Migration and Urban Transformations: Frankfurt in the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

This article investigates the intersections of urban transformations and migration in the 1960s and 1970s, in the case of Frankfurt am Main. The socio-political and spatial transformations of the city, which began in the course of the guest worker regime, will be examined through exploring the housing situation and the settlement pattern in the urban space. In order to do this, the practices and effects of the gradual long-term settlement of working migrants and the subsequent influx of their families will be presented in relation to the formation of urban foreigner and social policies as well as local migration debates. An examination of the chosen time period will enable a discussion of the meaning of urban conflicts about migration for the negotiation of the national immigration question, which took place from the 1960s and 1970s in the context of an effective immigration reality in the cities on the one hand, and the federal guidelines of a non-immigration country, on the other.