The Bourgeois Statement

Generally, if you give German political figures enough time.....they get around to saying something pretty stupid or something to really make you mind ponder.

I noted today....that the now retired former mayor of Neukolln (a 'burb' of Berlin).....Heinz Buschkowsky....got around into an interview on N-TV.  The topic was the refugee crisis in Germany.

So the Buschkowsky stood there and said that the whole thing was screwed up and planned the wrong way.  The planners were allowing the immigrants and asylum seekers to be tied down in terms of housing arrangements and such.....into the cheapest areas of metropolitan areas.  In essence.....they allowing "ghettoization" to occur (his word, not mine).

Bushkowsky's quote to this was: "Refugees must be distributed to civic districts." and "One would have to allocate the asylum seekers or immigrants.....even in the bourgeois neighborhoods."

Bourgeois is not one of those words that I typically use or have a great knowledge in using.  The French invented the word and it was supposed to mean 'where the rich people live'.  Maybe two-hundred years ago.....it was a good definition.  Today?  In Germany?  I could drive you around Hessen and half the houses look like half-million-dollar houses.  Would I classify them as bourgeois?  Well....no.  It'd be hard for me to even say that Audi A4 was a bourgeois car.

Buschkowsky has a point.  Behind each one of the approved immigrants is this desire to live in a highly urbanized area......where jobs are plentiful and they anticipate that housing will be reasonable.  Frankly, jobs may be plentiful but they will generally pay minimum wage and it may take you six months to find a marginally acceptable house in major urban areas of Germany.   As you sit and watch these developments occur in the urban zones.....ghettoization is probably going to occur and city planners will sit there and shake their head over public perception and crime statistics.

Allocating into upscale neighborhoods?  It won't happen.  There simply aren't any housing developments that have reasonable rent elements in a highly upscale neighborhood.  Even if you tried to plan this.....I think most Germans would see through the fakeness of the plan and you'd end up with strictly middle-class residents.

Bushkowsky is this SPD retired political figure who does carry on a clever conversation and represents the old SPD of the 1970s and 1980s.  In some ways, he has a point.  But at this point, the whole plan has such miserable intent and poor orderliness attached to it.....that you can't do much to fix it or rebuild it.