the gap in access to the housing among social groups (Emmanuel, 2004; Leal, 2004c), particularly, between natives and non-Western groups. With regard to old housing stock, with the abolition of rent-control and the introduction of urban renewal programmes, the consequent renovation of central and pericentral residential areas has first led to a rapid decline of the residual private rental sector (Barcelona, Genoa, Lisbon and partly Athens), which had been the major source of immigrants’ accommodation, and second, the flourishing of upmarket housing supply, mainly for owner occupation. In general, urban renewal programmes, while steering the social and tenure reconfiguration of the selected areas, have simultaneously triggered evictions, shrinkage of rental stock and gentrification processes (e.g. Milan, Rome and Barcelona). These seem to be the main driving mechanisms behind current processes of ethnic spatial de-segregation of the central areas and the increasing scattered peripheralisation of immigrants, mistakenly regarded as an indicator of successful ethnic residential integration, due to the reduction in their indices of segregation (Figure 4). Indeed, given the dramatic contraction of the rental market, particularly the segment most accessible to medium and low-income groups, forms of social and residential Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe Figure 4. Barcelona: comparing changes in ethnic residential distribution (LQs, 1996, 2005) and housing rents (e / m2, 1997, 2003). Sources: compiled by 607 the author; data from Idescat (1996) and Ajuntament de Barcelona (2002, 2004, 2005). 608 S. Arbaci Figure 5. Total foreign groups’ housing insertion, by year of arrival, according to housing tenures (%) and types of accommodation (%), Lombardy, 1989–2001. Sources: compiled by the author; data from Tosi (2002, p. 133). Notes: *relatives, friends, acquaintances; **reception centre, illegal accomodation, no fixed abode. marginalisation have increased across the social spectrum, while they have grown exponentially along the ethnic dimension, including middle-income immigrants (Figure 5). Thus, the gap between native and non-Western groups is widening. In this process, not only has ethnic housing hardship escalated, but it has also moved out from central areas to marginal metropolitan fringes. In general, the gravity and scale of ethnic residential marginalisation is greater, but less visible. As a result, it seems reasonable to argue that for most S-Eu municipalities there is a clear (yet not transparent) “pursuing [of] gentrification as a strategy of renewal, albeit one that is more likely to avoid social responsibilities than to deal with the structural causes of regional and city economic decline and poverty” (Atkinson, 2003, p. 2346; see also La Cecla, 1998; Sargatal, 2001; Tabakman, 2001; Tosi, 2002). At one level, macro-scale structural arrangements, informing housing systems in general or translated into current urban regimes, have been: Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 609 greatly hinder[ing] the integration of immigrants and their progress. From now on it is more difficult to follow «housing careers», of the type followed by many immigrants in the past.... [Additionally], 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 space. Already in many cities today evictions constitute the only visible public policy. (Tosi, 2000, pp. 3, 14) At another level, there are also other fundamental societal arrangements operating locally, which should not be underestimated. Clientelism and familialism, as well as low residential mobility among long-term residents (Allen et al., 2004), are still playing a crucial role in creating additional forms of socio-spatial differentiation and residential exclusion of those groups considered as outsiders. To a large extent in S-Eu the origins of the immigrants’ housing hardship and marginalisation, as well as the enduring affordable housing problem, need to be seriously reconsidered and addressed. Thorough considerations are crucial, not in the light of the orthodox market rationale (e.g. housing supply-demand), but in the wider context of those distinctive macro-scale structural and societal mechanisms inherited from welfare arrangements, whose legacies have been translated at the urban governance level and in current housing and socio-urban dynamics. Conclusions Housing in S-Eu cities represents the most critical and controversial of urban conditions for the settlement and inclusion of immigrants, as well as for an increasing proportion of local populations. Both in academic and political arenas, the gravity and complexity of housing problems and