From Asylum-Seeking To City-Making: Asylum-Seekers And Refugees In European Cities
Progress Report — April 2017
Between April 2011 and August 2016, over 1.15 million Syrian citizens alone applied for asylum in the European Union. In early 2017, La Fabrique de la Cité, the Paris-based think tank on urban transitions, launched “From Asylum-Seeking to City-Making: Asylum-Seekers and Refugees in European Cities”, a research project dedicated to the study of urban resilience to exogenous demographic shocks, through the specific example of post-September 2015 waves of displaced individuals seeking asylum in European cities.
The stress test born of the refugee crisis is an opportunity for cities, as first receivers, to draw lessons and observations from the practices they have put into place, and to produce international norms and standards on refugee integration. La Fabrique de la Cité has set out to examine existing initiatives in a selection of European cities, with a focus on urban morphology, social integration, and the role of cities in coordinating diverse stakeholders and encouraging innovation in the interest of refugee integration.
To this end, La Fabrique de la Cité has convened a working group of experts: academics, architects, urban planners, consultants, sustainable development and construction professionals, NGO leaders, … The group conducted a field visit to Hamburg on 2 February 2017, followed by a design thinking workshop held in Paris on 9 February 2017 and a hearing session with experts. On 10 March 2017, La Fabrique de la Cité met with The Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Luise Noring, who has worked extensively on the integration strategies deployed by German cities, and Marie-Therese Harnoncourt-Fuchs, founder and partner at the next ENTERprise, an Austrian architecture firm that conducted an innovative refugee housing experiment in office buildings in Vienna as part of the Austrian contribution to the 2016 Venice Biennale. Other field visits are to be conducted in the coming months in Stockholm and German or Dutch cities.
The final phase of this research project will involve the publication of a study in September 2017. Based on the working group’s reflections, field visits, and discussions with experts, the report will include case studies dedicated to Hamburg, Stockholm, and other European cities. It will highlight promising urban strategies for welcoming and integrating asylum-seekers and refugees, so as to draw lessons on what could be methodological and efficient strategies for improved urban resilience to demographic shocks.
