ABSTRACT
The chapter starts with a close look at the Chicago school of sociology and how exploration of urban development fostered new methods and concepts related to integration and segregation. Then we maintain the historical perspective, but with an empirical emphasis on the European migration to North America in the years 1850–1920s (more or less), to discuss the forming of cities/states/society in a somewhat symmetrical way. This integrational symmetry is contrasted to current immigration discussion in European countries, in which asymmetry is established between state protection (boarder regulation) and immigrants ‘knocking the door’. Insiders and outsiders are created on basis of such policy, which is both related to various sources of social recognition and participation in the public sphere.
