Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie

Prof. Ronald van Kempen at Think&Drink Colloquium

Think&Drink Colloquium Monday 23.11.2015 Prof. Ronald van Kempen, Universiteit Utrecht Inequality and Urban Diversity: Different Discourses or a Crucial Connection?
  • Wann 23.11.2015 von 18:00 bis 20:00
  • Wo Raum 002: Universitätsstraße 3b, 10117 Berlin
  • iCal

Monday, 23.11.2015

 

Prof. Ronald van Kempen, Universiteit Utrecht

 

Inequality and Urban Diversity: Different Discourses or a Crucial Connection?

Inequality and social polarisation have been high on the (urban) research agendas for a long time. They can be seen as crucial aspects in the debate of globalisation and global cities. Recently the attention for inequalityhas drastically increased, for a large part due to the publication (and translation) of Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. At the same time, and largely separated from the literature on income inequality, we can detect an increasing attention for the diversity of cities and neighbourhoods and for the lives people live there. This increased interest is partly a consequence of growing urban diversity in itself, for a large part as a consequence of inter­national (and partial national) migration, but is partly also due to the fact that diversity sometimes seems to come with problems, for example in the form of urban riots. In other cases, however, the (new?) diversity of urban areas is celebrated: the diverse, super-diverse or hyper-diverse cities and neigh­bourhoods are presented as places where people more or less happily live together. The research agendas on in equality and diversity are large and still expanding, but seem to be largely unconnected. To our opinion this is an unwanted situation. In this paper we will explore the ways in which this connection could be strengthened. To our opinion these connections are important, because ignoring the possibilities to combine research into inequality and urban diversity will lead to too general or even false conclusions and to policy failure.