UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM
Little Tokyo in suburban
Amsterdam
An analysis on residential clustering of Japanese migrants in
Amstelveen
Vincent Buurma 10752951 1/15/2018
Little Tokyo in Suburban Amsterdam
An analysis on residential clustering of Japanese migrants in Amstelveen
Vincent Buurma 10752951
Bachelor thesis
Course code: 734301500Y
Bachelor Human Geography and Urban Planning (Sociale Geografie en Planologie) College Social Sciences
University of Amsterdam
Assignment date: January 15th, 2018
Supervisor & second reader: Dr. Dennis Arnold & Dhr. M.A. Verzijl, MSc. Words: 17.500
Preface
This thesis marks the end of my bachelor’s degree in Human Geography & Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam. The conducted research involves multiple fields of study; Geography, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics and Urban Planning. It is therefore very representative for the bachelor. The multidisciplinary character of Human Geography & Urban Planning has always been one of the things I enjoyed most of this major. Because multiple interesting fields of study are combined within one.
My interest for Japan started in my exchange semester in Asia, when I also visited Japan. Japan is in my opinion one of the most fascinating and mysterious countries in the world. I find it therefore very interesting that so many Japanese people live in the town I grew up in, Amstelveen. In my personal opinion are Amstelveen and Tokyo or Osaka two worlds apart. Perhaps Japanese people view this differently. Or perhaps there are other reasons why they live in Amstelveen. This will all be discussed in this thesis.
I want to thank my supervisor Dennis Arnold for his guidance during the past five months. He always had a positive attitude towards the project, which has kept me motivated to continue. I would also like to thank all the interview respondents for their time and effort, since I would not have been able to complete my research without them.
I hope you will enjoy reading the thesis,
Vincent Buurma
Abstract
The settlement of Japanese companies in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area in the last 30 years has been accompanied by a large settlement of Japanese migrants. Around 2000 migrants live in Amstelveen, another 1500 Japanese expatriates live next to Amstelveen, in Buitenveldert. While there are other European cities with large amounts of Japanese expatriates, the Amstelveen case is quite unique. Since apart from
Dortmund, Japanese people do not cluster together in other European cities. Therefore, it is interesting to look into the factors that have driven this ethnic clustering.
The research is subdivided into three main sections. First, the spatial attributes of Amstelveen have been analysed. Thereafter, the residential preferences of Japanese migrants have been investigated. At last, residential constraints have been investigated because they can interfere with residential preferences of migrants. To answer the main question, there has been made use of interviews with experts and stakeholders,
combined with the analysis of secondary data such as documents and statistics.
Historically, Amstelveen mostly appealed to traditional household families. They often chose for Amstelveen because of the proximity to Japanese companies, because of the presence of different services and because of the safe and modern characteristics of Amstelveen. Moreover several institutions such as national governments, the municipality, Japanese companies and real estate agencies have largely contributed to the clustering of Japanese migrants in Amstelveen.
There seems to be a shift going on within the type of households who migrate to Amstelveen, they are often younger, single and have different lifestyles and preferences than traditional households. This could oppose challenges to the existence of the Japanese community, since the presence of a Japanese community is not solely a prerequisite that all Japanese migrants want to move to Amstelveen. It is therefore advised to conduct more research on the preferences of Japanese people who chose not to reside in Amstelveen.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ... 5 2 Theoretical framework ... 8 2.1 Ethnic enclaves ... 8 2.2 Migration ... 11 2.3 Residential choice ... 12 3 Methodology ... 20 3.1 Research questions ... 20 3.2 Research description ... 21 3.3 Research analysis ... 22 3.4 Conceptual model ... 30 4. Analysis ... 31 4.1 Spatial attributes ... 31 4.2 Residential preferences ... 36 4.3 Sociocultural preferences ... 46 4.4 Residential constraints ... 525. Conclusion & discussion ... 58
5.1 Conclusion ... 58
5.2 Recommendation and discussion ... 60
1. Introduction
Richard, the local fish stall owner in the Dutch village of Amstelveen, speaks Japanese most of the time. He also has a different assortment than most Dutch fish stalls, especially for his East-Asian clientele. Right next to the fish stall, people can buy Japanese anime magazines and right across the stall there is a barber shop, specialising in the latest Japanese fashion. The description of this shopping mall is very representative for one in Amstelveen, an upper-class residential Amsterdam suburb. At the moment, around 2000 Japanese migrants live in Amstelveen (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). Moreover, another 1500 Japanese people live next to Amstelveen, in the Amsterdam neighbourhood of Buitenveldert, this number has been stable over the last 20 years (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). Many of these Japanese migrants work for a Japanese multinational based in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA). There are over 350 Japanese companies based in the AMA. Big companies such as Yakult, Yamaha and Nikon all have had their European headquarters located in the region since the 1980’s (Amsterdam inBusiness, 2016). Accompanied with the large amount of Japanese people who live in Amstelveen, there are also a lot of different ethnically specific facilities located in the area. Such as a Japanese kinder garden, several Japanese shops and restaurants and a Japanese health and dental clinic. For this reason, Amstelveen is often considered as a Japanese ethnic enclave and nicknamed as Little Tokyo or Japan-on-Amstel (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017).
There are other areas with many Japanese migrants in Europe such as in London, Paris and Dortmund. The community in Dortmund shows many similarities with the community in Amstelveen; named as Japan-on-Rhein, there are Japanese restaurants, Japanese schools and other Japanese facilities located in the city. However, the community in Dortmund is located in a very small area, throughout six streets within one neighbourhood (Conte Helm, 2014). In Amstelveen, there are multiple smaller clusters of Japanese shops and Japanese people, located in many neighbourhoods (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). In other European cities such as Paris and London, the population distribution of Japanese migrants is far more dispersed. There is not a single location cluster for the 15.000 Parisian Japanese migrants, nor the 16.000 that reside in
London. There are multiple Japanese stores and schools located within the city, but they are all located at different locations. Moreover, Japanese people tend to live at different locations within the city as well. Conspicuously, other East Asian communities in Paris and London such as the Chinese do have noticeable geographical locations within the city regions (Conte Helm, 2014).
