Scattered immigrant settlement – how can it succeed?
Høyre proposes that immigrants and refugees should be settled more widely. In Norway, we have better conditions and elsewhere to succeed.
One of the points presented in Høyre’s new integration strategy deals with the fact that refugees should not be settled in areas dense with immigrants.
Several proposals are proposed. One of these is to ensure that refugees are not settled in areas with a higher proportion of immigrants, even 25 percent. Another is to use urban planning actively to avoid the emergence of living conditions challenges.
In practice, it may end up with fewer immigrant-dense districts such as Stovner and Gamle Oslo. Is it possible that Oslo West will get more?
The measure of scattered immigrant settlement has not been on the agenda before in Norway. Integration and settlement patterns have occurred naturally. Often it happened by going to an asylum reception center and ending up in the nearby municipality. Jobs have often also been the deciding factor. An example of this is how the fishing factories attracted Tamil war refugees as filleting workers. Small municipalities like Båtsfjord became a “Little Jaffna” before the recession came, the parent generation had to leave the factory and enter new jobs, and the descendant generation took higher education in Oslo.
That potato
The settlement of immigrants is a political potato, and in many countries considered a controversial and difficult topic to address, due to miscalculations. The “immigrant-dense” suburbs of Stockholm, Amsterdam and Paris are often used as horror examples of how things can go wrong.
Should the state also decide where to settle? is a moment that skeptics of such instruments will bring into the discussion. If we go back to the time when Norwegians immigrated to North America/USA, the majority settled in northern states such as Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and cities such as Minneapolis, which had a climate similar to the Nordic one, and where there were already Norwegian relatives from before.
The latter are also relevant. People most often go to the places where they find people of the same background. Syrian war refugees most often sought Sweden and Germany due to the already large Syrian exile communities that existed. In Oslo, and especially Oslo East, non-Western immigrants usually have established networks. Finding like-minded people outside can be more difficult, but it can also mean good integration in the long term. The success story Vinje has for a long time welcomed Somalis, Syrians and Lithuanians
Good conditions
In Norway, we have good social conditions for a scattered refugee and immigrant population. Places like Vinje offer good growing conditions for families, and the path is easy for children in particular to have a natural integration process in small municipalities.
For Oslo, it is also about an already hard-pressed housing market getting a solution if more immigrants and refugees are settled in fringe municipalities. Another alternative is to spread the use of communal housing, as a form of “start hjelp” before the immigrants/refugees can eventually stand on their own two feet and continue their class journey in society.
In practical terms, Høyre proposes that it is IMDi that should be given the job of “spreading”. If it is appropriate, it can go well. Good jobs with educational relevance in the places where immigrants and refugees are to be settled are essential. This is how to avoid the ghettoification that has been experienced in Sweden, France and to some extent Denmark, with associated living conditions challenges. People should have good and livable conditions, and a salary you can live on. IMDi and other agencies that have to follow this up should be able to continue their efforts and results.
This way you will also be able to avoid the pitfalls found in such an ambitious venture.