// INTERNATIONAL INHABITANTS Anna Schlarb, Elizaveta Misyuryaeva
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In the last decade several changes have caused Germany to rethink the migration organisation. The introduction of the law for general free movement of citizens of the European Union within and in between the EU countries and the distribution of refugees according to the current Königsstein key are two of the most important factors. Cities have been put into the position to improve their integration institutions and give migrants the chance to assimilate and at the same time enrich the urban life with new perspectives. The main questions for this mapping task where the following: What kind of cultural and ethnographical mix do the cities Hannover and Halle have? How is the spatial distribution of people with a migration background? And what kind of places play an important role of integration, encounter and cultural exchange? When talking about integration, it is important to distinguish two types: the facilitation of partaking and the further cultural exchange. This distinction is crucial when trying to understand the goals of those places mentioned above and where others dock onto and take the integration a step further. In the mappings we considered statistical brochures published by the cities, official cultural exchange websites devoted to migration and location entries on Google Maps and others which are easily accessed by any new resident. HANNOVER In Hannover the question of migration is especially relevant since citizens have chosen a mayor with Turkish roots in the end of 2019 and the Local integration plan (LIP, since 2008) is in the process of being discussed and edited, due to the increased
migration. The LIP names goals, action suggestions and measures to provide a better integration of people with a migration background, in regard to the facilitation of partaking. Since the LIP was published, the percentage of people with foreign roots has risen from 23,9% (2007) to 31,8% (2019). The top five nationalities are Turkish, Polish, Russian, Syrian and Greek (Fig. 1), though the most spoken languages after German are Turkish and Arabic, beating Polish, Persian, English by quite a big number. Data shows Hannover’s west has had a higher percentage of migrants since 2007 – Linden-Süd, Hainholz, Mühlenberg and Vahrenheide being the most saturated. The spatial distribution remained persistent for the next decade. Linden’s growth is similar to Hannover’s total, but the last ones were growing much faster, especially Mühlenberg which developed a staggering difference of 20% (total of 68%) since 2007. An analysis of the most spoken languages after German hints on big Arabic speaking diaspora in that district, which was included in the national development program ‘Stadtteile mit besonderem Entwicklungsbedarf – die Soziale Stadt’ in 2014. Most of the important places of integration and (spontanous) encounter are located in the city centre and nearby Georgengarten park, the streets with a high density of international shops and other businesses etc. Special encounter places which take the integration a step further are for example the popular cultural centre Faust. It includes several projects that integrate music and other events with cultural exchange. Another interesting institution is the youth theatre GET2gether in
