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The high number of asylum seekers who immigrated to Germany in 2015 and 2016 is supposed to be one of the key challenges for social cohesion in the years to come. While initially the most pressing tasks such as providing emergency shelters, housing supply and registration had to be managed, the long-term integration of recognised refugees is currently a major topic of discussion. The relocation of asylum seekers out of group accommodation into the housing market is said to be a central precondition for integration. Simultaneously, providing individual apartments for refugees has proven to be a tremendous challenge for many municipalities, especially in highly populated urban areas, since it puts additional pressure on tight housing markets. This competition for affordable housing can (further) evoke social tension in these regions. In this chapter, we will examine the local responses to these developments by comparing two case study areas in North Rhine-Westphalia. The selection of different local contexts provides a comparative insight into the structural conditions of integration processes in urban contexts of different sizes. We will explore different housing strategies for refugees in the large city of Cologne and in small and medium-sized towns in the district of Heinsberg. The chapter illustrates the difficulties of implementing these strategies and identifies several implementation gaps.

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