Diversity as an Opportunity

Diversity as an Opportunity

When it comes to cosmopolitan urbanity all eyes are on the metropolises, the large cities. There are only a few examples that teach us anything about how small communities deal with issues of migration and integration. In order to understand the differences between a metropolis and smaller towns that have little diversity the authors interviewed mayors and administrations in eight small towns in the German federal state of Brandenburg. They state that only a mixed form of top-down and bottom-up activities promises a sustainable transformation of smaller cities.

Felicitas Hillmann and Olivia Rosenberger

All our thoughts about cosmopolitan urbanity have so far been oriented to what we know about large cities. We have few ideas about how the periphery or about how more rural spaces might benefit from migration. Large cities like London, Amsterdam and Berlin find it easy to attract even more people and thus even more diversity (and thus new ideas) because of their size and because of the mix of residents they already have.
The mayors of these metropolises are prominent advocates of more immigration, and this position puts them in the spotlight. They want their cities to grow – even at the expense of the peripheries. It’s only the exceptional cases – for example, in the case of the small southern Italian village of Riace – that teach us anything about how small communities on the periphery actually deal with issues of migration and integration. In 2009, the mayor of Riace, Domenico “Mimmo” Lucano, set up a radical alternative model of integration in order to revitalise his ageing and partially deserted village of 1,800 inhabitants. He settled migrants in abandoned houses, with the condition that they engage in local crafts and help bring about a transformation of the village. The idea developed in Riace of regenerating small towns with migrants proved to be of great interest everywhere, brought a great deal of “solidarity tourists” to the village and lead to Wim Wenders making a film about the experiment. Thousands of migrants participated in this model of rural integration. Mayor Lucano received a variety of top awards but at the same time became a pawn in a politicised controversy about this type of integration model. He was accused of misappropriating tax funds and overstepping his competencies, but after two years of proceedings was acquitted in June 2020 by the regional administrative court. Migration to the periphery obviously has a different level of significance regarding its transformation than we have experienced in migration-tested cities.
In order to understand the differences between a metropolis (Berlin) and smaller towns and villages on the periphery that have little diversity (e.g. the federal state of Brandenburg, not including Potsdam), we interviewed mayors and administrations in eight smaller towns in early 2020: Bernau, Eberswalde, Templin, Lübbenau, Perleberg, Prenzlau and Schwedt which each have between 12,500 and 40,000 inhabitants, and Frankfurt an der Oder, which is an independent city. How have they perceived the changes brought about by strong immigration in their cities and what have they done to shape the situation locally?
But first, a little background: In Brandenburg, at the beginning of the refugee migration the proportion of foreigners in the total population was still no more than 3 per cent in many municipalities, and few municipalities had any experience in dealing with foreigners. In many places, strong right-wing populist tendencies dominated, which manifested itself in the election of far-right parties such as the AfD and in aggression toward refugees and their places of accomodation. The peak of the “refugee crisis” in Brandenburg was in 2015/2016, and nothing shook up Brandenburg’s villages and towns more than this arrival of people from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries.
The asylum seekers who were allocated to Brandenburg via the Königstein Key – according to which reception capacities are determined for Germany’s federal states –initially arrived at one of four initial reception facilities in Brandenburg and were distributed from there to the small towns. In the towns we studied, the proportion of foreigners in the total population in 2019 averaged 4 to 7 per cent at most, and the number of refugees received in each of the districts was around 1500 people. Exactly how each municipality handled refugees, whether they were housed in town or outside, and at what point housing in private apartments was sought, was inconsistent. Our investigations revealed that over the past three years, an almost unmanageable patchwork of initiatives and projects has emerged.

