Abstract. In public discourse, issues of migration and
immigration were for a long time perceived “only” as an integration
problem. Nevertheless, a potential-oriented view of migration has been
postulated recently and also implemented in practice. Thus, especially in
large cities, various political programmes have been adopted that aim at
commodifying the potential of migrant economies for urban development. This
potential-oriented perspective is, however, decidedly “pre-post-migrant”,
since it requires some kind of distinctive concept of the “migrant” in
general and migrant economies in particular. Based on a project examining
the importance of migrant economies for urban development in smaller cities,
this article discusses the topic as an issue of research and local politics
in a post-migrant perspective. Finally, uncertainties on how to deal with
migrant economies also arise from the field itself and various challenges
remain for a post-migrant “production of urban space”.