Superdiversity und ageing city? The convergence of increasing multiethnicity and an ageing population

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Dagmar Haase; Professorin Dr. Ilse Helbrecht; Professorin Dr. Tobia Lakes
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 317094723

European societies are ageing societies and they are becoming more diverse every day. Especially cities and urban agglomerations are the societal and geographical focus of the processes of demographic, social and cultural change. While there is a large body of knowledge on either a) the demographic change or b) a growing superdiversity of European cities and urban agglomerations, research on the concurrent nature and complex overlap of both processes barely exists, particularly in terms of their spatial patterns. At the same time, existing and future impact of ageing and superdiverse households and their demands on housing and other urban infrastructure is one of the most pressing current research topics. The existing body of knowledge on individual perspectives of ageing on housing choice, individual interaction with urban space and urban infrastructure needs to be broadened by city-wide studies on superdiversity and by determining trends in housing and infrastructure in superdiverse urban areas for a more sustainable and citizen-centered planning. Exploring the combination of both, ageing and superdiversity, qualitative, individual analyses and thereof-based spatially explicit agent-based models (ABM) offer new access roads for analyzing the complex nexus between demographic change, cultural superdiversity and the resulting demands for housing and infrastructure in cities. Therefore, the goal of this research project is to explore the characteristics of superdiverse and ageing households in European cities and urban agglomerations in terms of their housing and infrastructure choices. We will explore the representation of these new types of multi-ethnic-origin ageing households in spatial patterns across city and develop qualitative scenarios for the near future. Methodically, we combine a set of qualitative and quantitative methods centred around a household survey on the one side and ABM on the other for the case study of Berlin. The findings of the project are of major importance in first of all exploring the nexus superdiversity and ageing in urban areas and secondly in combining and linking behaviour and space of superdiversity using ABM. We are convinced to open up a new research arena for analyzing socio-demographic and cultural processes in cities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants