Beyond Scales and Levels: How Cities Deal with Migration in Germany

With the arrival of large numbers of refugees from Syria and Ukraine to Germany, many German municipalities have signalled that they are experiencing difficulty integrating newcomers into their social infrastructure and stressed housing markets. Towns and cities have expressed that they feel abandoned by the federal government. This development points to a contradiction in migration governance: Whereas central governments are charged with admitting refugees and migrants, local administrations are left with the task of integrating them. Drawing on interviews with mayors and experts in the settlement sector in the state Brandenburg, Professor Felicitas Hillmann argued that this has led to political and policy entrepreneurship on the part of many local officials, and important changes in the role of cities within migration governance in Germany. While her focus is on Germany she also touched on comparable dynamics in Canada.

 

 

Professor Felicitas Hillmann is currently leading the networking project "Paradigm Shift" at the Institute for Urban and Regional Planning, Technical University Berlin. She is a trained geographer and an experienced interdisciplinary thinker. Her work focusses on international migration, urban transformation, and labour markets. She has published widely. Recent works include Cities, Migration, and Governance: Beyond Scales and Levels (co-edited with Michael Samers, Routledge, 2023).