As might be expected, the position of mayors during the refugee crisis was full of ambiguities. The attitudes of migration-related local governance described in academic literature about big cities, such as the selective overseeing of diversity and the organisation of mayors in interurban networks, were still absent on the periphery. Migration-related structures that already existed elsewhere were still emerging. We didn’t find mayors being described in the dazzling colours they were in the big cities, and yet their integrative function for the transformation of these areas was clearly evident. “Germans seem to want a father figure up there…” is how one of the mayors we interviewed put it. They all found themselves in a triad of overlapping awareness that involved town administrations, local populations and the recent arrivals. Several times we heard that a (male) mayor was perceived by refugees as the main point of contact, as “a mixture of Putin and an American sheriff”, because he was personally approachable. Both local administrations and resident populations were generally hopeful that the mayors would be able to deal with such a confusing situation. When asked how the town had changed as a result of the large influx of immigrants, most reacted with astonishment. Not much had changed; you now saw more people with migratory backgrounds, some neighbourhoods were characterised by more segregation, but there were no major changes in the sense of a structural transformation. Some towns were using vacant residential complexes for initial housing. In contrast, what was evident were the institutional changes initiated by migration and the process of opening up to the outside world as a whole. In retrospect, the mayors described their own (administrative) activities as “chaotic action on a day-to-day basis”. They saw themselves as the people who should be on the front line and they were aware of the mixed expectations much of society had. However, the mayors knew there were realistic limits to how they could communicate with local populations, as they were not really able to influence peoples’ feelings. During our interviews it became clear that the competencies of the mayors and their administrations were in many cases (initially) either non-existent or unclear. Again and again, they deliberately acted outside their areas of responsibility because they were confronted with situations that had to be solved locally – but for which there were no tried and tested administrative channels. For example, federal and state ministries or associations of cities and municipalities hardly ever offered mayors workshops or platforms for exchange and networking. And if they did, these platforms rarely functioned as places for honest exchange, but tended to instead serve as a way of presenting their own cities in a good light. Resourceful mayors therefore often simply copied models from other states. The financial support the federal government gave the municipalities was often considerably delayed, and the amount of funding was not necessarily clear. Nevertheless, new employees were hired almost everywhere – and the topic of “migration and integration” was used as a starting point for further considerations of regional development.
Some mayors speculated that they had an advantage over the mayors of Berlin’s individual districts because they had more room to manoeuvre and didn’t just have to “organize their administrations”. Being a small town allowed them to get “quick and effective help” up and running. There were a few towns where the mayors were able to draw on migrants’ ability to self-organise, and wherever there were colleges and other educational institutions, help was organised more easily. The willingness of the native population to help was often great as well: Many helped directly by donating clothes and offering courses in German. All of our interviewees felt that this local solidarity, which had arisen as a result of the migrants, was particularly positive. In many places, this new feeling of solidarity was the initial spark in a transformation of the periphery.

Suddenly a place of immigration

The mayors were all surprised by the arrival of the refugees. In many places, refugees arrived in the town for the first time and literally ran into the “old-established” part of the population. Several mayors felt their citizens had not been made aware of the fact that Germany had long since become a country of immigration, especially in the metropolitan areas and cities of western Germany. In the east, however, the feeling of being on the periphery was linked to a perceived distance to what was going on in more central areas.
Without exception, all the mayors agreed on the enormous role the participation of civil society in dealing with the crisis played. This gave them additional room for manoeuvre in dealing with unclear administrative competencies. It was possible to delegate some things. We were told that cooperation with the local population was also predominantly considered to be a part of conflict prevention. Some towns set up their own integration offices or a Willkommenskultur (welcoming culture) round table. Unlike in larger cities, the novelty for residents consisted of positive experiences, for example, in the form of unusual new food prepared by the newcomers. Neighbourhood festivals offered a first step toward transformation as low-threshold contact became possible. Communication with the refugees turned out to be difficult because interpreters were scarce – unlike in the big cities. For many, the experience of not being able to eventually keep the refugees from leaving the periphery, despite having invested in their arrival and education, was also frustrating. For the well-educated refugees in particular, the region’s structural weakness meant that it could offer few incentives, and they left the country for Berlin or western Germany. It also became apparent across the board that an unclear legal status made integration more difficult. Toleration and the stagnation that came with it often lead to both the refugees and those they were involved with developing a feeling of resignation. And there were reports of contradictory processes as well, i.e. in some cases training programs sponsored by one migratory agency were prohibited by another agency due to bureaucratic hurdles – even though both institutions belonged to the state of Brandenburg.
Today, several years after refugee migration peaked, the balance looks more positive in some places: In ten towns in Brandenburg, a “Diversity as an Opportunity” network has been set up by local governments, and a mixture of young employees has been recruited to positively address the issue of “diversity” and to network the previously fragmented (multi-)cultural landscape in Brandenburg with regard to labour market integration. Migrant-run restaurants can be found in many places. Specialized migration services have become established and act as bridge-builders between newcomers of all kinds and the local population, especially where there are no migrant-run organisations. Independent organisations often complained about the long distances they had to travel as well as the struggle to bring about change within the administrations. Lighthouse projects such as a planned European School in the Uckermark region have also benefited from this new momentum, which has helped counter the spiral of discontent among locals.

