Greece’s debt crisis, shrinking economy, surging unemployment and the continuous waves of illegal immigrants have transformed Athens, once considered one of Europe’s safest and most lively capitals, into a city with a growing public sense of insecurity and aesthetic decadence.
In particular, the presence of a large number of people engaged in varying activities in urban public spaces, as well as the emergence of deprived neighbourhoods in the heart of the city, have resulted in deviant and criminal behaviour, which, along with the economic decline, are destroying the remaining nodes of the legal economy in the city. The chapter presents preliminary results of ongoing small-scale research. First, it addresses the impact of increasing irregular immigration on the development of illegal markets in Athens. Secondly, it examines the role of economic, political and social forces in the trend towards continuing illegal immigration and inner city neighbourhood decline, in the context of urban sociology. Specifically, it will show the degradation of an inner city district overpopulated by (undocumented) immigrants and the effects of expanding criminal networks. Thirdly, the study outlines the policies followed by successive Greek governments in relation to the immigrant population that has entered Greece during the last two decades.
Book chapter
In Pietro Saitta, Joanna Shapland and Antoinette Verhage (eds.):
Getting by or Getting Rich? The Formal, Informal and Criminal Economy in a Globalized World
Eleven International, den Haag, 2013, pp. 61-94
408 pages ISBN 9789462360563
Humanities