Frank Gesemann/Roland Roth (Hg.): Local integration policy in a nation of immigrants. Immigration and integration as a challenge for local authorities (VS Verlag publishing house for social sciences: Wiesbaden 2009).

Towns and communities are extremely important places of everyday cohabitation for the economic, social and cultural integration of immigrants. The perception that the federal republic has become a nation of immigrants which can benefit from successful immigration has been adopted at local government level for a long time. What often started out as pragmatic improvisation was over time further developed in many places into a politically integrated overall strategy in which all local spheres of activity were included. This argument offers an initial comprehensive and problem-oriented appraisal of local integration policies in Germany as well as their current strengths and problem areas. Their fields of policy, subject matter and protagonists are presented in detail. A look at international experiences extends the horizon of possibilities. The contributions of this publication have a double function. On the one hand they provide reliable information for the debate on the economic controversy and on the other hand they serve as reflective and practical knowledge for the different protagonists of integration development.