Attempting to avoid the problems of Europe's immigrant suburbs

Immigrants do not want to be packed into the same areas

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By Jussi Pullinen
     
      The concentration of immigrants in specific residential areas could lead to increasing problems, if the development of these areas and the risks of marginalisation of immigrants are not speedily addressed.
      This is the conclusion to be drawn from the government's report on the assimilation of immigrants in Finland, now being processed by Parliament prior to amendments to the existing legislation.
     
"Things in Finland are still in the early stages, but the development could accelerate", believes Venla Bernelius, a project researcher at the University of Helsinki's Geography Department.
      The concentration of immigrants in certain suburbs is feared to be the cause for problems that have emerged elsewhere in Europe.
      A dispute in a Mälmö suburb over the closure of a club room for the local Islamic cultural association turned ugly in December and resulted in several nights of youth violence in the Swedish city.
     
In Finland the risks are smaller than in a good many other countries, argues another Helsinki University researcher, Katja Vilkama.
      "The reasons for this are the relative small size of rental housing areas in Finnish cities and the small number of immigrants who have moved here in the first place."
      Even so, in some areas the share of immigrants in the local population is already quite large. Many of them are from refugee backgrounds.
      For example in the Varissuo area of Turku, immigrants account for something like 30% of the population, and in Helsinki's Jakomäki the figure is approximately 20%.
      In some Espoo rental apartment blocks more than half of the residents can be of immigrant backgrounds.
     
There is no unequivocal sense of concentration by design.
      For instance in Helsinki as a whole, the concentration of nationalities in certain areas has been estimated to be on the decline.
      Nevertheless, there is an impact, and it is felt among the immigrant population as well.
      Nexhat Beqiri, who examined the wishes of the immigrant population vis-a-vis housing on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior, says that the process of integration with the mainstream Finnish population is materially hampered if one's neighbours are only other immigrants.
      In another recent study, some of the immigrants who were interviewed felt that the maintenance of their living environment and the intervention of the authorities in cases of illegal behaviour had become weaker in certain properties, as and when the number of immigrants had grown.
     
In everyday intercourse, relations between the newcomers and the natives had been tested to the point of friction by the use of common areas and even by complaints of the pungent smell of food and cooking.
      Nevertheless, these conflicts have declined over time, believes Mikko Luukkonen from the City of Helsinki's Housing Department.
     
Foreign studies have noted that the indigenous population begins to steer clear of areas when the share of immigrant groups exceeds around one-fifth of the total.
      Katja Vilkama acknowledges that even in Finland, there has been a drop-off in the willingness of people to move into certain areas.
      And when the native population ups and moves out, often it is more immigrants who move in.
      "Immigrants seek out these areas as it is the surest way of finding a place to live", says Mikko Luukkonen.
     
Nexhat Beqiri also emphasises that it is not the wish of the immigrants to be concentrated in individual suburbs.
      Yes, living close to one's friends and acquaintances is important to some, but hardly anyone wants to be surrounded only by other immigrants.
      In the view of Bernelius and Vilkama, the direction can be changed if the suburban immigrants could better find work, for then their dependence on council-owned rental apartments would automatically decline.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 11.1.2009

More on this subject:
 Dreams of a home of one's own in the rental blocks of Suvela

JUSSI PULLINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jussi.pullinen@hs.fi