In urban studies undertaken in many different countries, some of the key academic concepts are developed mainly in the U.S. This is especially true for analyses of the supposedly disadvantaged urban residents living in supposedly segregated areas. My aim is to question the validity of these concepts in a Norwegian urban context. I will focus on concepts and theories related to segregation. It is also important to acknowledge that concepts and theories developed by academics can be adopted by actors outside of the academic seminars and journals. When being used by others, such concepts can be used to justify certain political strategies. Additionally, the concepts can change meaning and in the public debate be used to stigmatize areas and populations.

Academic concepts should be as precise as possible, I argue. It is better to change the concepts themselves if we run the risk of speaking about very different processes using the same vocabulary. At the same time we should reflect on how certain theoretical concepts, e.g. ‘ghetto’, can carry with them negative associations which can have negative consequences for the people we categorize or other residents of the city.  

I claim then that several concepts in urban scholarly discourse do not fit the empirical realities observed or lived even in the two Oslo City Districts that score the lowest on all official statistics on variables such as income, education, health, quality of housing, as well as highest on number of immigrants and levels of unemployment.