Elsevier

Cities

Volume 70, October 2017, Pages 1-10
Cities

Negotiating an Asiatown in Berlin: Ethnic diversity in urban planning

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.06.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • German urban planning law and administrative procedures are insufficiently prepared for culturally sensitive urban development.

  • The absence of a national policy on diversity prevents planning from incorporating diversity, pluralism or equity.

  • Within German metropolitan governance, a (re)thinking of migration and ethnic economies as assets for urban development can be observed.

  • A critical examination of all involved interests by municipal administrations and planning divisions may serve the new multicultural realities within European metropolises.

Abstract

Cities are increasingly affected by migration which raises new questions for urban development and planning. In the paper at hand, this issue is addressed from two perspectives: First, we stress the high social, representative as well as economic potential of ethnic economies and the emerging neighborhoods, showing that they serve migrant communities as well as urban development. Second, we bring in perspectives from the ‘planning for diversity’ and ‘multicultural planning’ discourses into the German debate. This paper takes the planning conflict on the development of the Dong Xuan Center (DXC), Germany's largest Vietnamese-run trade center, into an Asiatown as empirical basis. It examines legal implications for the German context and therewith contributes to the ‘planning for diversity’ discourse from a non-multicultural setting.

Introduction

While the consequences of immigration are often debated with reference to the national scale, cities and neighborhoods are the sites of lived experience, encounters and everyday negotiations of inter-cultural relations (Fincher and Iveson, 2008, Valentine, 2008). Ethnically diversifying urban societies raise several questions for urban planning and make difference a central category (Fincher & Iveson, 2008, p. 118 f.; Young, 2008). This goes along with a call for a local turn in migration studies (e.g. Glick Schiller & Çağlar, 2009). The paper at hand picks up the debate of diversity-oriented urban development and discusses it within the German context. It therewith addresses the tension between ‘planning for diversity’ based on equity and German planning principles in accordance with equal treatment. In doing so, the paper contributes to the current debate in urban planning studies, which is inspired by the multicultural principles of public recognition and accommodation of ethnocultural diversity (Banting & Kymlicka, 2006, p. 7). Based on this debate, we discuss controversies and dilemmas challenging the debate in Germany, where political debates, programs and the national integration plan is still in accordance with the principle of assimilation. However, a paradigm shift contests this concept suggesting a new concept of a ‘multicultural integration’, which is best to be characterized as Taft's ‘pluralistic assimilation’. In this concept, neither individuals nor ethnic groups are forced to give up their identity, values, social ties or loyalties (Pries, 2015, p. 10, 25; Taft, 1953, p. 47).

Although Germany has become a top destination for immigrants and refugees and a self-declared ‘country of immigration’ (BBMF, 2016, p. 9), German Chancellor Angela Merkel's declaration of the failure of multiculturalism in 2010 is still reflected in local planning approaches. Strict legal frameworks often limit the possibilities for a diversity-oriented urban development that recognizes diversity or actively engages with migrant communities.

The paper takes a planning conflict on the further development of the Dong Xuan Center (DXC), Germany's largest Vietnamese-run trade center, as a case study for arguing, firstly, that the rise of migrant-led urban development shows a need for culturally sensitive modes of governance and for a broader discourse on appropriate opportunities for equity-based urban planning and politics. Secondly, it illustrates that ethnic economies bear an important social as well as economic function, thereby serving both the migrant communities as well as urban development. Based on these arguments, the objective of the article is to contribute to the discourse on diversity in planning in countries with assimilationist integrations paradigms like Germany. This leads to the following research questions: Why is migrant-initiated urban development hardly recognized in urban planning? And what can we learn for diversity-sensitive urban planning from the presented case study?

The article theoretically rests upon the discursive link of planning and diversity and its implications for and inconsistency with German planning and integration debates (Section 2). In the third section, we outline Vietnamese migrant history in Germany and in Berlin. Section 4 contextualizes used methods and gives an overview of the empirical data and the involved guidelines and conflicting parties. In Section 5, we illustrate the planning conflict over DX GmbH's vision for developing the center into an Asiatown, which is in contrast with the legal framework. Section 6 discusses the local conflict based on the district's main arguments against the envisioned Asiatown. The conclusion sums up our arguments and widens the discussion towards the planning cultures and the theoretical basis of the discussed planning approaches.

Section snippets

Planning for diversity

Fed by scholars from several disciplines and policy networks, the ‘planning for diversity’ approach particularly addresses planning issues related to ethno-cultural diversity (Fainstein, 2005, Fincher and Iveson, 2008, Fincher et al., 2014, Sandercock, 1998, Sandercock, 2000, Zhuang, 2008). It proceeds from the assumption that “the effectiveness of urban planning is assessed by its responsiveness to citizens' needs and goals. Given that interests and preferences differ by social class, race,

Characterizing the Vietnamese Berlin

The Vietnamese population in Germany is highly heterogeneous in terms of immigration pathways, residence permit status and access to education and the labor market. They provide an illustrative case for the two migration systems of the formerly divided Germany that still influence the unequal spatial distribution of migrants over the country with a multiple societal share in the Western towards the Eastern federal states. This former East contract worker system and the former West German guest

Methods

In order to capture the full complexity of the dynamic planning conflict over the future development of the DXC, an exploratory, multi-method approach was chosen. As part of this approach, seven semi-structured, in-depth interviews and two semi-structured, in-depth group discussions and several informal conversations2

Planning in conflict: insights from the Dong Xuan Center

The DXC-site today comprises five main commercial halls and several converted outbuildings, which witness the site's industrial history in coal processing (Badel et al., 2009). Even after more than ten years of constant development, there is still plenty of space for the continuous expansion through new buildings. About two thirds (ca. 250–300) of the approximately 420 tenants are engaged in wholesale trade (Exp#1), offering fashion, grocery, jewelry, toys, gifts, household items and small

Discussion

Although the center's vision contradicts the LUP in different points, the DX GmbH and the municipality are working on a compromise in the form of a construction plan procedure. Within this negotiation, municipal stakeholders take up different positions and show varying degrees of flexibility in the application of planning guidelines. Due to the recognized economic and social functions of the center, the municipality favors an active dialogue with the DX GmbH for solving the current problems.

Conclusion

The previous discussion shows that German urban planning law and administrative procedures are insufficiently prepared for culturally sensitive urban development. Planning culture cannot be divided from politics and power (Mouffe, 2007) and is based on the overarching paradigm of ethno-cultural assimilation in Germany. The absence of a national policy on diversity prevents planning from incorporating diversity, pluralism or equity. As a result of neoliberal politics, the social norms of

Acknowledgements

This article was written with the practical input and advice of several colleagues. We want to express our gratitude to Lech Suwala for his support in the conceptual phase of the article. Thanks to Zhixi Cecilia Zhuang and to Stacy Harwood for comments from a planner's perspective on an earlier draft of the article. Thanks also to the ‘Prof. Dr. Julius Wagner und Frau Irmgard Stiftung für Geographie’ for funding the editing and to the journal editors for their great support. And finally, we

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