My Perfect City: Integration in Rotterdam

The Compass

Rotterdam is lauded for its policies on integrating immigrant populations into the city. What exactly has it got right?

The second biggest city in The Netherlands is like many port cities. Over the decades it has been a magnet for immigrant workers, whose descendants now number more than 50 percent of the population and tend to live in certain neighbourhoods.

Racial tensions brought the problem of integration to the top of the political agenda. Today, holistic approaches tackle education and employment, as well as quite radical policies on housing.

Fi Glover and panellists Professor Greg Clark, urbanist and global city adviser, and Liz Ogbu, social innovator and spatial justice activist, test the credentials of the Rotterdam desegregation model. Should it be added to the perfect city portfolio?

The team also consider Durban’s path to desegregation.