Social mix revisited: within- and across-neighborhood ties between ethnic minorities of differing socioeconomic backgrounds

ABSTRACT

Creating social mix in neighborhoods has been an important urban policy during the past years. The aim is the development of category-crossing ties between the middle and lower classes. However, studies found little evidence of such ties. This paper identifies two reasons why this might be the case. First, studies usually analyze the resource flow from native middle classes to disadvantaged residents. Second, the resource flow is analyzed within one neighborhood only. Based on interviews and network analysis with second generation, upwardly mobile Turkish-Germans in Berlin, I show that they act as cultural and language brokers, benefiting lower class co-ethnics. They provide exactly the information and resources to people with a lower class background that are envisioned by social mixing programs. Moreover, the resource flow occurs within but also across neighborhoods, whereby ‘second neighborhoods’ such as the previous neighborhood or the neighborhood where the workplace is located are particularly important.

KEYWORDS:

• Social mix
• networks
• resource transfer
• ethnic minorities
• upward mobility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. For lack of a better term, I use ‘native’ to refer to those members of the (German) society who have been born in the country to parents who both have been born in the country as well.

2. The term “co-ethnics” is used in an objective way, indicating that people have the same ethnic background; it is not supposed to signal a notion of community.

3. The term ‚Turkish-Germans’ was proposed by a respondent, and I prefer it to the official but much contested term used in Germany, “people with migration background”. Due to reasons of readability, I will in the following refer to “Turkish-Germans”, with which I do not intend to generalize to all Turkish-Germans, but only the respondents.

4. http://www.staedtebaufoerderung.info/StBauF/DE/SozialeStadt/soziale__stadt__node.html (own translation).

5. The names have been changed in order to ensure the anonymity of the respondents.

6. However, having a Turkish background does not preclude the possibility of having the German citizenship. It only indicates that at least one parent or grandparent has been born in Turkey.