For this reason, it is interesting to look into the question why the Japanese community is clustered in its current form in Amstelveen and why it differentiates from other European cities. The following research question will therefore be discussed:
- What factors determine the residential ethnic clustering of Japanese migrants in Amstelveen?
Public support
The establishment of the Japanese migrant community is greatly welcomed by the municipality of Amstelveen. It is named as one of their most important policy priorities to attract more highly skilled migrants (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). The positive outlook on this form of ethnic clustering is surprising, as usually topics such as ethnic clustering and segregation have raised concerns and fears by local authorities and local populations. For example, many Dutch municipalities introduced policy plans to reduce ethnical segregation (Rijksoverheid, 2015). Instead of being fearful however, the Japanese community is greeted by the local authorities. The municipality promotes its international character through different channels such as their website and brochures. The municipality of Amstelveen also organises multiple festivals in collaboration with Japanese organisations, to promote the presence of the Japanese community. Examples are the Japanese culture festival and the Japanese cherry blossom festival (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2016). Therefore, it is important to know whether governmental institutions have actually played an important role in establishing the Japanese ethnic enclave and if so, why they played this role.
Scientific support
While a lot of research has been conducted on ethnic enclaves, most research has been conducted on the formation of ethnic enclaves among low skilled migrants. Instead, less
research is conducted on high skilled migrants. Moreover, most studies that have been conducted on high skilled migrants were often focussed on the formation of enclaves in less developed or non-western countries. This makes it interesting to conduct a research on the formation of an ethnic cluster of high skilled migrants in a developed and western country. Furthermore, most conducted research is mostly focussed on emphasising one specific factor of ethnic clustering: for example the influence of ethnic preferences or the influence of discrimination on ethnic clustering. However, the combination of multiple factors could be key in explain differences between different cases. Because both the migrants’ characteristics and the local context often differ per case (Agutter & Ankeny, 2016).
2 Theoretical framework
2.1 Ethnic enclaves
Ethnic enclaves
The concept of ethnic enclaves has been widely discussed and there are different terms applicable to this concept. First, an ethnic enclave is defined by either residential or employment characteristics. If an ethnic enclave is defined by residential characteristics, it means that an ethnic enclave is: a location wherein the share of ethnic groups members residing in a particular neighbourhood is much larger than the share in the population in the host state (Sanders & van Nee, 2007). If an ethnic enclave is defined by employer characteristics, it means that an enclave consists of a location with different economic establishments that are owned by and employ co-ethnic immigrants (Portes & Jensen, 1999). Portes and Jensen posit that the employer definition is the only correct one because many people with the same ethnicity who work in an area, but do not live there, would be excluded if the enclave is based on the same resident only (Portes & Jensen, 1999). However, according to Sanders and van Nee, the residential ethnic enclave is the correct definition, because many private-sector employers who work in these ethnic economic establishments, but live outside of the ethnic enclave, appear to have a different socioeconomic status than their employees (Sanders & van Nee, 2007). Both definitions can be seen as related because most workers prefer to live close to where they work. Albeit, since this paper is mainly about the residential choice of Japanese migrants, the residential ethnic enclave term will be used.
Ethnic communities
The main focus of studies about the creation of ethnic enclaves has been based on the ethnic enclave economy: whether migrant workers benefit from ethnic business as a ladder for social mobility (Xie, 2011). The spatial assimilation model challenges this view. Massey posits that spatial assimilations follow cultural and economic assimilation. From this point of view, living in an ethnic enclave is a disadvantage and often attributable to a lack of skills and education (Massey 1985). The aforementioned studies assume however that most migrants who live in an ethnic enclave have a low socioeconomic status and are marginalised groups. This is often not the case. Waldinger, therefore differentiates between ethnic enclaves and ethnic communities.
Where ethnic enclaves are defined as predominantly low-income areas where immigrants have settled by necessity, ethnic communities are predominantly high-income areas where immigrants have settled by choice. For instance as a result of attraction to an area’s ethnic infrastructure, institutions and presence of a large migrant community. Living in an ethnic community has many advantages for migrants other than the presence of an ethnic economy such as that they feel safe, that they can speak their own language and that they can maintain their own cultural norms and values. Especially for people who have recently migrated, an ethnic community could be important to feel at home (Waldinger, 2011). It does however show that the boundaries between ethnic enclaves and ethnic communities are often blurred, because it is questioned when immigrants settle out of necessity and when they settle out of their own choice. Since this has yet to be assessed, ethnic enclaves will in this case be used as an umbrella term: a place where a significant number of ethnic group members reside in a particular area.
There are several forms of ethnic enclaves. The Chinese for instance have had very defined geographic locations in foreign cities such as London and New York, also named Chinatowns. These areas are also called diasporas. Diasporas are communities that have an existence of its own and, in many cases, a strong historical value (Baubock & Faist, 2010). However, in the past few decades there is a new form of diasporas visible in cities. Migrants cluster together in high income residential areas. Consequently, Li proposed a new model of ethnic settlement, the ethnoburb. Ethnoburbs are ‘’suburban ethnic clusters of residential areas and business districts in suburban cities’’. Ethnoburbs are closely related to diasporas. Ethnoburbs however are a more modern phenomenon and an effect of global geopolitics and economic forces. In this case, migrants choose to live together because of similar interests, values and preferences instead of necessity (Li, 1998). The concept of ethnoburbs are however set in a North-American environment, in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Vancouver. While the characteristics of ethnoburbs show similarities with the Japanese ethnic enclave in Amstelveen, it is questioned whether this exact term is applicable in a European context. Moreover, most of the migrants in Amstelveen are mostly expatriates. Expatriates communities are often named as a form of transnational
communities rather than diasporas. The concepts of diasporas and ethnoburbs are often interchanged with transnational communities. While they are closely connected, diasporas and ethnoburbs relate to different communities of religious, ethnic and national groups who have meanings to settle in another country. Therefore, members of diasporas are in many cases integrated without being assimilated in the host countries. Transnational communities however are mostly formed by migrants who still have strong connection with their own nation state. For instance, because their family base still resides in the place of origin, as well as citizenship or other institutional links. In many cases, members of a transnational community are not seeking to form a social network that is destined to last forever . For this reason, transnational communities are often less established an show different characteristics than diasporas and ethnoburbs (Baubock & Faist, 2010)..
