Myth #7. Only Immigrants Still Live in European Public Housing

Abstract

In the fall of 2005, images of second-generation immigrants rioting in the tower blocks of the Paris region circulated around the world. While the marginalization of ethnic minorities is a serious problem in many European countries, the correlation of immigrants with public housing is rarely as clear-cut as in the suburbs of Paris. In Berlin, for example, the share of poor inhabitants with Turkish or North African ancestry is just about as high in nineteenth-century neighborhoods as in the public housing blocks of the 1960s – and in none do they constitute a majority. This chapter will focus on Germany, where public housing is far more accepted among a middle-class non-immigrant population than in the United States. In both countries, the state authorities have always retained a responsibility for housing, and on many occasions have renovated and upgraded their public housing estates.