(Previously I have mentioned "gated communities" in the USA, which is of course a much more extreme assertion of boundaries. In talking about Rotterdam, I didn't get my facts quite right yesterday though - apologies - the cutoff point for residence is actually said to be 20 percent above the minimum income level - here's a story from expatica.com).
Rotterdam to refuse poor migrants 1 December 2003 AMSTERDAM - Rotterdam City Council hopes to prevent underprivileged migrants from moving to the port city by refusing housing to anyone who does not earn at least 20 percent above the minimum income level. Rotterdam also plans to seek a temporary exemption from accepting asylum seeker residents. Rotterdam is concerned it will become the receptacle for the nation's underprivileged and the executive council unveiled on Monday a plan of action designed to improve the city's social climate, NOS reported. The term underprivileged is often used to describe poor migrants and research has indicated that almost half of all immigrants in Rotterdam originate from other municipalities. The Rotterdam Council asserts that these people are often not integrated and strongly require government support. Therefore, the council also intends to prevent jobless people from moving to Rotterdam and make it more difficult for residents to bring to the city a migrant partner from their land of origin. The action plan aims to create a better spread of migrants across Rotterdam. "The reason is that we want to bring old neighbourhoods in the city back into balance. Colour is not important. This is to do with neighbourhoods in balance and a city in balance," Mayor Ivo Opstelten said." Source: http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=1&story_id=274 8 In justifying his decision to endorse the new policy, Rotterdam christian democrat councillor Sjaak van der Tak noted in talking to the Volkskrant newspaper that the Council statistics bureau had calculated that, if present trends continue, in 14 years time, Rotterdam would have about 100,000 more people who fall in the category "kansarm" (chanceless, without opportunities). Most of these people would congregate in poor neighbourhoods, or form new poor neighbourhoods. The spectre of Baltimore haunted him - he had gone there at the end of the 1990s, as Rotterdam alderman in charge of public safety. "There they permitted problems to grow worse and concentrate. The population reduced in a few years, from 700,000 to 380,000. When welfare officers went home after work, the police took over guarding their offices. Barbed wire went up around the enterprise. A flourishing trade in firearms occurred. And all the poorest groups concentrated in the same neighbourhoods." Source: http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/1070308163185.html In parliament, Agnes Kant MP of the Socialist Party considered (1 December 2003) it was "incomprehensible" that the Rotterdam city council wanted to tackle internal migration, family formation and illegality yet also adopt measures which boil down to making Rotterdam a city for the wealthy. "It's good that Rotterdam takes the problems seriously, but the solutions offered aren't consistent with the analysis made. Everybody with low incomes carries the consequences of the policy, and nobody wants to talk anymore about poor immigrants without opportunities." Kant said, that the Socialist Party had for a very long time been promoting an active spreading and integration policy, and had been opposed to the apartheid syndrome (the formation of separate black and white neighbourhoods). But she said, now the council had decided to target specifically people without work, or who have to live at a social minimum on a benefit, while the discussion previously really was about how you could distribute and spread the housing arrangements of poor migrants more evenly across town. She rejected what she called the universal "120% norm". She said, this would necessarily disadvantage pensioners and college graduates as well, if they want to rent a place in Rotterdam. Source: http://www.sp.nl/db/nieuws/kamernieuwspage.html/2079 People say we got it made, Don't they know we're so afraid, Isolation - We're afraid to be alone, Everybody's got to have a home, I - Isolation. Just a boy and a little girl, Tryin' t' change the whole wide world, I - Isolation - The world is just a little town, Everybody tryin' to put us down, I - I - Isolation - I don't expect you to understand, After you've caused so much pain, But then again, you're not to blame, You're just a human, a victim of the insane. We're afraid of everyone, Afraid of the sun, I - I - Isolation - The sun will never disappear, But the world may not have many years, I - I - Isolation! Source: http://www.lyricsdepot.com/john-lennon/isolation.html