Transnationalism
Transnational communities derive from the concept of transnationalism. Originally, transnationalism is defined by Basch as ‘the process by which trans migrants, through their daily activities, forge and sustain multi-stranded social, economic, and political relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fields that cross national borders’, (Basch, 1994). Other definitions of transnationalism entail much more than just the activities of migrants. Studies on transnationalism have mainly focussed on issues such as transnational spaces and transnational networks. Transnational spaces and networks are often intertwined with the local environment and thus creates bridges between countries (Engbersen et al., 2003). Migrants are a very important agent in transnationalism. Instead of complete assimilation with local culture, migrants maintain strong transnational ties which results in different transnational links between the residing country and the home country of migrants, because they take part in daily transnational activities. These activities include economic activities, social activities and political activities (Chilton & Loewen, 2015). For this reason, the presence of several transnational spaces and networks could be one of the important factors for the eventual residential choice of members of a transnational community.
2.2 Migration
Different migrantsCurrent patterns of international migrations are diverse and labour migrants are therefore a heterogeneous group. For example, temporary documented high skilled migrants who originate from capital rich countries such as Japan, differ extensively from undocumented economic refugees that originate from capital poor countries such as Somalia (Miyamoto et al., 2015).
Motives of migration
Migrants differentiate in the first place by their motives of migration. Migration studies have predominantly concentrated on two different factors why people migrate. The first reason is economically, because their current occupation or because there are more job opportunities in another country. The second reason is politically; because it is unsafe in their country. There is however also a little exposed theme within migration studies; cultural migration. Because certain migrants identify more with the ideas, customs or social behaviour of another society. Cultural migration has become more occurring since the age of globalisation, mostly because of more developed communication methods (Fujita, 2009).
Employment status
Migrants also differ because of their employment status. The group of high skilled migrants are also often called expatriates. According to the Dutch immigration service, a high skilled migrant applicable for a working visa, is a migrant who has an employment contract with a company located outside the EU and who is going to be transferred as a manager, specialist or trainee to a branch in the Netherlands. Moreover, the migrant has to earn a sufficient independent long-term income (Rijksoverheid, 2017). While it explains the economic backgrounds of expatriates, it is still a vague definition because these expats have various cultural backgrounds, age, gender and different household compositions (Kofman, 2000). Thus; there are more factors that differ expatriates.
Personal characteristics
Different personal characteristics also influences images about expats and how they assimilate in another country. The motives for migration could for instance also affect the way they assimilate in different cultures (Fujita, 2009). There is for instance a great difference between a single female expat that moves to the Netherlands in her mid-twenties and an elder male that moves with his entire family. There are two conflicting images. The first image is the one of cosmopolitan expats, who ‘’move because they find the world within their reach irresistibly attractive’’ (Bauman, 1998). This is in line with cultural cosmopolitanism, which is an openness to cultural differences (Delanty 2006). It is argued that migrants are cosmopolitan because they have multiple identities; their own identity and a more globalised identity (Vertovec, 1999). On the other hand are certain expatriates maintaining their relationship with home to protect their own identity. The second image is therefore the expat bubble. According to this image, many expats do not feel comfortable everywhere because they are not always open minded to different cultures and lifestyles and do not want to completely assimilate in local culture. Their lives are protected in an environmental bubble. This occurs mostly between expats who originate from countries with great socio-cultural distance (Chang, 2015).
Therefore, the way immigrants incorporate themselves in their local environment is context dependent and dependent on their own characteristics. As the group of Japanese immigrants in Amstelveen could not be a homogenous group either, it is important to consider and differentiate their own characteristics and how the territorial and institutional characteristics effects these. It is therefore the question whether a specific set of the aforementioned characteristics have decided their residential choice and thus, lead to ethnic enclaves.
2.3 Residential choice
Residential choice modelsResidential choice is an important research topic, as residential land use occupies about two-thirds of all urban land (Guo and Bhat, 2007). As a person’s residence functions as an anchor point where people live and start activities, it has an important effect on people’s social status, access to jobs, access to facilities and social networks (Mulder
2007). For this reason, the study of residential location has a multidisciplinary nature. It has been the focus of sociologists, psychologists, urban planners, economists and urban geographers. Consequently, there are multiple models that have been extensively used to analyse the determinants of residential choice. In the past literature, much research has been conducted on the reason why people prefer to live somewhere. However, most studies tend to focus on one singular thing. A common classification of variables to assess residential choice across these different studies however seems to be lacking (Fu, 2015). For example, most migration studies have only focussed on ethnic residential preferences as a way to describe ethnic clustering. This ignores other important factors. Therefore, multiple variables of modes of residential choice will be accentuated. First, different residential preferences will be emphasized. Residential preferences are different household attributes, linked with spatial attributes as a way to decide the residential choice of a certain household (Schirmer et al., 2014). Secondly, several residential constraints will be pointed out, because these constrains could interfere with a household’s residential choice.
Residential preferences
There are two ways to differentiate household attributes. First, the socio-demographic attributes of a household are linked to an alternative specific spatial preference. These are attributes such as employment status, gender, household composition and age. For example, households with children have a preference to live close to schools and large families have a preference to live in larger apartments (Schirmer et al., 2014). This can be strengthened by several theories that yield similar results when they model the relocation of single-family house owners; household seek more space per person when they relocate (Pinjari et al., 2008; Belart, 2011; Andrew & Meen, 2006).
A second differentiation is made by comparing households based on their social, cultural and leisure preferences, their so called sociocultural attributes. These are households with the same particular lifestyle, related to their residential choice (Schirmer et al., 2014). The new suburban settlements in the 1960’s for example could not be explained by only socio-demographic attributes such as income or family size. These suburbs were places where groups of people with both a similar demographic situation and the same tastes and norms sought to congregate. Similar attitudes towards
the spatial environment and the social environment are therefore important drivers for people’s residential choice (Aer, 2006). For this reason, many studies on residential choice have focussed on lifestyle and have tried to group households by their lifestyle, a combination of demographic attributes and their tastes, norms and activities. For example, the group of elderly homebodies, a group of people that are often lower or non-employed, have lower rates of income and do not engage in many activities. For this reason, they often live in cheaper areas with low accessibility (Krizek & Waddell, 2002). As lifestyle is an interesting approach to assess residential preferences, it does not compose cultural differences between people. It could be that migrants with a similar cultural background have the same lifestyle, because migrants often have similar social statuses in the host society. This does however differ per culture and per context. For instance, a study in Great Britain has stated that certain higher educated migrants from African and Asian countries, who possess a lot of capital (monetary, cultural, lingual) choose to have a preference for areas with less people of their own culture. This is however different for Turkish people. The higher educated Turkish people are, the more they prefer to live close to other Turkish people. This could be explained by the fact that the possession of a large house is an important value of Turkish culture. Turkish people would therefore want to live close to other Turkish people to display their success against other Turkish people. Ethnic clustering could therefore not only be an effect of similar lifestyles, but also part of their cultural norms and values (Permentier & Bolt, 2007).
