Epilogue: What’s the Matter with Rotterdam?

Abstract

What’s the matter with Rotterdam? This is a question I asked in a 2017 lecture (available to view at www.mmg.mpg.de), when trying to figure out how and why the city seems to disrupt common contemporary narratives concerning migration and cities. That is, social scientists since Simmel have postulated that cities are largely incubators of cosmopolitanism, or openness (if only indifference) to socio-cultural differences. It is often presumed that such openness goes together with an acceptance of ethnic diversity and immigration. Opinion polls and ethnographic research in cities usually bears out this presumption. Hence, it comes as surprising if not shocking to learn that in super-diverse Rotterdam – with over 50% of its population stemming from some 180 nations – the urban model of cosmopolitan incubator seems to fail. Authors in this collection have pointed to developments in Rotterdam by way of negative reactions to diversity, substantial voting for rightwing, anti-immigrant parties, and an ‘unhappy version’ of super-diversity in which the growth of a disapproving atmosphere has led to sharper ethnic boundaries, retreat into white enclaves, and low levels of white-ethnic minority social contact. Indeed, what’s the matter with Rotterdam?

Brokerage in urban networks on diversity and inclusion: The case of Rotterdam

“…According to academics and city officials alike, Rotterdam turned 'superdiverse' in the mid-2010s, when official statistics showed that more than half of its population were migrants or children of migrant parents. Some see Rotterdam today as a 'majority minority city', where 'no one is in the majority' (Crul et al, 2019;Vertovec, 2019). It is a city where the number of migrant groups has increased; groups themselves have diversified internally; and differences related to religion, gender, sexuality, and generation have further increased the complexities of urban diversity (Scholten et al, 2019).…”