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Migration-related diversity manifests itself primarily in cities. Cities are usually the primary points of entry for new migrants and often the first places where integration in society starts. Many cities have experienced centuries of immigration and consider migration as a core element of their identity (such as New York and Amsterdam). In an increasing number of Western European cities, even more than half of the population has a migration background. These cities are referred to as ‘majority-minority’ cities. In Europe, this is already true for cities like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels or Malmö and substantial parts of greater London, Frankfurt or Paris. Of the children under the age of fifteen in Amsterdam and Rotterdam only one third is still of Dutch descent (Crul 2016).

This chapter analyses the major trends in Rotterdam’s migration history in three periods: the early-modern period (1600–1800), the era in which the Working Class Port City was created (1850–1940), and the post-war period until the 1980s. Rotterdam’s pre-industrial history convincingly reveals a multi-ethnic and religious diverse society. Small foreign minorities could have a significant influence on Rotterdam’s cultural, political and economic development. Even strong national identities did not restrict a strong sense of local attachment. The port city of the nineteenth century was less diverse, considering the smaller number of foreign migrants that settled in the city. The migration narrative of the port city in this period is inexorably linked to that of the working city. This narrative became highly popular in the post-war reconstruction period. The offspring of Rotterdam’s nineteenth century rural-urban migrants had rebuilt the city after the fatal German bombardment in May 1940 and had been responsible for its successful post-war industrial port development. The arrival of non-Western migrants in the 1960s and 1970s challenged Rotterdam’s nineteenth century popularised migration narrative. Policy-makers have suggested that this post-war migration process is fundamentally different from older migration patterns. In general, we tend to be too pessimistic about the post war integration and too optimistic about patterns of integration in the past, particularly during the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding the fact that by then the large majority of the migrants were Dutch, marginalisation and exclusion took place on a larger scale than realised. Our long-term perspective hopes to contribute to link earlier migration narratives to Rotterdam’s recent superdiversity.

The children of immigrants, the second and the third generations, are inheriting the city of Rotterdam. They make up about two thirds of the Rotterdam population of the future. As a result, what is the future of Rotterdam? We will show that the most prominent trend within the second generation is polarization. The group that was able to move up into the lower and upper middle-class is equally large – or for some ethnic groups even larger – as the group in the working class. An intersectional approach in which generation, socio-economic position and ethnicity all play a role seems to be much more appropriate than an approach looking at ethnic groups alone. It is exactly the increased diversity within ethnic groups that underscores the concept of superdiversity for cities like Rotterdam.

In this contribution, we draw on the unusual but interesting comparison between ‘immigrants’ and ‘expats’, with the aim of scrutinizing identity construction and the tensions between stigma and identity of choice against the background of the (reluctant) superdiverse city of Rotterdam. We focus on two types of socioeconomically successful migrants which, despite their similarities in class position, are generally regarded as rather different. First, middle-class migrants and members of the second generation from ‘classic’ migration groups in the Netherlands (with roots in Surinam, Turkey and Morocco, including descendants of former guest workers). Second, expatriates or knowledge workers of various national backgrounds (including American, English, Indian, Chinese) who came to the Netherlands on a temporary basis because of their highly-skilled jobs (or the jobs of their partners, as we also included trailing spouses). We address the questions of how these migrants perceive themselves, how they think that others perceive them, and how discrepancies between these two affect their feelings of belonging in the city of Rotterdam and the Netherlands. Our findings suggest that while both ‘immigrants’ and ‘expatriates’ combine various identities, immigrants have more difficulty to adopt alternative identities (such as ‘cosmopolitan’) than expatriates because of their dominant label as ‘allochtoon’ (non-native Dutch).

The focus in this chapter is on the local politics of Rotterdam and especially the local political turnover of power in 2002. Up until that year, during the time Rotterdam changed into a superdiverse city, the Labour Party had always been the largest political party in Rotterdam. In 2002 however, a new party won the elections with almost 37% of the votes. This victory is strongly associated with Pim Fortuyn, the party’s leader. Fortuyn, who by many was considered a populist, applied a fierce anti-establishment attitude and had been known for, among other things, critique on integration policy and the Islam. In this chapter, attention is given to the policy and political debate regarding immigration and integration before, during, and after this change of power. From an international perspective, this case sheds light on the question whether and how a populist/anti-establishment party can succeed to not only win elections, but to implement policy. Liveable Rotterdam was part of Rotterdam government from 2002 to 2006 (and became part of it again in 2014).