Spatial attributes
The location preferences are disaggregated into the characteristics of the residential units and the characteristics of the location attributes.
Residential units are characterised by three different variables. The first one is the costs of the residential dwellings such as the sales price or the rental costs. Studies about the relation between household income and residential price show a significant relation (Habib and Miller 2009; Zolfhargi et al. 2012; Andrew and Meen 2006). As a criticism, it could be noted that most studies had household income as their only variable. One study for instance showed that if other household variables are taken into account,
income is less important than other variables such as household size or other preferences towards a certain dwelling (Weisbrod et al., 2014). The second residential unit variable is the unit size, for example the lot size or room size in comparison with different households. As aforementioned, many families relocate because of their household size. Not only the dwellings size is therefore important, also the number of rooms might be integrated in relation to household size. Single households often need less room than larger households (Schirmer et al., 2014). The third residential unit variable is the housing type. For example, single-person households prefer multi-family houses and households with children favour single-family buildings (Lee & Wadell, 2010). Moreover, many households prefer a type of housing similar to their previous home (Axhausen et al., 2004).
Location attributes
Location attributes are based upon the space around the dwellings. It is important to aggregate space, as space can be interpreted as a neighbourhood, city or region. For instance, in Amsterdam there is the city within the municipality borders but also the Amsterdam region, of which Amstelveen is part. Space is important because as people are mobile they are able to do activities in one place, but live in another place. For example, people live in one municipality but go to school in another (Schirmer et al., 2014)
The first location attribute is the built environment. The built density has a certain impact on the residential households. For example, certain people prefer to live more proximate to their neighbours than other people. Moreover, the presence of transportation networks is important. Transportation means a higher accessibility at one hand, but could also air or sound pollution. For example, living close to a busy road or a tram lane is often named as a negative asset of residential choice (Schirmer et al., 2014).
The second location attribute is accessibility. Accessibility is defined as ‘the potential of opportunities of interaction’ (Hansen, 1959). This means that households got to have several options in modes of travel to reach multiple activities. Especially job facilities and points of interest are important for residential choice. Points of interests are
attractive locations such as educational facilities, recreational facilities or retail centres. Points of interests differ per household. For certain household (e.g. those with younger children) the amount of schools is an important asset. For other households, the presence of certain supermarkets or restaurants are important points of interests The amounts of points of interest go hand in hand with accessibility (Van Wee et al., 2013). Moreover, accessibility is not only measured by the amount of activities but also how they can be reached. People without a car or drivers licence for instance, rely on public transport or other modes of transport. For this reason, not only the amount of points of interest but also these point of interests can be reached are important factors for accessibility (Cervero & Landis, 1997). For instance, for households with children the presence of educational facilities easily accessible by bike or school bus could be an important residential preference factor. For elderly households, the presence of supermarkets easily reached by foot or public transport could be important. Therefore, not everyone’s accessibility is similar (Schirmer et al., 2014).
The last location attribute is the socioeconomic environment. The population density for instance, has a big impact on residential choice. A study conducted in the Netherlands between six household types, concluded that most household types react negatively to population density (Zondag & Pieters, 2005). Except for younger household or one-person households, they often choose to live in urban areas with a high residential population density, because this often means that there are more activities located nearby. Another important asset of a socioeconomic environment is what type of households live in a certain area. One study conducted in the United States showed that most households prefer to locate in an area with a high proportion of other households with a similar household size and structure (Goud and Bhat 2006).
Residential constraints
Residential preferences and residential choice are often intertwined. However, residential choice is not always the same as residential preferences. While residential preferences are an important part of residential choice, residential choice entails more. Residential choice is the actual choice of residence, while preferences are places where people would prefer to live (Pagliara et al., 2010). Residential preferences can therefore be limited by so called constraints of relocation. There are four important constraints:
(1) economic constraints, (2) informational constraint (3) ethnic constraint (4) institutional constraint (Boyle, 2010).
Economic constraints
The first one are economic constraints. The level of income can limit the possibilities of choice within the residential preferences. It can limit the area for example but also the quality of buildings within the area. Someone who might prefer to live close to work, but if he or she does not have the finances to live in this area this is an economic constraint. The valuation of costs is dependent upon multiple variables such as cost of living, travel cost and valuation of the residential environment (Boyle, 2010).
Informational constraint
The second form of constraint is the role of information. For instance, if a migrant household does not speak the local language they might encounter difficulties renting the place. Important sources of information are mostly internet services which have opened up many new ways for people to reside somewhere. Moreover, real estate agents could have also influenced certain co-ethnic groups. When a real estate agent provides biased information about a certain ethnic neighbourhood, this leads toward migrant concentration areas (Palm, 1985). Another important source of information is word of mouth advertising, for instance if former migrants recommend certain co-ethnic places to newcomers (Clark, 1992).
Ethnic constraint
The third constraint is the role of ethnicity. Ethnicity of other households can play a role for certain co-ethnic households. First of all, there could be household discrimination. For instance, if a household feels unwelcome in an area. There is however still a great contrast between people that believe that separated racial groups are a matter of household discrimination or whether racial separatism reflects ethnic residential preferences of certain households (Boyle, 2010). It is difficult to tell if ethnicity is an ethnic preference or part of an ethnic constraint. In the past literature, there is some agreement that own-race preferences play a role in separating racial and ethnic groups. Studies in the United States have suggested that when racial discrimination has been reduced and the black suburban middle class is nearly indistinguishable from the white groups with a similar socioeconomic status, levels of separation are declining to some extent (Clark, 1986). However, even when people have similar socioeconomic status,
they still tend to have own-race preference and other race avoidance (Clark 1992). Also, Krysan et al. (2009) showed that social psychological factors played an important role in neighbourhood’s segregation which could not be explained by a marginalized socioeconomic status or housing discrimination. According to this study, attitudes towards other races plus a preference for own race plays an important role in residential choice (Krysan et al., 2009).
