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I'm married to an immigrant (from China) and I and America are lucky to have her. Plenty of her fellow Chinese immigrant friends as well. On the other hand, si

by miked 17y ago

I'm married to an immigrant (from China) and I and America are lucky to have her. Plenty of her fellow Chinese immigrant friends as well. On the other hand, since we're on the subject of Middle Eastern immigrants to Norway, here's something from Bruce Bawer, a gay American who moved to Norway to marry his partner: "Here in Oslo, a gay couple who were holding hands in the largely Muslim neighborhood of Grønland were physically assaulted by a man who told them: "This is a Muslim neighborhood." In a follow-up story, Dagbladet interviewed a local man, born in Pakistan but resident in Norway for ten years, who argues that "Grønland is a multicultural environment where there are many people who don't like homosexuals, so they shouldn't hold hands." He says such things are OK in west Oslo, where there are few Muslims, "but here in Grønland they shouldn't do it. Ideally, it should be forbidden to practice homosexuality in this area." http://memo.brucebawer.com/ http://memo.brucebawer.com/ What matters is the value system of those immigrants, and it keeps mattering regardless of how desperate the politically correct are for an external source of self-worth. (I'm not saying that's you. I am saying that it is a great many such people.)

delackner 17y ago
The problem you are describing is a result of ghetto-ization, both self-imposed (people like to live near their "fellows") and externally imposed (lack of a wide range of property values in an area leading naturally to income-segregation, with recent immigrants likely to end up stuck all together). If you solve the problem of income-segregation by somehow generating a city where rich and poor live side by side, then I think you go a long way to tackling the source of ghetto-formation, both for immigrants and the local poor. I have seen several cities where this has been achieved, though I have no idea why it occurs in one area and not another. I have a suspicion that it is tightly related to the density of development. A city with lots of skyscraper apartment blocks (both fancy and simple) can fit so many people in such a small area that even if the rich and poor live in different buildings, the buildings may be so close together that they share the same services (schools, hospitals, restaurants, etc). As a concrete example, I live a short 5 minute bicycle ride from a friend of mine. My 8 story apartment building has about 24 units, all of them relatively modest. My friend lives in a million dollar condo in a building with probably 30-40 units as well. This is in the very heart of the city.

by miked 17y ago

delackner 17y ago

The problem you are describing is a result of ghetto-ization, both self-imposed (people like to live near their "fellows") and externally imposed (lack of a wide range of property values in an area leading naturally to income-segregation, with recent immigrants likely to end up stuck all together). If you solve the problem of income-segregation by somehow generating a city where rich and poor live side by side, then I think you go a long way to tackling the source of ghetto-formation, both for immigrants and the local poor. I have seen several cities where this has been achieved, though I have no idea why it occurs in one area and not another. I have a suspicion that it is tightly related to the density of development. A city with lots of skyscraper apartment blocks (both fancy and simple) can fit so many people in such a small area that even if the rich and poor live in different buildings, the buildings may be so close together that they share the same services (schools, hospitals, restaurants, etc). As a concrete example, I live a short 5 minute bicycle ride from a friend of mine. My 8 story apartment building has about 24 units, all of them relatively modest. My friend lives in a million dollar condo in a building with probably 30-40 units as well. This is in the very heart of the city.