24 | 160 Saba Golchehr IS INTEGRATION AND EMPOWERMENT OF THE EXCLUDED NEEDED?
‘Democratic impatience focuses on ‘the lack of process’, and is a product of genuine concern as well as fear of crisis and disintegration. In the Netherlands it is expressed in a continuous, sometimes passionate debate on immigration and integration and related policies. The absence of a long-term vision can lead to disappointment, and exaggerated pessimism can create and atmosphere that negatively influences the process of integration’(Vermeulen and Penninx, 2000: p.3). The statement above describes how the process of integration is negatively influenced by the lack of a long-term vision in the Netherlands. Furthermore, in the problem statement I described the lack of considering the migrants in the process of the urban renewal planning of neighbourhoods with an ethnic concentration. In order to create a long term vision for the deprived neighbourhoods, the migrants need to be taken into consideration in the urban renewal planning of these areas. This new renewal planning system should aim for a progressive integration of the arriving and existing migrants in these neighbourhoods, so that a long-term vision for the process of integration can be developed in the Netherlands. So the aims of this project are: - to redefine the importance of the factor of migration in the urban renewal planning system on a national level; and - to define a planning framework in order to be able to receive and integrate new and existing migrants socially and spatially in (the development of) the neighbourhood by applying a new proposed method. The next chapter will describe the societal, scientific, ethical and studio relevance of this theme and project. Later in this thesis the approach and the methodology in order to reach these aims are handled.