The residential settlement of Bangladeshis in Italy: the case of Rome

A great number of studies have focused the attention on the settlement patterns of migrants in cities. In the past, the idea was that after an initial phase in which the migrants preferred to live in areas inhabited by co-nationals they would move to areas less populated in this regard. More recently, patterns emerging in the literature see the migrants not leaving the residential area of the first settlement, but remaining attached to it. By applying the spatial statistics methodology, this paper provides a picture of the housing patterns of Bangladeshis regularly resident in Rome and takes into account their different household typologies. Italy’s immigration pattern shows a wide range of countries of origin. This diversity has led to a fairly settled situation characterized not so much by concentrations of mono-national groups as, rather, by “places of copresence”, areas in which various different communities change their daily routines to adapt to the residential context. The aim of this research is to analyze the spatial distribution model of the Bangladeshi community, which has reached a notable level of segregation in certain Italian cities (Genoa, Palermo, Catania), although decidedly lower than the levels observed – for example – in British cities. The analysis was carried out in a context of particular importance for the Bangladeshi community, namely Rome, a city that has since the 1980s been receiving ample flows of Bangladeshis. According to the official sources, the number of Bangladeshi residents in Italy has risen from 27,356 at the beginning of 2004 to about 140,000 by January 1st 2019, with a growth rate of 400%, far higher than that of the foreign population as a whole resident in Italy. Thus, while the Bangladeshis had accounted for 1.4% of the total of foreigners in Italy, by 2019 the proportion had doubled (2.7%).