Sunday, December 18, 2011

The 2600, in the north of Antwerp, is one of the most often cited trouble neighbourhoods: A Moroccan-Turkish-African cluster that saw riots between Moroccan shopkeepers and drug dealers in August. But a few days inside the neighbourhood raises a set of questions: Are these just plain old immigrant neighbourhoods, like we know in North America? Or are they "parallel societies," with no interest in integration, as Germans and Belgians increasingly believe? - The 2600, in the north of Antwerp, is one of the most often cited trouble neighbourhoods: A Moroccan-Turkish-African cluster that saw riots between Moroccan shopkeepers and drug dealers in August. But a few days inside the neighbourhood raises a set of questions: Are these just plain old immigrant neighbourhoods, like we know in North America? Or are they "parallel societies," with no interest in integration, as Germans and Belgians increasingly believe? | JERRY LAMPEN for The Globe and Mail
ANATOMY OF A SLUM
Why Did Antwerp’s Immigrant Ghetto Get So Bad? - The Globe and Mail
DOUG SAUNDERS

Antwerp, Belgium— 
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 8:00AM EST

It is an early Saturday evening on Handelstraat, a busy and somewhat dishevelled boulevard in the north of this historic Belgian port city, its sidewalks lined with outdoor cafés and tea shops, fish restaurants, butchers and bakeries, all of them buzzing with customers. It's a typical European street scene, except that most of the people have olive-coloured skin, many women sport head scarves and the throaty sounds of Arabic and Turkish mix with brusque Flemish.

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