segregation issues are underestimated, scarcely investigated and often attributed automatically to market mechanisms and globally-driven polarisation dynamics. This paper has reviewed the distinctive features of urban and residential insertion of immigrants within wider societal and urban contexts. In this light, problems and structural causes of residential marginalisation have been re-conceptualised and re-interpreted. Paradoxically, low levels of spatial segregation, scattered peripheral settlements, and processes of de-segregation are critical attributes of the urban ethnic insertion since they actually conceal an increase in housing hardship, and social and residential marginalisation among non-Western groups. These scattered forms of residential marginalisation originate not from circumstantial conjunctions but from structural mechanisms and wider processes of socio-residential differentiation, which are rooted in the macro-scale arrangements of the welfare system, such as the ideology of the host society, the labour market segmentation and, above all, the dualist housing regime and associated processes of social division of space. These are additionally triggered by current urban regimes in their strategies of growth and renewal. In most of these arrangements and mechanisms, the root of the problem lies in the fostering of owner occupation and its chain of implications—the contraction of the rental sector, particularly its affordable segment, unresolved issues of affordable housing provision and production, stigmatisation of the social housing sector, biased tax relief for the upper social spectrum and wider socio-tenure differentiation. This dynamic drives an unequal social division of space and access to resources. At the same time, the fostering of owner occupation is embedded in the relationship between the state and market, as well as 610 S. Arbaci in wider social relations and urban regimes. In this respect, the actual challenge in addressing the overall problem is to adopt forward-thinking approaches that confront and breach this spiral chain. This review has led to three essential conclusions that can inform policy. First, in S-Eu the problem of housing residualism and exclusion experienced by non-Western immigrants is a permanent condition, given the structural and societal attributes of the processes of differentiation. Importantly, these processes marginalise the vulnerable groups of society as much as those social groups unable to meet market costs and/or to access non-market resources. It is thus crucial to regard the problem of ethnic housing residualism as the peak of a bigger iceberg, which progressively also encompasses middle-income echelons. Second, during the last decade residential differentiation has widened in scale and depth across the social spectrum, particularly between native and non-Western foreigner groups. At the same time, it has become less visible due to processes of ethnic de-segregation and peripheralisation (e.g. scattered ethnic distribution in remote or scarcely accessible metropolitan areas). These processes of differentiation have occurred alongside a shift towards more localised responsibility for welfare delivery. However, there are no signs either locally or nationally of strategies or policies that address issues of housing affordability, increasing social marginalisation and inequality. The liberalisation of the housing market is further fuelling the expansion of owner occupation and the strategies of gentrification-led renewal embraced by current urban regimes. Structural causes are overlooked and de-problematised under neo-liberal pressures. This eclipses the fact that the fostering of owner occupation has serious negative implications for society as a whole, and that patterns of scattered residential insertion, de-segregation and peripheralisation among immigrants (e.g. low levels of spatial segregation), do not always reflect forms of integration, but forms of social segregation and exclusion. The core issue cannot be solved if it is interpreted as the result of inevitable polarisation led by global pressures. Rather, an interpretation based on more contextual and tractable mechanisms of differentiation, which drives marginalisation, needs to be considered. This brings the attention to the way in which each context differently relates to current neo-liberal pressures for the (re)commodification of welfare services (e.g. privatisation of education, health, pension, transport), since commodified services amplify social differentiation and curtail the access of vulnerable and low-income groups to traditional modes of integration (e.g. education system). Finally, the reproduction