As Urbanization Accelerates, Policymakers Face Integration Hurdles

The challenges for cities in the coming century will be many, but accounting for swelling numbers of new residents – due to more open avenues of communication and flows of goods, economic opportunity, population growth, and potential climate change-induced displacement – is perhaps the biggest.

While cities always have received migrants, the development of increasingly mobile populations on a previously unknown scale comprises a new urban reality. As cities around the world have become home to the majority of human beings, they have evolved into agglomerations of neighborhoods defined by ethnicity, religion, or nationality. Creating inclusive and socially sustainable cities in this context requires a strong democratic civic culture; urban policymakers must pay close attention to the ways neighborhoods and local governments interact to forge community, foster economic and educational opportunities, and provide services.

While the large-scale rapid movement of people is happening globally, the process by which migrant communities are incorporated into a particular urban region varies from city to city. The history of place, community identities, and public policy all impact this process. Therefore, rather than make specific policy recommendations I would suggest that developing effective policies must begin with the promotion of new sensibilities about what these policies should be.

To be successful and avoid conflict in a time of rapid global population movement, a city must simultaneously accept both different and shared points of reference. Local legends, memories, and telling of history must go beyond exclusionary understandings of society and embrace an inclusive pluralism. In other words, urban civic identities must encompass a variety of urban groups and individuals. Even if they have been divided in the past, cities must somehow create a shared sense of responsibility for a common future.