Europe's new melting pot cities

The policy implications for building an urban future for Black communities in Europe are clear. Today, non-European peoples, from Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia are urban dwellers in nearly all the key cities and member states of the European Community. As cities jostle for a place in the competitive arenas of the new millennium major policy questions of social inclusion and integration will have to be answered.

How to ensure that changing land uses and economic activities assist rather than retard the contributions of Black communities to the urban economy, society and culture?

How to enhance their capacity to define, express and pursue their own interests in a competitive and often hostile policy making environment?

One cause for guarded optimism in what is otherwise a grim prospect comes from observing the evolution of multi-ethnic European cities. In London, Paris and Amsterdam, and from Oslo to Lisbon and Rome, local neighborhoods of Black and ethnic minority concentration are growing in number and importance. From the streets and popular organizations come increased demands for community empowerment, equality and equity. They are chroniclers of a new vision of self-reliant communities with a firm foothold in urban economies. Identifying and formulating the planning policies and priorities needed to bring this vision into focus is required.

• Introduction and context
• Capacity building for development
• Racial equality of opportunity
• Economic equity
• Britain and international exchange

On the darker side of this quest for wealth and civic affluence live Black and ethnic minority communities in isolated and deprived areas or quartiers en crise. Foreign born workers who helped build post war urban economies are powerless to influence change in their living conditions. Contradictions of wealth and impoverishment are startlingly clear in major cities.

In Paris, the enduring legacy of past President Mitterand, lies not in the politics, of social reconciliation but in monumental architecture such as the Louvre's pyramid of glass by I.M. Pei and the giant office complex, the Great Arch at La Defense. But, sweeping vistas of space and grandiose buildings contrast sharply with severe problems of poor housing and joblessness. Chief victims are vulnerable groups of Parisians. Among them are the denizens of congested older quarters, and low wage immigrant African, Afro Caribbean, North African residents of "insalubrious" slums, hostels and isolated public housing estates on the urban periphery, according to a study by Jacques Barou, a French planning consultant.

In London, spectacular "flagship" projects dominate the cityscape and riverbanks of the Thames. Tower Hamlets borough, an historically deprived haven for immigrants and refugees, now features the massively funded Docklands development: the Canary Wharf office project, the Docklands Light Railway, the Limehouse highway, and the Jubilee line extension to the mass transit London underground. But, say community planning activists, though Docklands attracts more than 70,000 daily commuters to work in area offices there are few neighborhood or service oriented projects for isolated low income residents and newcomers from Bangladesh, Viet-Nam and Somalia.

One Asian local borough councillor, Mrs. P. M. Uddin, summed up the widespread feeling when she told a workshop on cities, politics and accountability:

"Tower Hamlets provides a stark case study of what can happen when the needs of local people are subordinated to market forces. Today, we have about 3.8 million square feet of unused office space in Docklands, much of it speculatively built with the support of the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), a quasi governmental organization. At the same time, domestic overcrowding is the worst in London and unemployment is the second highest in the capital. The great majority of the jobs in Docklands have been of little or no benefit to the people of the Borough. Had local people been given a say in the redevelopment of the Docks, I am sure the story would have been very different." (Source: Papers of the Runnymede Trust conference The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, 23/24 September 1994, University of Reading).

In key cities in all parts of Europe the evidence of social exclusion mounts. Poverty trap ghettos of Afro-Caribbeans and Asians take shape in London's inner city boroughs. In Paris and Amsterdam immigrant peoples from the Mediterranean, Africa and the Caribbean are concentrated in old central areas and ill served public housing on the urban periphery, In Stuttgart, with all its productive wealth, a pall of economic blight and isolation hangs over one of the major Turkish neighborhoods.

The prognosis for the future is explosive. Politicians and city builders who aspire to leadership in the new market-led global economy ignore major problems of poverty and racism. Hard pressed city managers chase high tech, capital-intensive projects, but fail to introduce long term adequately funded renewal programs. Cuts in public sector spending initiated at central government levels have a knock-on effect that intensifies social polarization and hardship in vulnerable groups.

Dangerous Trends
These trends require political, economic and social analysis beyond the scope of this discussion. However, a recent tour of European cities reveals a dangerous pattern. Planners and policy makers brand districts of high Black and ethnic minority concentration as "problem areas" with "problem people" and apply makeshift poultices on serious urban deficiencies.

