Spaces of urban segregation and social inequality: city and migrations

Abstract

Cities can turn social inequality spaces due to the increasing migrations which suffer economical and institutional discrimination. The different coexisting lifestyles difficult the intercultural communication between immigrants and native population. The arrival to our countries of immigrants from several parts of the world is transforming the structure of both large and small cities. When immigrants become part of the social structure, new places, zones or neighbourhoods appear, due to basic needs to survive, with ghetto dynamics, transforming the public spaces and the spatial distribution of our cities. We face new and irreversible changes about territorial and social concentration and ethnical diversification which are creating a variation in the social and cultural composition, generating new social needs, communication and coexisting problems among people from different countries, encouraging urban segregation. We should not forget that the dominant spatial segregation has two sides: by one hand, the precarious economy of the immigrant population favour the occupation of degraded zones and external neighbourhoods where different migration groups find shelter; by the other hand, there exist a defensive cultural concentration in these zones as a kind of help and protection against a hostile society in which they feel refused. That urban structure changes, produced by trans-national migrations, will be the debate topic in this communication.