of a dualist housing regime anchored in owner occupation and the construction of emergency policies as the primary response to social and immigration issues, are not alleviating, but are increasing the problem of housing affordability and social marginalisation. These not only undermine the possibility for the integration and upward social mobility of immigrants, but also affect an increasing proportion of local populations. In this respect, the challenge is to formulate progressive and integrative policies that take into consideration macro-scale structural and societal dynamics and to consider the arrangements and mechanisms that should be strengthened or radically altered in order to meet a more universalistic and redistributive vision of society. Even restricting the focus on housing or planning, the issue is not simply a matter of social housing provision, but rather of broader socio-economic and political programmes that address the overall housing tenure system and move towards more inclusive socio-urban processes. The logic is that the problem cannot be alleviated by housing policies alone; rather, there is also a need to rethink social welfare in tertiarised economies. This raises the question of whether and how a vision of an ‘integrated’ society can be reconsidered in a post-Fordist economy. Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 611 Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank Michael Edwards, Judith Allen and Jessica Ferm for their suggestions and the four referees for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The author alone is responsible for its eventual contents. References Al-Ali, N. & Koser, K. (2002) New Approaches to Migration? Transnational Communities and the Transformation of Home (London: Routledge). Alba, R. & Nee, V. (2003) Remaking the American Mainstream. Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Alexander, M. (2006) Cities and Labour Immigration. Comparing Policies Responses in Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Tel Aviv (London: Ashgate). Allen, J. (1998) Europe of the neighbourhoods: class, citizenship and welfare regimes, in: A. Madanipour, G. Cars & J. Allen (Eds) Social Exclusion in European Cities (London: Kingsley Publishers). Allen, J. (2000) A southern way of housing? Mimeo (London: Westminster University). Allen, J., Barlow, J., Leal, J., Maloutas, T. & Padovani, L. (2004) Housing and Welfare in Southern Europe (Oxford: Blackwell). AML (1997) Caracterização Do Programa Especial de Realojamento na Area Metropolitana de Lisboa (Lisbon: Area Metropolitana de Lisboa-Junta Metropolitana, Grupo de Trabalho 4). Arbaci, S. (2007a) Ethnic segregation, housing systems and welfare regimes, European Journal of Housing Policy, 7(4), pp. 401 –433. Arbaci, S. (2007b) The residential insertion of immigrants in Europe: patterns and mechanisms in Southern European cities, PhD Thesis, University College London. Ares-2000 (2003) Il Colore delle Case. Primo Rapporto sulla Condizione Abitativa degli immigrati in Italia. Available at www.ares2000.net/ricerche/colorecase/ilcoloredellecase.htm 02/10/2003 Atkinson, R. (2003) Introduction: misunderstood saviour or vengeful wrecker? The many meanings and problems of gentrification, Urban Studies, 40, pp. 2343–2350. Baganha, M. I., Marques, J. C. & Fonseca, G. (2000) Is an Ethclass Emerging in Europe? The Portuguese Case (Lisbon: FLAD). Baganha, M. I. & Fonseca, G. (2004) New Waves: Migration from Eastern to Southern Europe (Lisbon: FLAD). Balchin, P. (1996) Housing Policy in Europe (London: Routledge). Baldwin-Edwards, M. (1997) The emerging European immigration regime: some reflections on implications for Southern Europe, Journal of Common Market Studies, 35, pp. 497 –519. Baldwin-Edwards, M. & Arango, S. (1999) Immigrants and the Informal Economy in Southern Europe (London: Frank Cass). Barlow, J. & Duncan, S. (1994) Success and Failure in Housing Provision. European Systems Compared (Oxford: Elsevier Science). Bocco, A. (1998) Torino: conflitti e modi di abitare in uno spazio multiculturale, Urbanistica, 111, pp. 10–11. Brun, J. (1994) Essai critique sur la notion de ségrégation et sur son usage en géographie urbaine, in: J. Brun & C. Rhein (Eds) La Ségrégation Dans La Ville (Paris: L’Harmattan). Castles, F. & Ferrera, M. (1996) Home ownership and the welfare state: is Southern Europe different?, South European Society and Politics, 1, pp. 163–185. Chamboredon, J.