Institutional constraint
The last constraint is the institutional context. Institutions can play a large role on residential choice. This could be a constraint, by preventing specific groups of people to come to an area. They however also have the power to attract specific groups of people (Boyle, 2010). Especially in the last few years, cities have been trying to attract groups of higher skilled migrants by providing a perfect climate for expats. This is called a global city policy. Global cities are major nodes in interconnected systems of information and money in the global economy (Sassen, 2002). Findlay et al. (1996) even emphasize the role of expatriate communities for global cities by saying they are a prerequisite, as well as a consequence, of global cities (Findlay et al., 1996). Expatriate communities are named a key player because they provide a labour pool that is needed to offer global firms the capability to coordinate activities transnationally. They are a consequence of global cities, because these activities attract specific international skills to global cities and make them attractive places to reside (Chilton & Loewen, 2015). Cities often draw on expatriate communities in order to exercise and establish their global linkages. According to this framework, expatriates can be seen as major agents in economic development. For this reason, cities are competing internationally to attract talented highly-skilled workers and global companies. Cities form policies to meet specific needs to attract expatriate communities. This requires different actions such as attracting investors as well as providing high quality infrastructure, green spaces and upper class residential areas (Sassen, 2002). City governments rely heavily on the finance and leadership of the national government on a higher level and on lower level networks such as corporations, associations and other non-governmental actors (OECD 2015). Moreover, foreign companies are also important actors. The foreign companies that are based in Amsterdam connect the Netherlands with different nation states through economic and social activities. Their co-operation with governments create
institutions that are an essential part for the existence of transnational communities (Dunn 2010).
3 Methodology
3.1 Research questions
Empirical data has been collected to answer the main question:
What factors have determined the residential clustering of the Japanese migrant community in Amstelveen?
First, both the residential and the location attributes of Amstelveen will be described in order to understand the spatial characteristics of Amstelveen and whether this has influenced the residential choice of Japanese migrants. Thereafter, the household characteristics of the Japanese migrants will be described in order to gain more knowledge of Japanese community. How large their households are, where they work, what their cultural background is, what activities they are involved in etc. Consequently, the spatial characteristics of Amstelveen and the household characteristics of the Japanese migrant community are linked together, in order to understand the residential preferences of the Japanese migrants. Finally, the role of institutions and other constraints will be investigated in order to decide these have influenced the eventual choice of residence for Japanese people and thus contributed to residential clustering of Japanese migrants.
This leads to the following sub-questions:
1 What are the spatial attributes of Amstelveen?
2 What household characteristics of Japanese migrants can be linked to the spatial attributes of Amstelveen?
3 What opportunities and barriers have residential constraints provided for Japanese migrants in the Netherlands?
3.2 Research description
Research typeFirst, it is important to know whether a study is inductive or deductive. An inductive approach tries to yield new theory. An advantage of an inductive approach, is that it is important to discover new themes or categories without being locked into a framework. However, it is hard to test the validity of these themes since they are not locked into a framework. Moreover, it is more difficult to replicate the study. A deductive approach tries to test existing theories. An advantage of a deductive approach is that theory can guide as a framework for analysing the data, this improves the reliability of the research. Moreover, it provides clarity which leads to a higher replicability (Bryman, 2012). This dichotomy between inductive and deductive seems to be quite rigid. In this study, this is valid to some extent; the analysis will be mostly inductive. It is important to assess different themes that could be factors for ethnic clustering without being prejudiced by set theories. However, to overcome certain flaws of inductive research, the aforementioned theoretical framework could help to confirm or disprove factors listed for ethnic clustering (Van Lanen, 2010).
The study will both be descriptive as it is will be explorative (Bryman, 2012). The descriptive part will be about explaining the spatial attributes of Amstelveen, the demographic characteristics of the Japanese migrant community and which opportunities and barriers local and national policy provide. The explorative part will be about exploring the residential preferences of Japanese people and the motives of municipal officials for their policies and analysing these with their regards to the research question.
Research method
The overall analysis will be qualitative. A qualitative research design has been used because a main part of this thesis will be explorative. For this reason, trends in thoughts and opinions can be found rather than with quantitative research, which determines relationships between variables (Bryman, 2015). Instead, this research design will help answering the question which variables are important instead of how important they are. Qualitative research will help to design the meaning of several factors (Bryman, 2015). As residential choice differs per household characteristic and per context, it is important
to know why certain variables are important and whether they specifically count for the group of Japanese migrants in Amstelveen.. It creates an understanding of the attitudes and behaviour of Japanese people. Moreover, the unit of analysis in this case are not only the Japanese migrants but the formation of a Japanese migrant community. Therefore, this research will focus on a social phenomenon, rather than on a group of people.
Research design
This will be a case study as the research will be an intensive study of how a Japanese community is established in a residential neighbourhood. The Japanese community is the only unit of analysis. A case study is therefore a common and logical design (Bryman, 2015). This research will focus on the Japanese community within one municipality, the municipality of Amstelveen. Even though a substantial part of the Japanese community is also settled in the southern part of Amsterdam, next to the border of Amstelveen, the choice has been made to use the set municipality boundaries in order to analyse what the effects of local policy are on the Japanese community. The choice has been made to collect data within the set municipality boundaries. However, the usage of specific data collected within the municipalities borders of Amsterdam can occur, since Amstelveen will constantly be regarded as a part of the Amsterdam economic region instead of a city on its own.
3.3 Research analysis
Document analysis
First, data will be collected by looking into documents such as national and local policy plans and archived secondary quantitative data about citizenry and other documents that can help to analyse the spatial attributes of Amstelveen, the demographic characteristics of Japanese households in Amstelveen and the policy plans of the municipality of Amstelveen. The usage of secondary data is an essential part of the analysis. In the first place, quantitative data could provide essential information about the spatial attributes of Amstelveen such as the amount of residents, the type of residential dwellings, the amount of point of interests and the socioeconomic environment. Moreover, these documents will provide essential demographic information about the Japanese migrants.