Rotterdam is commonly characterised as pioneering in immigrant integration governance, often functioning as a predecessor for national and local policies in other cities. Before the first national integration policies were drafted in the Netherlands, Rotterdam already developed integration policies to deal with the interethnic tensions in the ‘’-neighbourhood. Also more recently Rotterdam’s policies were marked as pioneering, setting an example for other national and local policies. The best known example is the national law ‘, also known as the Rotterdam Act. This national law was developed in Rotterdam and offers large cities the discretion to develop measures for specific urban problems in their city. Ethnic segregation and inequalities were the main underlying reason for Rotterdam to develop this policy. A local motto – ‘deeds, not words’ (in Dutch ‘’) – expresses the hands-on attitude for which the city and its citizens are known. This maxim is reflected in the city’s integration policies as well.

For some time now, Rotterdam has actively portrayed itself as a policy laboratory. This laboratorial rhetoric, as one could call it, has prevailed in the fields of housing, urban problems and welfare provision, and most recently it has also emerged in the context of Rotterdam as a ‘smart city’. The latter is nothing special, as technological applications to urban problems are full of ‘urban labs’, of experimentation and of what Halpern et al. (2013) have called ‘test-bed urbanism’. However, in the context of urban and social policies in a very general sense, it is less common today. To understand the development of governing diversity in Rotterdam, it is pertinent to scrutinize the character and historical roots of Rotterdam’s laboratorial logic.

Various authors have described the Netherlands as a ‘reluctant country of immigration’. Although the Netherlands was de facto an immigration country, until recently it seemed unwilling to admit it (Cornelius et al. 2004; Muus 2004; Van Meeteren et al. 2013). Similarly, with 174 different nationalities in the city, Rotterdam is characterised by ‘superdiversity’ (Vertovec 2007). But unlike cities such as London or Amsterdam who celebrate their diverse populations, Rotterdam is rather reluctant to do so. Rotterdam local politics and local policies seldom welcome ethnic and cultural diversity in the city. They rather underline the problems related to the presence of migrants and their families, particularly when they live concentrated in certain Rotterdam districts. This reluctance is also apparent in the reaction of Rotterdam authorities to the arrival and settlement of new migrants from Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the EU-enlargement in 2004, the central topic of this chapter. Although statistics about the size of Central and Eastern European (further CEE) migrants and how many families actually live in the city are contested, Rotterdam authorities estimated their numbers to be up to 50,000 (Municipality Rotterdam 2015).

This chapter compares the migrant situation in Rotterdam, second city of the Netherlands, with that in Amsterdam, the country’s largest city and capital. Roughly half of the population of either city has an immigrant background, but considerable differences exist in the nature of these migrant populations. Particularly striking is that Amsterdam’s immigrant population is much more highly skilled than Rotterdam’s. This is also the case for the native populations of both cities. A clear relationship exists between this fact and the strong differences in the economic structures of the two cities. Amsterdam is a typical ‘global city’ with a large service sector that employs professionals from all over the world, while Rotterdam is best characterised as a post-industrial city, where low-skilled workers of native and immigrant origin compete with one another. This difference is reflected in the cultural and political life of the two cities and also in their diversity policies.

In the past 40 years, researchers into migration and integration have focussed almost exclusively on migrants and their children. This one-sided focus has persisted, even though it is generally acknowledged that integration is a two-way process in which not only migrants, but also the established population play an important role (see, for example, Garces-Mascareňas and Penninx 2016; Martinovic 2013). Amsterdam and Rotterdam have both become majority-minority cities where now all ethnic population groups – including that of Dutch descent – form a numerical minority. This new reality makes it even more urgent to examine the group without a migration background. In cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam, only one out of three young people under the age of 15 are of Dutch descent (Crul 2016). The transformation of the former majority group to a numerical minority group may well be one of the most significant urban transformations of our time. The current backlash against migrants and refugees has made it clear that the integration of people of Dutch descent into today’s superdiverse majority-minority neighbourhoods and cities is a topic that begs attention.