page_title: East End and West End of Oslo
section_title: Immigration
hierarchical_section_title: East End and West End of Oslo / The East End and the West End in the 21st century / Immigration
caption_attribution_description: English: Teenagers of various backgrounds in Oslo, Norway. Deutsch: Jugendliche mit verschiedenen Hintergründen in Oslo, Norwegen. Svenska: Tonåringar av olika bakgrunder i Oslo, Norge.
context_page_description: The East End and West End are used as names for the two parts of Oslo, Norway, formed by the economic and socially segregating separation line that has historically passed along the street Uelands gate. The Akerselva river is often seen as a boundary between west and east, but it is imprecise, because there are working-class neighbourhoods on both sides of the river.
  The West End was built in the 1840s, and had since the 17th century been a common land area, with the area behind the castle as an exit point. The East End grew around the new industry and along the passageways to the east. Around 1890, the division between east and west was prominent and most districts of the city were marked by class, either by working-class or bourgeois class. This division was reflected in architecture, but also in politics in that the Conservative Party and the Labour Party were, taken together, much more dominant than in other parts of Norway. The dialects have traditionally been quite different, and there has been a sharp distinction line between the sociolects of the two parts of the city, but this has somewhat diminished in the latest decades.
context_section_description: The large, new immigrant population in Oslo has divided itself among the east-west division.
  Immigrants from the Nordic countries, western Europe, new EU countries in central Europe and eastern Europe, and North America tend to succeed well in Norway. Of the about 40,000 (1 January 2009) people from these areas, about 18,000 live in the West End. Immigrants from other European countries, Africa, Central America, South America, and Asia have more difficulties succeeding in the Norwegian society, and more problems getting a job matching their level of education and other resources. Of these about 112,000 immigrants, about 15,000 live in the West End.
  The concentration of immigrants from countries outside of Europe in some districts and suburbs has received sustained attention in public debate. In bydel Alna there are more non-Western immigrants than in any other municipality outside of Oslo and the part of the non-Western immigrant population in some suburbs is above 60 percent of the population (Smedstua and Rommen in bydel Stovner and Bjørnerud in bydel Søndre Nordstrand). The concentration in Oslo decreased somewhat from 1998 to 2008, however. No areas with high concentration has a great concentration of one nationality, here the highest number is around 20 percent Pakistanis at Bjørnerud. No area of Oslo has the signs that are commonly used to describe a ghetto (marked dilapidation, high criminality, significant poverty, and social misery). Compared to big cities elsewhere in Europe with high concentration of people from other continents, Oslo has good conditions. 
  There are large differences inside this group of immigrants and many succeed well, but on average the group shows significantly low employment and income, and more health problems than the rest of the city's population.
  In the 123 municipal grade schools in Oslo, pupils speaking a minority language form the majority in 53 schools (semester 2009–2010). All of these are located in the East End. It has become common in the East End for children to grow up with a large number of peers that have an ethnic background from a society that is quite different from the Norwegian society.
  Since the 1970s, immigrants from Asia and Africa have owned small businesses, especially food stores and restaurants. In the district of Grønland and in the Hausmann area the street view is dominated by businesses owned by immigrants from other parts of the world.
caption: Youth in Oslo, with roots in many countries in the world.
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