In London, government urban renewal policies affect social housing areas of black and ethnic minority residence. In Lisbon it is Africans and displaced settlers from the ex-colonies, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Angola and Mozambique. In Scandanavia, not often thought of in regard to immigrants, Malmo, Sweden and Oslo, Norway aim their efforts at newcomers from ex-Yugoslav, Italy, Greece, and Pakistan, Turkey, Vietnam, Somalia, Eritrea and central and South American countries, respectively. Projects in Bijlmermeeer, Amsterdam target the Surinamese and Antillean immigrants, as well as Ghanaians and other foreigners.

The renewal projects rely heavily on an aggressive mix of demolition, refurbishment and the insertion of new up-market housing and economic activities, with an occasional dash of urban art culture by landscape architects, urban designers and community workers. Typically, the projects are "one off" experiments that are failure-prone because of insecure financing, inadequate objectives and staff resources. They are often small-scale, short-term rescue actions to allay fears of social breakdown, to reclaim territory for development or pay off political patronage.

Few of the renewal and regeneration projects take into account the diversity of cultures and their potential contribution to enrich metropolitan life, political democracy and municipal administration. Evaluation and cross comparisons of projects are made difficult by confused, conflicting and inadequately stated objectives, as much as by differences in the size of areas and the scope of projects. In the end, there are questionable results: no major changes in joblessness and distress and no significant entry by Blacks and ethnic minorities into a leading role in renewal institutions and mainstream society.

Black communities, on the other hand, report increasing symptoms of social disorganization and increasing concentration of vulnerable groups. Indeed, ill conceived policies and strategies by remote bureaucracies and "we know best" technocrats simply worsen existing problems and increase ethnic tensions. There seems no alternative to slow stagnation and sporadic eruptions by frustrated and embittered youth.

Policy Implications
From all reports, Black communities are in European cities to stay. London, a cosmopolitan city since the heyday of the industrial revolution, heads the league table of melting pot cities of Europe. Growing concentrations of ethnic and racial groups occur in Paris, Berlin, and rapid increases are taking place in Rome and Madrid, on Europe's southern edges. Within 15 years one third of the 7 million people in the British capital will be minorities: among them more than a million Asian and black people. And in at least two London boroughs, Brent and Newham, ethnic minorities will become the undisputed majority.

The implications have widespread significance. On the one hand London's cultural and linguistic cosmopolitanism is a potent attraction. The city faces the new millennium with a large potential multicultural workforce and an immense range of ethnic shops and restaurants. There are whole food purveying and shopping centres like Soho's Chinatown and Southall's Indian markets, and the Notting Hill Carnival, a unique Afro-Caribbean contribution, attracts a million Londoners and tourists each year. Yet, there is the stark reality of continuing discrimination, unequal opportunities, and mounting racial attacks and violence.

Nevertheless, local neighborhoods of immigrants and ethnic minorities are flexing their muscles. Together with a new wave of hard headed realism among community workers and dedicated professionals they have raised the ante in the regeneration game. They herald a new vision of urban regeneration, vibrant multi-cultural diversity and self managing communities as a firm base for prosperous urban economies. In planning urban renewal for the future, major policy questions of social inclusion and integration will have to be answered.

In Britain, decades of fragmented, short term policies and projects have produced patchy and disputed results in large housing estates and obsolescent housing areas. Property development led by private investors and non-elected planning boards has heightened the stark contrast between fast track development areas and side tracked neighborhoods in today's "two speed" cities.

Empowerment of local groups is a necessary antidote to the present monopoly of external political and financial interests. So, "How can we get residents to have not just a say, but a do?" One answer is through a revived focus on community action. Citizen power organizations are incubators for community development corporations to achieve neighborhood revitalization. Lord Scarman's prophetic words in the wake of the 1981 Brixton disturbances remind us that: "A 'top down' approach to regeneration does not seem to have worked. Local communities must be fully and effectively involved in planning, in the provision of local services, and in the managing and financing of specific projects." (Source: The Brixton Disorders, 10-12 April 1981. Report of an inquiry by the Rt. Hon. The Lord Scarman. London: HMSO Cmnd. 8427 November 1981).

Another answer focuses on effectively building up the contributions of the community voluntary movement. Beneath the structured urban economy of developers and corporate conglomerates lies the less formal support networks that Black communities and voluntary groups have erected for themselves. They provide a rich mosaic of dedicated effort from young and older people, the employed and the unwaged that has not only a beneficial but also an economic impact.

