[schroeding]

For some people I know, the thought of more (mass) migration is negative because they think it will aggravate existing problems in other areas like a low wages (especially in low skill labour due to increased competition) or the FUBAR housing market in some cities (again, due to increased competition on an already strained market).

For the last part they're definitely right, IMO, and german politics must find a way to solve the housing problem in big cities. The government must find a way to break the "migrants take away part of your cake" narrative, and this is only possible by increasing the size of the cake.

In this case, we need to aggressively build (and incentivize to build) more housing. We're doing the opposite at the moment, if the german construction industry is to be believed, which is very very bad. Building a house became insanly expensive in the last 20 years, especially in the areas where it is needed most. Redistribution by moving senior tenants in big cities to suburban or rural areas will not solve the shortage, neither will "just go to rural east germany, there's enough housing".

We have to solve these problems and prevent the formation of zero-sum games where migrants are seen as (external) competitors, stat - it'll be an existential social question and a threat to the country (and the long-term perspective of migrants) if we do not, IMO.

[mytailorisrich]

A big issue with immigration in Europe is not about economics but about identity, society, and culture.

This is caused by too many people coming in from vastly different cultures. And so there is nothing wrong with being in favour of vastly reduced immigration numbers.

Your take is to accept high immigration numbers as an unavoidable fact and therefore to only look at how to deal with them, and still only in terms of economics.

[lordnacho]

This is the elephant in the room. I have two overlapping observations.

- The big one is Islam. Islam seems to be the only religion in modern times that is actually religious. The only religion that can muster up people to actually get really angry about defending it. It's also the only religion the locals are actually scared of in any meaningful way.

- Color. If you have a bunch of local-looking kids meeting up at the mall, nobody thinks anything of it. Get a bunch of brown kids, and people get scared. Walk around as a typical Polish person, nobody will think anything of it. Walk around while brown and people are alerted to the presence of someone who needs to explain themselves. This isn't always mean-spirited and aggressive, but if you're not white you will constantly be asked by curious people how on earth you ended up walking around Copenhagen. "Where are you really from?".

Put these together and many people constantly see that there's a pernicious foreign influence on their society. They feel it's visible, even though probably a lot of the brown folks aren't even religious.

[yorwba]

AfD support is much higher outside big cities, especially in rural east Germany where there's enough housing.

https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2021-02/mietpreise-deutschlan... claims that the lowest rents in 2021 were in Elsterberg in Saxony.

https://interaktiv.tagesspiegel.de/lab/bundestagswahl-2021-k... shows the AfD getting 25.7% of the vote in Elsterberg during the 2021 federal election, ahead of all other parties.

You may worry about the cost of housing in big cities, but I doubt the typical AfD voter does.

[rtz121]

I honestly don't think such analysis is really useful. It seems to me like the AfD voter base is a diverse "anti-mainstream" coalition. The AfD is strong in east Germany since it's traditionally more right-wing and more anti-mainstream.

The AfD is also strong in Baden-Würtemberg which is traditionally a place with a high population of... well... luddites(?).

These groups might not have the same goals or the same issues they are facing, but what unites them is the feeling that the AfD represents a true opposition to the mainstream political scene.