-C. & Lemaire, M. (1970) Proximité spatiale et distance sociale. les grands ensembles et leur peuplement, Revue Française de Sociologie, XI, pp. 3–33. Cohen, R. (1997) Global Diasporas (London: UCL Press). Collicelli, C., Arosio, F. M. & Sapienza, R. (1998) City Template Rome. Report for MPMC-project (Paris: MOST-UNESCO). Domingo, D., Clapes, J. & Prats, M. (1995) Condicion de Vida de la Població d’Origen Africà y Llatinoamericà a la Regió Metropolitana de Barcelona (Barcelona: IEMB). Emmanuel, D. (2004) Socio-economic inequalities and housing in Athens: impact of the monetary revolution of the 1990s, The Greek Review of Social Research, 113, pp. 121 –143. Fonseca, M. L. (1999) Immigration, socio-spatial marginalisation and urban planning in Lisbon: challenges and strategies, in: FLAD (Ed.) Metropolis International Workshop. Proceedings (Lisbon: FLAD). 612 S. Arbaci Fonseca, M. L., Malheiros, G., Ribas-Mateos, N. & Esteves, A. (2002) Immigration and Places in Mediterranean Metropolises (Lisbon: FLAD). Foot, J. (2001) Milan Since the Miracle. City, Culture and Identity (Oxford: Berg). Ghekiere, L. (1992) Les Politiques du Logement dans l’Europe de Demain (Paris: La Documentation Française). Hamnett, C. (1998) Social polarisation, economic restructuring and welfare state regimes, in: R. Musterd & W. Ostendorf (Eds) Urban Segregation and the Welfare State: Inequality and Exclusion in Western Cities (London: Routledge). INE (2003) Censos de Población y Viviendas 2001: Viviendas principales por comunidad/provincia, Régimen de tenencia y Superficie útil, Census (Madrid: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica). Iosifides, T. & King, R. (1998) Socio-spatial dynamics and exclusion of three immigrant groups in the Athens Conurbation, South European Society and Politics, 3, pp. 205–229. Kandylis, G. (2006) From assimilation to national hierarchy. Changing dominant representations in the formation of the Greek City, The Greek Review of Social Research, 121, pp. 157 –174. Kazepov, Y. (2005) Cities of Europe. Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge to Urban Cohesion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing). Kemeny, J. (1995) From Public Housing to Social Renting: Rental Policy Strategy in Comparative Perspective (London: Routledge). Kesteloot, C. & Meert, H. (2000) Segregation and economic integration of immigrants in Brussels, in: S. Body- Gendrot & M. Martiniello (Eds) Minorities in European Cities (London: Macmillan Press). King, R. (2001) The Mediterranean Passage. Migration and New Cultural Encounters in Southern Europe (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press). King, R., Fielding, A. & Black, R. (1997) The international turnaround in Southern Europe, in: R. King & R. Black (Eds) Southern Europe and the New Immigrations (Brighton: Sussex Academy Press). King, R., Lizards, G. & Tsardanidis, C. (2000) Eldorado or Fortress? Migration in Southern Europe (London: Macmillan). La Cecla, F. (1998) L’urbanistica e’ di aiuto alle citta’ multiethniche?, Urbanistica, 111, pp. 45–46. Leal, J. (2004a) El diferente modelo residencial de los paises del Sur de Europa: El mercado de viviendas, la familia y el estado, Arxius, 10, pp. 1– 37. Leal, J. (2004b) Housing policy against social housing in Spain. Paper presented at the ENHR Conference, Cambridge, 2– 6 June. Leal, J. (2004c) Segregation and social change in Madrid Metropolitan Region, The Greek Review of Social Research, 113, pp. 81–104. Leerkes, A., Engbersen, G. & van San, M. (2007) Shadow places: patterns of spatial concentration and incorporation of irregular immigrants in the Netherlands, Urban Studies, 44, pp. 1491–1516. Malheiros, J. M. (2002) Ethni-cities: residential patterns in Northern-European and Mediterranean metropolis. Implication in policy design, International Journal of Population Geography, 8, pp. 107–134. Maloutas, T. (2003) Promoting social sustainability. The case of Athens, City, 7, pp. 167–181. Maloutas, T. (2004a) Urban segregation and the European context, The Greek Review of Social Research, 113, pp. 3 –24. Maloutas, T. (2004b) Segregation and residential mobility. The spatially entrapped social mobility and its impact on segregation in Athens, European Urban and Regional Studies, 11, pp. 195–211. Maloutas, T. (2004c) Housing and segregation in Southern Europe: living together or living apart? A first exploration of the ESS Data. Paper presented at ENHR conference, Cambridge, 2–6 June. Maloutas, T. & Karadimitriou, N. (2001) Vertical social differentiation in Athens: Alternative or complement to community segregation?, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 25(4), pp. 698 –716. Maloutas, T. & Pantelidou-Malouta, M. (2004) The glass menagerie of urban governance and social cohesion. Concepts and stakes/concepts as stakes, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 28, pp. 449–465. Marcetti, C. & Solimano, N. (1998) Il