This paper draws attention to the socio-spatial diversity of immigrant groups in Athens by investigating their changing hierarchical position in both society and space. The varying demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the immigrant population generate hierarchies of immigrant groups, which are reflected in intricate ways in the residential distribution of immigrants in the metropolitan area. Diversity seems to be interconnected with hierarchically unequal social positions, and these positions are in turn interconnected with the transformation of the spatial hierarchy in the Greek capital. This hierarchical diversity is expressed by a spatial typology of immigrants’ locations in Athens. The paper ultimately explores how this typology tends to alter the urban social ecology (in terms of socio-ethnic composition of distinct spatial clusters) and the urban structural dynamics (in terms of interactions between different ethnic and social groups) in an increasingly unequal city.

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In the last few years local anti-immigration actions in the Greek capital seemed to deepen the wider racist discourse against immigrants. Collective racist actions were embedded in specific narratives about place and inequality. In this article, after a brief discussion of the socio-spatial transformations in the residential area of the Athens city-centre, we apply framing analysis in order to explore the strategic linkages between the rejection of immigrants and urban inequalities. We find that the localization of racism is framed in general visions about inequalities. Racial and social dimensions of inequalities are mixed and used in various, complex and interconnected ways. For these inequalities to be strategically used, the city space as a contested spatio-temporal entity is also involved.

This paper is about ethnic residential segregation and its relationship with social exclusion in the metropolitan region of Athens. Both exclusion and segregation may be either unplanned outcomes of market processes or intended products of specific policies. Drawing on work presented elsewhere and census data, I argue that the spatial pattern of immigrants’ social exclusion in Athens is not so much about different socio-ethnic groups residing apart from each other, but to a larger extent about people of different ethnic background and living conditions living in close proximity. Looking at the treatment of specific immigrant groups by state authorities, one discovers policies of purposed spatial isolation in marginal environments of closure, where ethnic difference is transformed to severe exclusion.

This chapter describes housing estates in Athens, Greece in terms of their number, the periods in which they were produced, the public agencies involved in their production, the profile of their beneficiaries and the changes they have undergone since they were produced. It also provides a map of housing estates in the Athens Metropolitan Region depicting their various spatial patterns. Housing estates are a rather exceptional form of social housing in Athens. The fact that rented social housing has never been developed in Greece has limited housing estates not only in terms of their number but also in their social function. Thus, housing estates in Athens have never formed a sector of the housing stock serving the needs of the most vulnerable population groups. Instead, housing estates followed the dominant trend of the local housing provision system-i.e. the promotion of socially diffused homeownership-but played a relatively minor role in the whole process.