From Denmark to Spain, right here is the Europe of ghetto neighborhoods | EUROtoday

However, the contradictions and paradoxes of the laws don’t appear to significantly have an effect on Danish public opinion. Hence, in line with Bakkær Simonsen, the significance of the sentence: «If the Court determined that it was a violation of human rights and of the precept of anti-discrimination – he concludes – I consider that this may give a brand new perspective to those insurance policies, that are not questioned, no less than in conventional debate, however are accepted as vital or reputable.”

From France to Spain, the prevention of the “ghetto threat”

The debate on the topic is not exclusive to Denmark, with similar cases and policies being tested in the rest of Europe. The common denominator remains that of avoiding the creation of urban bubbles which are classified as ghettos on an ethnic, income or both basis. Already in 2022, the Swedish Immigration Minister, Anders Ygeman, had spoken out against areas populated by residents without “Nordic origins”, hypothesizing a 50% ceiling on the concentration of citizens of immigrant origin in the so-called “drawback areas”. In France, there has been discussion for years about policies to combat the excessive social (and ethnic) homogeneity of certain neighborhoods, a battle also embraced by the former Macron Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne with the proposal to relocate low-income families to richer neighborhoods. In Germany, in 2020, a request made by the radical right-wing force Alternative für Deutschland forced the authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia to publish a list of 44 “excessive threat” areas in the Land. Almost all of these were areas with a high density of immigrant residents, contributing to the ethnic classification that sparked protests from the EU Court of Justice.

Another case of interest comes from Spain. In 2024, 18.1% of the residents of the country led by socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will be born abroad, for a total of around 8.8 million people. Morocco, Colombia, Romania, Venezuela and Ecuador top the list of the most common countries of origin. These five countries alone represent almost three million people. However, their distribution in Spain is not uniform. Is Spain therefore a segregated country? There are only 25 cities – out of more than 8,000 in Spain – where immigrants represent half the population, according to 2023 data. In reality, almost all of them are in the province of Castellón, so they would be British and German. This would challenge many stereotypes.

«Ghettos? we should talk about segregation of the population”

When requested what a ghetto is, there isn’t a clear definition. Neither in Spain nor in different related instances which have emerged on a continental scale. “There is no absolute definition,” warns Jesús Fernández-Huertas, professor of Immigration Economics, Labor Economics and Development at Carlos III University. “In this case, we should talk more about segregation of the population,” provides Fernando Relinque, professor of social work and social providers at Pablo de Olavide University.

There are indicators to measure segregation, analyzing the focus of immigrant populations in sure neighborhoods or census sections in comparison with the remainder of the municipality. But to speak a couple of ghetto, in line with Relinque, we should additionally think about whether or not the world has particular socioeconomic traits that make it “more vulnerable than the rest”. “I wouldn’t dare give an absolute definition,” he insists.