Secondly, these policy document could provide context to the role of institutions in their residential choice.
Moreover, other written books and papers could give an overview of studies and theories about Japanese migrants. Comparing data from other studies with this data could strengthen the analysis because it can either support or disprove different sets of data such as interviews (Bryman, 2015). Secondly, existing data from other Japanese communities will be used to compare the community of Amstelveen with the ones in Paris and London.
Moreover, maps will be used to explain the built environment, e.g.; where is Amstelveen located in the Amsterdam region and how densely built is Amstelveen. It will also provide context for other spatial attributes such as where several points of interest are located at, the accessibility and the transport network of Amstelveen and to give an overview of the types of residential dwellings in Amstelveen.
The usage of secondary data, policy documents and maps could be inaccurate. For this reason, it is important to use reliable, recent and multiple sources as this data is an essential part of the analysis. It is therefore always important to look what the source of a document is, if it the document is accurate enough, if the data is understandable for a reader and whether it the data is representative for the research (Bryman, 2015).
Interview analysis
Secondly, interviews have been conducted to gain more in-depth data and background information about Amstelveen and about the Japanese migrant community. Interviews provide in-depth information that pertain to the participant’s experiences and their viewpoints of particular topics (Turner, 2010). Interviews are a common method used to collect data and a more personal form of research than surveys. The main difference with surveys are that interviews primarily exists of open-ended questions because an interviewer wants to make an inference based on someone’s perspective (Bryman 2015). There are various forms of interview designs that can be used to obtain data. An interview can be completely structured, semi-structured or open ended (Bryman, 2015).
In this case, semi-structured interviews will be used. This means respondents will both answer a set of fixed questions, as there will be space for respondents’ own interpretation to the given subject. The usage of semi-structured interviews is well suited to explore attitudes, beliefs, values and motives which will be helpful for providing information. Moreover, it overcomes the flaw of standardised interviews that the wording and sequence of all the questions are the same for each respondent. In contrast, semi-structured interviews provide an opportunity to change the words but not the meaning of questions because it acknowledges that not every word has the same meaning to every respondent and not every respondent uses the same vocabulary (Bryman, 2015). Therefore, in this interview method, the reliability does not depend upon the usage of the same questions but upon transmitting similar meaning of questions (Barriball & While, 1994). This is also crucial in obtaining information when there are language barriers between the interviewer and the respondents. For instance, for people whose understanding of English is limited. The flexibility of a semi-structured interview ensures that when words are carefully used, valid and reliable data can still be obtained from certain groups of people (Marshall & While, 1998). Since many Japanese people in the Netherlands speak English as a second language, semi-structured interviews could therefore provide a method to obtain essential data.
The respondents have been purposively sampled based on preselected criteria. This technique has been predominantly used because of the relatively small sample size. Because of the limited time for this research, the choice has been made to maximize the number of respondents to 10. The respondents have been purposively sampled because the goal is to focus on specific characteristics of respondents that could help to explain the residential clustering of Japanese migrants. A combination of different purposeful sampling methods has been used. First, the respondents have been contacted and sampled on the base of their knowledge and on their professional judgement. This type of sampling is called expert sampling (MedCrave, 2017). Therefore, expert sampling helps to include important elements. Moreover, this technique has been used to strengthen theories and ideas about the residential preferences of Japanese people. Secondly, stakeholder sampling has been used to sample respondents at the base of their power and influence in attracting Japanese migrants. This is especially evident for
people that work at governmental institutions. For instance, municipality officials that work with Japanese people or people that work at a Japanese government agency. Thereafter, expert sampling has opened doors to reach certain people that are difficult to sample when using other sampling methods. The respondents have identified certain people with a similar trait of interest or influence on the subject. This is called snowball sampling. An advantage of snowball sampling is that data is obtained that otherwise would not have been possible. A disadvantage however is that many respondents will have the same opinion because they have a similar interest, a similar role or because they share the same background (Bryman, 2015). For this reason, every respondent has been assessed with a stakeholder analysis identification table to create a heterogeneous group of respondents and thus multiple insights (Figure 1). The stakeholder analysis identification table identifies different actors at the base of their role in a certain organization, their interest in the subject, their influence on the subject and what a researcher expects from the actor (ASQ, 2016).
Name Organisation Role Interest Influence Expectations
Juno Asao Japanese store I-SE-YA Owner. Japanese permanent migrant Provides a point of interest, specifically for Japanese people. Could provide information about her clientele and Japanese culture. Judith van Kampen Municipality of Amstelveen Works at the economic department Organises cultural festivals for Japanese migrants Cooperates with several big Japanese companies and several Japanese groups and societies. Could provide information about the motives to organize these festivals and about the visitors of these festivals. Hirushu Matsura JETRO Japanese permanent migrant Has great involvement with both Japanese and Dutch companies. Knows a lot about the Dutch community and the Japanese community. Also knows a lot about Japanese companies.
Yvonne Nieuwenhui zen Municipality of Amstelveen Works at the events department Hosts multiple cultural events with Japanese people Attracts multiple Japanese. Could provide information about the motives of the municipality to attract Japanese migrants. Hiroyoshi Okando DENSO Works at HRM Japanese temporary migrant Family household Is a Japanese temporary migrant and has a family
household.
Could provide information about his own preferences as well as Japanese people he knows. Bert Peters Asunaro
Holland Owner Asunaro focussed on housing for Japanese people Provides housing for 80% of the Japanese migrants in the Amsterdam region. Could provide information about his clientele and about the role of Asunaro in the Japanese clustering process Julien Rikkoert Amsterdam InBusiness /Municipality of Amstelveen Head of Japan Desk Is the most important person of the bureau that attracts Japanese expatriates Has great involvement with both the municipality as with Japanese expats. Could provide information about Japanese expatriates as about the influence of the municipality on the Japanese community. Kensuke Shuto DENSO Works at HRM Japanese temporary migrant Single household Is a Japanese temporary migrant and has a single
household
Could provide information about his own preferences as well as Japanese people he knows. Mitsuki Sarutwari Japanese piano teacher Teacher Japanese permanent migrant Knows a lot of the Japanese community in Amstelveen. Has a Dutch husband. Could provide me information about Japanese people and the sense of
community and amount of integration.