disagio dell’urbanistica, Urbanistica, 111, pp. 40–45. Martinez Veiga, U. (1999) Pobreza, Segregación y Exclusión Social. La Vivienda de los Inmigrantes Extranjeros en España (Barcelona: Icaria). Massey, D. S. & Denton, N. A. (1989) Hyper-segregation in US metropolitan areas: black and Hispanic segregation along five dimensions, Demography, 26, pp. 373–391. Massey, D. S. & Denton, N. A. (1993) American Apartheid and the Making of the Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe 613 Mingione, E. (1995) Labour market segmentation and informal work in Southern Europe, European and Urban Regional Studies, 2, pp. 121 –143. More˛n, R. (1998) City Template Barcelona. Report for MPMC-project (Paris: MOST-UNESCO). Musterd, S. & Ostendorf, W. (1998) Urban Segregation and the Welfare State: Inequality and Exclusion in Western Cities (London: Routledge). Musterd, S., Ostendorf, W. & Breebaart, M. (1998) Multi-Ethnic Metropolis: Patterns and Policies (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers). Musterd, S., Murie, A. & Kesteloot, M. (2006) Neighbourhoods of Poverty (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Pallida, S. (1998) Immigrati e citta’ postindustriale-globale: exclusione, criminalizzazione e inserimento, Urbanistica, 111, pp. 25–32. Pareja, M. & San Martı́n, I. (2000) The tenure imbalance in Spain: the need for social housing policy, Urban Studies, 39, pp. 283 –295. Peach, C. (1996) Good segregation, bad segregation, Planning Perspective, 11, pp. 379–398. Peach, C. (2002) Social geography: new religions and ethnoburbs—contrast with cultural geography, Progress in Human Geography, 26, pp. 252– 260. Petronoti, M. (1998) City Template Athens. Report for MPMC-project (Paris: MOST-UNESCO). Petsimeris, P. (1998) Urban decline and the new social and ethnic divisions in the core cities of the Italian industrial triangle, Urban Studies, 35, pp. 449– 465. Préteceille, E. (2004) L’évolution de la ségrégation sociale et des inégalités urbaines: le cas de la Métropole Parisienne, The Greek Review of Social Research, 113, pp. 105– 120. Ribas-Mateos, N. (2001) Revisiting migratory contexts: the Mediterranean caravanserai, in: R. King (Ed.) The Mediterranean Passage. Migration and New Cultural Encounters in Southern Europe (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press). Sargatal, A. (2001) Gentrificación e inmigración en los centros históricos: el caso del barrio del Raval en Barcelona, Scripta Nova, 94(66), pp. 25–47. Sassen, S. (1991) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton: Princeton University Press). SCP (2000) The Netherlands in a European Perspective. Social & Cultural Report 2000 (The Hague: Social and Cultural Planning Office). Simon, P. (2002) When de-segregation produces stigmatisation: ethnic minorities and urban policies in France, in: M. Martiniello & B. Piquard (Eds) Diversity in the City (Bilbao: University of Deusto). Tabakman, E. (2001) El Casc Antic de Barcelona: actuación urbanistica o ‘limpieza social’?, Scripta Nova, 94(66), pp. 53–78. Torner, M. F. & Gutierrez, M. G. (2001) Inmigracion y huecos en el centro histórico de Barcelona (1986–2000), Scripta Nova, 94(62), pp. 33 –52. Tosi, A. (2000) The Integration of Immigrants: Housing and Cities. Available at www.planum.net/topic/events- interviews.htm (accessed July 2003). Tosi, A. (2002) Housing arrangements. immigrant housing conditions and policies, in: Fondazione ISMU (Ed.) La Immigrazione Straniera nell’Area Milanese. Rapporto 2001: Sintesi (Milan: Franco Angeli). Tosi, A. & Lombardi, M. (1999) Spatial concentration and mobility in Milan, in: FLAD (Ed.) Metropolis International Workshop. Proceedings (Lisbon: FLAD). URBAN Audit (1998) Assessing the Quality of Life of Europe’s Cities. Available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/ regional_policy/urban2/urban Van Kempen, R. (2002) The academic formulations: explanations for the partitioned city, in: P. Marcuse & R. van Kempen (Eds) Of States and Cities. The Partitioning of Urban Space (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press). Van Kempen, R. (2005) Segregation and housing conditions of immigrants in Western European Cities, in: Y. Kazepov (Ed.) Cities of Europe. Changing Contexts, Local Arrangements, and the Challenge to Urban Cohesion (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing). White, P. (1999) Minority residential histories in the city: context, process and outcome, in: FLAD (Ed.) Metropolis International Workshop. Proceedings (Lisbon: FLAD).

Housing and Ethnic Residential Segregation in Southern Europe PDF

Document Details

Tags

Related

Summary

Full Transcript

Upgrade to continue