They raise most of their own money with few paid staff. One hour of paid community work can attract up to fifteen hours of voluntary commitment. Not only are voluntary groups best placed to provide services at the local level, they generate an estimated half of all their funds themselves, thereby making them an extremely attractive and cost effective means of urban policy and program delivery at the local level.

Discrimination and exclusion are common experiences among many inner city Black and ethnic minorities, according to a report Poverty in Black and White by the Runnymede Trust and the Child Poverty Action Group. For urban regeneration to be relevant to them policies must be expressly targeted to ameliorate social and racial inequality in housing, education and employment practices. Reports from black community groups, and there may be more than a thousand of them in major cities, have raised serious concerns. One major grievance is exclusion from negotiations for funding under the Single Regeneration Budget, initiated under the Conservative Government, according to reports from SIA, the black voluntary sector support group.

Explicit race equality commitments should be introduced in all SRB funded projects, say chief officers of leading race equality organizations such as the Runnymede Trust and the Commission for Racial Equality. They insist that renewal authorities should be given a clear community remit, supported by adequate structures and monitoring procedures, to consult with and assess the needs of ethnic minorities and their voluntary organizations.

Scores of innovative community enterprise projects are in the field already ranging from community banking, credit unions, charities and voluntary service groups to legal tactics of direct action. There are projects for "jobs without bosses" and "health without doctors," as well as direct buying food coops, urban farms, community transport, and self build housing projects. Coming into prominence in recent years have been Black-led housing associations and tenant participation in revitalizing and managing their own housing and environs. New initiatives have also occured in minority business networks and local economic trading schemes.

These initiatives demonstrate that community economic development can move from rhetoric to reality and revitalize local economies in a changing global environment. A view confirmed by a growing number of researchers in the UK, USA, and the Third World. "The great shift we need to make in the UK in the next ten years is to see a transfer of assets to local communities and to make money work for them," says John Matthews of the British Association of Settlements' Urban Community Network; and he concludes "This means giving local people control over substantial capital and revenue and ending their dependency on grants."

Building upon these efforts will help Black communities to share more equally in area economic growth and enable the vital elements of cooperation and participation to take hold and flourish. There is a potential for a community enterprise agency, undertaking or sponsoring a comprehensive range of community regeneration initiatives, especially in areas of significant Black and ethnic minority concentration.

Some nations and municipalities have announced ambitious plans. Early in 1996, the French Prime Minister put forward a plan to boost 700 deprived areas with a subsidy of 15billion francs, making it one of the largest French state projects in history. Reports says that the riots and unrest in the suburbs and some of the worst slums of Paris and French cities were crucial factors in this decision.

In Brussels, Belgium's capital and seat of the European Community, fears of growing pockets of poverty and racial despair have stimulated negotiations for "integration and harmonious existence" with immigrant groups: Zaireans, North Africans and Turkish people. The goal is co-ordinated work with more than 150 immigrant associations in self run schemes in targeted communities.

New initiatives for national and trans-European collaboration are emerging. The task is not easy, however. International exchanges and co-operation on urban renewal policies among national and municipal officials is underdeveloped. Language and cultural differences are often held to blame, as are the differences in town planning rules and land use procedures. Major conflicts occur in shaping priorities for action and implementing urban policy for social integration. Nevertheless, informally, significant progress is reported among networks of non governmental organisations, concerned with minorities in Europe, including youth and women, minority policy, exclusion, protection, self organisation, multi-cultural society, and future urban strategies.

In conclusion, there is a trend of feeling, certainly in Britain, that community empowerment, equality and equity can make a difference in the city initiatives that consume billions of public resources. This potential for beneficial change can be tested by pilot projects in major funded project areas of Black concentration, like London's Angell Town, Brixton recipient of more than 30 million pounds, Lewisham's Milton Court Estate in Deptford granted more than 35 million, and the Peckham Five Estates awarded 60 million government funding.

Beyond these efforts, agendas for change in Europe's melting pot cities must be developed based on "visions of urban regeneration" in collaboration with Black communities. This would encourage sharing of new experiences and practical solutions at metropolitan, national and inter-European levels. Swift and positive action in this manner would be seen as an important contribution to the agreement among the world's nations that sustainable communities and an improved urban habitat are key goals for the millennium.