Richard Ronald University of Amsterdam Professor Knowledge of both Japan studies as housing studies Has written multiple papers about housing problems among Japanese people Could provide information about cultural preferences of Japanese people.
Figure 1: Stakeholder Analysis Identification Table. (Source: Author)
In the end, the choice has been made to only interview stakeholders that have certain interest and influence on the topic. Interviewing or surveying a large group of Japanese migrants about their residential preferences could have strengthened the internal validity of this research. However, because of a high amount of non-response, a time limitation and most importantly, a language barrier, the choice has been made to not convey this part within the final research. Therefore, not speaking Japanese and not knowing many Japanese migrants is a limitation of this research. A few Japanese migrants have been interviewed, mostly about their expertise about the subject. These Japanese migrants have been sampled on the base of where they live. As the case is specifically about Amstelveen, the only people that have been contacted were people who live in Amstelveen and are part of the Japanese community in Amstelveen.
The interviews are all in-depth interviews and between 30 and 60 minutes long. The interviews were set in a formal environment. Certain interviews were done in English, other interviews were done in Dutch and afterwards translated. To overcome any translation flaws, this has been done very carefully. Nevertheless, could certain fragments could slightly deviate from the original. However, to smoothen the interview process, the choice has been made to conduct the interviews in Dutch. Also, because often people can express themselves in a better way in their own language than in their second language (Turner, 2010). Therefore, the interviews that were done in English with Japanese people could also deviate slightly from the original. Most Japanese respondents spoke good to reasonably good English. However, the store owner had struggles speaking English. As her information is useful, the interview is still used in the final analysis.
Data analysis
Data analysis is often named as one of the most complex phases of qualitative research. It is therefore important to be clear about how the data is analysed or which assumptions informed the analysis. Otherwise it is difficult to evaluate the trustworthiness of the research process and thus the set conclusions (Bryman, 2015).
A thematic analysis will be used to analyse the collected data sets. A thematic analysis is a qualitative research method which can be used across a large range of qualitative data such as interviews and epistemologies. It is a method that helps to identify, analyse, organise, describe and report themes which are found within data sets (Nowell et al., 2017). Moreover, it can be used as a method to combine both qualitative and quantitative sets of data. This enables research who use different research methods to have a clear analysis of both sets of data (Bryman, 2015). The thematic analysis is built upon six phases. If done correctly, this helps to establish the replicability of the project (Nowell et al., 2017).
Phase 1: Familiarise with the data
The different forms of qualitative data such as audio recordings, transcripts and documents often lack consistent structure. Especially because semi-structured interviews have been conducted. Therefore, it is first important to read and reread the data in an active way to search for meanings and patterns (Nowell et al. 2017).
Phase 2: Generating codes
This phases involves the production of codes (Nowell et al., 2017). Qualitative coding is a process which enables a researcher to simplify specific characteristics of the data by applying labels to different sets of text (Bryman, 2015). Labelling has been done by assessing whether a specific characteristic of the Japanese migrant community is named by an interviewee. For example, their employment status. The computer program Atlas.TI has been used to apply different labels to the transcripts.
Phase 3: Searching for themes
The third phase is to combine different codes to revolve a certain theme. Different sets of texts that were meaningless in the beginning therefore led to specific themes.
Whether a combination of codes is a theme is mostly dependent on whether it captures something important in relation to the overall research question (Nowell et al., 2017). For example, multiple interviewees emphasized that Japanese people moved to Amstelveen because Amstelveen shows similarities with Japanese towns, this similarity is therefore a theme.
Phase 4: Reviewing themes
In the fourth phase, the validity of individual themes has been determined. Moreover, inadequacies in the themes have been revealed. This led to recoding, since coding is an ongoing process (Nowell et al., 2017). Lastly, it also became evident that certain themes were useless or didn't have enough data to support them. This either lad to the rebutting of certain quotes with opposing data or the disappearance of certain themes.
Phase 5: Defining and naming themes
In the fifth phase, it is determined which aspect of the data each theme captures and what is of interest about them (Bryman, 2015). At this stage, it is considered how each theme fitted into the overall research and how they could answer the aforementioned research questions (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Moreover, it was profound that certain sections of data are included in multiple themes with some overlap between themes. Certain information could therefore be used at different sections of the analysis. This could have eventually led to repeating similar themes in different parts of the analysis. This is however a common consequence of a thematic analysis since often themes are related with each other (Nowell et al., 2017).
Phase 6: Processing the data
Finally, the data has been processed in the text. Most data has been paraphrased to use as a source for certain findings. However, direct quotes from participants have been used because this could lead to understanding of specific points of themes. Interpretation of quotes are therefore sometimes an essential part of producing the final analysis (King, 2004). In order to build a valid argument for the chosen themes, the themes are constantly referred to literature in order to verify or disprove data (Bryman 2015).
3.4 Conceptual model
Figure 2: Conceptual model. (Source: Author)
This conceptual model is used to explain the variables in the aforementioned research question and corresponding sub-questions. In the following analysis, residential choice will be the leading theory to explain residential ethnic clustering. According to the framework set in the theoretical analysis, residential choice consists out of residential preferences and residential constraints. Which constraints and which preferences are eligible for Amstelveen will be looked into in the following analysis.
Residential
ethnic
clustering
Residential
choice
Residential
preferences
Residential
constraints
4. Analysis
4.1 Spatial attributes
In the next section, the spatial attributes of Amstelveen will be described in order to give an overview of the location and socioeconomic environment of Amstelveen. Geographical location
Amstelveen is auspiciously located between Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in the west, the Zuidas business district in the north, the Amsterdam Zuidoost business district in the east and the Aalsmeer flower and greenhouse cluster in the south (Figure 3). The village has a little under 90.000 inhabitants, this number is still increasing (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017).
Figure 3: Geographical location of Amstelveen. (Source: Mapaplan, 2016) Residential unit attributes
Amstelveen has seen a rapid growth after the Second World War, driven by the expansion of Schiphol airport in the first place. Thereafter, Amstelveen was adopted in the expansion plans of the municipality of Amsterdam. For this reason, in the 60’s and 70’s, Amstelveen got a large influx of people that moved from the city centre of Amsterdam for more residential space. Amstelveen is therefore predominated by spacious terraced houses with gardens and a lot of green space (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017).