Dealing with right-wing populism and aggression

Gatherings of the extreme right and the AfD (Alternative for Germany) had taken place in many of the towns we interviewed people in. Again and again we heard the argument that at right-wing gatherings, parts of the cadres and the activists came from outside the region. It was reported that there was “a latent right-wing attitude in every community” and that this had “always been an issue”. But pessimistic views about cosmopolitan areas were also found among the mayors themselves: Berlin had simply “over-migrated” and that was why so many people were moving from Berlin to Brandenburg’s towns.
Most small-town citizens had led insular lives in terms of contact with migrants or even the concept of international migration. What’s more, social mass media sites like Facebook and Twitter were particularly good at “accelerating the fire” surrounding forced migration. Through them, a latent sense of the broad, pre-existing feelings of discontent and insecurity was amplified and redirected at the refugees. The arrival and presence of refugees was heavily discussed in the local press, any scandals tended to be highlighted and fake news was regularly spread. The mayors said that they were not always able to identify the spread of such fake news. The new, changed atmosphere caused by threatening emails and public hostility was perceived not only by the mayors themselves, but by almost all public figures. “There was a dam break,” said one of our interviewees. Existing conflicts were revived, and everyday-racism and exclusion were also present in a lot of companies, especially when the boss wasn’t looking.

Migration-related transformation

During the heyday of refugee migration to Brandenburg, mayors were first expected to act from the top down and exercise the authority necessary to immediately solve the problem. In reality, however, they often operated in a grey zone with regard to administrative regulations and acceptance by the local population. In contrast to what occurred in large cities, the mayors first had to build the appropriate structures for integrating the newcomers and increasing the participation of society at large. In addition, the carrying out of tasks concerning migration and integration often had to be initially financed with their own budgets – a major problem for municipalities that were already underfunded. This proved to be all the more disappointing when the refugees then moved on to bigger cities or asylum seekers were deported in the middle of job training. It was always important that educational institutions served as focal points for the work of civil society, because when society did not support the refugees, social media acted as an effective accelerator of xenophobic riots and contributed to the discursive devaluation of institutions.
One particularly important conclusion can be drawn from our discussions: In an acute moment of crisis, transformation in small cities can indeed be accomplished through the top-down actions of mayors. In the long term on the other hand, this depends more on the successful interaction of established institutional structures that involve both civil society and the refugees. Only a mixed form of top-down and bottom-up activities therefore promises a sustainable transformation of smaller cities. The forced migration of refugees is a good indicator of this slow process of change: Migration initially disrupts existing routines and either generates or intensifies existing conflicts in a particular area. However, the fact that a number of institutions have been established in Brandenburg to create diversity (albeit later than expected due to the corona pandemic) means that a social transformation is now also being initiated. Nonetheless, at the moment it seems that in many places homogeneous old institutions are still rather sceptical of young new arrivals. Now, or at the latest after the corona pandemic has been overcome, could be the time to take this creation of cosmopolitan urbanity further in the sense of open-mindedness and to use migration even more seriously as an incentive for regional development. For this to happen, however, municipalities need different concepts than those used before, and especially need those involving tailor-made approaches.

This article is based on the research project Migration, Diasporas and Cosmopolitan Urbanity in Smaller Cities in the UK and Germany and was supported by the Oxford-Berlin funding programme as part of the Berlin University Alliance at the TU Berlin, Institute of Urban and Regional Planning. I would like to thank Martin Holtrup, LBV Landesamt für Verkehr, for his help regarding the regional data.