Berlin, Germany - The steel mills and coal mines that towered over Marxloh for decades have mostly gone, but many of the 'Gastarbeiter', or guest workers, who came from Turkey to dig the coal and work the furnaces remain.
Over 50 per cent of residents in Marxloh – a gritty suburb of Duisburg in western Germany's former industrial heartland – are of Turkish origin. The district's Turkish and Muslim shops, music and cafes are famous as the city's 'Little Istanbul'.
Marxloh has become famous recently for another reason too. Next year one of Germany's largest mosques - with capacity for 1500 people to attend daily prayers - will open there, placing the area at the centre of national debate on finding ways towards greater co-operation between Muslims, Christians and those of other faiths.
Around one third of Duisburg’s population of 500,000 have a migrant background, and a large share of these are Muslims.
Germany has over 3m Muslims, after France one of the largest such communities in Europe. At the national level chancellor Angela Merkel's government recently launched a new, at times controversial, dialogue with Turkish groups, to find ways of tackling conflictual issues.
For instance some Muslim groups have been heavily criticised over a string of so-called 'honour killings' of Turkish women on religious grounds by their own family members.
But it has been the building of large mosques that has really stirred emotions in many German cities. A project in Cologne similar in scale to the Marxloh mosque has this year met with aggressive street protests, where demonstrators objected to such a prominent symbol of Islam in the deeply Catholic city.
In contrast, the mosque in Marxloh, which is not far from Cologne, is seen as something of a success story, where the Muslim community has worked from an early stage with local politicians, Catholic and Protestant church leaders and others to avoid conflict.
So is Marxloh really so successful – and if so, why is integration working better here than elsewhere?
Zehra Yilmaz treads carefully as she guides her visitors around the inside of the Marxloh mosque. Interior painting, in deep red, blue and yellow, is due to start soon. Men will pray on the ground floor, women on the first floor. Ms Yilmaz is from the Turkish association for religious affairs, a moderate Muslim group with ties to the Turkish government that is building the mosque for around €7m.
One possible reason for the project's success becomes clear during the tour - a large part of the building will become a separate community centre for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with meeting rooms, German courses, a library and a restaurant offering free meals after Friday prayers to Marxloh's poorer residents.
The community centre, funded with €3m by the regional government and the European Union, is already running courses in a temporary building near the mosque. Elif Saat, the centre's chairwoman says over 11,000 people have visited the centre since 2005.
Michael Kemper, the local Catholic priest whose church is visible from the mosque window and who sits on the centre's management committee says the initiative has helped overcome anxieties in the non-Muslim community. People sometimes feel "alienated on their own doorstep" by the large Turkish population, the priest admits.
In the centre of Duisburg, that positive view of the need to overcome anxieties is shared by Adolf Sauerland. the city's conservative mayor. He stresses, however that Marxloh is not a district without problems, such as a jobless rate of over 13 per cent - far above the national average - and poor performances by Turkish children in many local schools.
He hopes the mosque and community centre can give a focus for tackling these issues.
Yet it is perhaps Leyla Özmal who puts her finger on the core of Marxloh's success. A woman of Turkish origin, she works on behalf of the city council in helping develop the mosque. She believes the project has fostered a sense of responsibility among local Muslims towards their local community, and at the same time greater acceptance among non-Muslims that the 'Gastarbeiter' are finally here to stay.
"The 'Gastarbeiter' have become 'Gastgeber', or hosts in the local community", she says.
Back at the mosque, Dervis Sarikaya, deputy head of the mosque association is inspecting recent work on the roof. Down from the ladder, he says he hopes that also after the building is opened next year the battles that have flared elsewhere over similar projects will not spread to Marxloh.
At least, he concludes, the foundations needed to stop that happening are already in place.