There are around 41.000 residential units in Amstelveen. Of these 41.000 residential units, over 80 percent of the houses in Amstelveen are built after 1960 and around 35% after 1980. Of these residential units, 21.000 are one family houses. Around 19.000 residential units are multi-story dwellings. Multi-story dwellings are dwellings such as flats, galleries and apartments. Around 1200 residential units are counted as other types. Over 19.000 residential units are owned by the unit resident, 10.000 residential units are private tenement houses and around 13.000 units are owned by housing associations (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017).
These houses do not come at low price. The average rent price of private tenement houses in Amstelveen is 19 euros per square meter, which makes the Amstelveen rental market the second most expensive rental market in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam’s rental market (CBS, 2017). It should be noted that certain suburban neighbourhoods of Amsterdam such as the Nieuw West and Amsterdam Noord area are generally cheaper than Amstelveen, with an average of 14 per square meter. Other suburban cities around Amsterdam are also a lot cheaper such as Zaandam with 11 euros and Almere with 10 euros per square meter (CBS, 2017).
Household income and composition
There are 41.000 households in Amstelveen. Over 60% of all people is part of a 3-person household or more. Of all households, about 35% are households with children. This is quite high compared to the rest of Netherlands. The group of people that is most common in Amstelveen is the group of people between the age of 40 to 54 years old (18.500). People aged 20 to 30 are less common in Amstelveen, compared to the national average (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). The average income in Amstelveen is quite high. The average personal income of people in Amstelveen is over 40.000 euros, 25% more than the average personal income in the Netherlands (CBS 2014; Gemeente Amstelveen 2017).
Nationality
Amstelveen houses 75.000 people with a Dutch or a double, both Dutch and foreign, nationality. There are around 15.000 people with only a foreign nationality, which is around 17% of the total population. The number of foreigners in Amstelveen is steadily
on the rise, in 2015 there were less than 9.000 foreigners in the city. The most predominant groups of foreigners are Indian migrants. The number of Indian migrants in Amstelveen is growing at an extremely fast pace. In the past 15 years, the group has grown from 215 migrants to 4353 Indian migrants. Thereafter, the Japanese make up for the largest group of migrants. As aforementioned, this group has been on the same level for over 10 years. Amstelveen has also become increasingly more popular for Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean expats (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017).
Safety
Amstelveen is generally regarded as a safe city. In the national survey of safety of municipalities, the nationaal veiligheidsprofiel, Amstelveen is counted as the safest of the 50 biggest municipalities of the Netherlands. The most common crime is burglary (Analistennetwerk Nationale Veiligheid, 2017).
Location environment
Since Amstelveen is predominated by spacious terraced houses, the population density of Amstelveen is only half the size of that in Amsterdam, with a little over 2000 inhabitants per square kilometre. As Amstelveen isn’t as densely populated as Amsterdam, car usage is quite high. For every 10 households, there are 8 cars available, the national average is 9 cars per 10 households. In comparison, in Amsterdam this is only 4 cars per 10 households (Gemeente Amstelveen 2017; CBS 2017). Moreover, many people in Amstelveen also make use of non-motorized vehicles such as bicycles or transportation by foot. The accessibility of non-motorized transport within Amstelveen is also rated high with an 8.5 out of 10. Lastly, there is a wide transportation network available of light rail, metro and busses that connect Amstelveen with the surrounding regions. The quality of the light rail system in Amstelveen is rated with a 7.7 out of 10, which is reasonably good. People in Amstelveen are quite satisfied with the public transport system and especially the accessibility of the business districts (Gemeente Amstelveen, 2017). From the centre of Amstelveen, all three business districts are only 20 minutes away by public transport (OV9292, 2017).
Points of interest Japanese people
Amstelveen is part of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area economic region (AMA). The AMA is an important economic region in the global economy (Rijksoverheid, 2017).
Most companies in the AMA focus on financial and business services. There are over 3000 international companies based in the AMA region. Moreover, in the year 2016 there was a record number of 157 new establishments of international companies in the AMA (Gemeente Amsterdam 2017). Several Japanese companies have had their headquarters located in the Netherlands since the 1960’s such as Fujifilm and Canon. Most of these Japanese companies in the Netherlands are located in either Amsterdam-Zuid or in Amstelveen. More recently, a larger influx from different kinds of Japanese companies have been coming to Amsterdam alongside companies in the service sector such as clothing companies and companies based in the cultural sector (Y. Nieuwenhuizen, interview, 2017).
Moreover, there are several Japanese companies in Amstelveen that are mainly focussed on everyday groceries for Japanese people. Noted down is an overview of a few Japanese companies in Amstelveen (figure 4).
Name Type
Cha Ya Japanese restaurant
Take-Ya Japanese restaurant
Tanuki Japanese grocery store
Sushi-Yaah Japanese restaurant
Fuji Hair Japanese hairdresser
Japan Desk Amstelland Hospital
Helpdesk
Tulip Gakuen Nursery school
I-Se-Ya Grocery store
Club Tokyo Karaoke bar
Figure 4: different Japanese companies. Source: Author
There is only one Japanese school in Amsterdam; the nursery school for children, aged 2-5. At an older age, Japanese children go to either the international or the Japanese school, located in Amsterdam West. There are international schools at several places in the Amsterdam region; Amsterdam, Amstelveen, Almere, Haarlem and Hoofddorp. The international school educates until the age of 18 and the Japanese school educates
children aged 6-15 (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2017). Interestingly, the Japanese school is located in Amsterdam-West, an area without any Japanese families. The school is located in West because this was decided 30 years ago, when there were not that many Japanese families in Amsterdam yet (B. Peters, interview, 2017). Therefore, a school bus runs every day through Amstelveen and Buitenveldert, where it has got several bus stops. There are no stops outside of Amstelveen and Buitenveldert (Figure 5). Moreover, there are quite a few Japanese clubs such as the Japanese Women’s Club, a social organisation mostly focussed on spouses of Japanese expatriates and there are quite a few sports clubs such as Japanese fight clubs and baseball clubs.
