ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the relationship between space and community from a historical perspective. It focuses on collective housing during the guest worker migration regime (1955–1965) in the Netherlands. The literature on space and community denies the importance of employers and authorities, and ignores the effect of centralised housing on community formation. Employers created isolated islands of immigrants. The end of collective housing and the move towards private housing led to riots. This chapter seeks to explain why there were differences in housing and how this reshaped Dutch cities. It concludes that local housing opportunity structures in combination with government policies regarding family reunification were the key factor.
