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The paper investigates ethnic minority concentration within social housing and the potentials of a strong social housing sector through an analysis of the housing careers of Somalis and Turks in Copenhagen. In a Danish context, the two ethnic groups differ greatly with respect to migration history, socio-economic resources and family characteristics as well as distribution between tenures. It is therefore interesting to study whether these differences lead to differences in housing market choices and constraints. The majority of the interviewed Somalis and Turks made their housing careers within the social housing sector, which to the interviewees offered good housing options and possibilities for shaping their own housing careers. The majority of the Somalis perceived paying interest as being incompatible with Islam. Renting thus allowed them to adhere to their religious beliefs. The advantages of the social housing sector limited the pull of owner-occupied housing. The paper thus questions the use of the home-ownership gap as an indication of a lack of ethnic minority integration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Being a ‘stranger’ has become increasingly difficult on the European continent during the latest decades. Populist racism and anti-immigration attitudes have made life difficult, and Denmark has taken the position as one of the iconic cases of this development. But how is that reflected in the cities? Does the character of the city as ‘a world of strangers’ open up special possibilities of coexistence? These are the questions addressed in this paper using material from an interpretative analysis conducted among Copenhagen citizens of Pakistani origin. The analysis aims to construe an affective mapping of life as an ethnic minority in the city. It revolves around three issues. First, it focuses on the narrators’ experiences of exclusions and blockages in everyday life. This is followed by a focus on urban belonging emphasizing its differential character. Finally, the ambiguity of experiences is discussed, including the paradox that the experiences of estrangement apparently have only marginal influence on the possibility of belonging. The narrators simultaneously express strong emotions around exclusions and construe different creative ways of belonging to the city. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]