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Segmented Cities?
Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Series
How can societies respond to the opportunities and challenges raised by ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural differences and do so in ways that promote democracy, social justice, peace, and stability? The volumes in this series seek answers to this fundamental question through innovative academic analysis that illuminates the policy choices facing citizens and governments as they address ethnocultural diversity. The volumes are the result of a collaborative research project on ethnicity and democratic governance under the general editorship of Bruce J. Berman. Volumes in the series
Avigail Eisenberg and Will Kymlicka, eds., Identity Politics in the Public Realm: Bringing Institutions Back In Bruce J. Berman, Rajeev Bhargava, and André Laliberté, eds., Secular States and Religious Diversity Kristin R. Good, Luc Turgeon, and Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos, eds., Segmented Cities? How Urban Contexts Shape Ethnic and Nationalist Politics Avigail Eisenberg, Jeremy Webber, Glen Coulthard, and Andrée Boisselle, eds., Recognition versus Self-Determination: Dilemmas of Emancipatory Politics Volumes planned in the series
Bruce J. Berman, André Laliberté, and Stephen J. Larin, eds., Ethnic Claims and Moral Economies Karlo Basta, John McGarry, and Richard Simeon, eds., Assessing Territorial Pluralism
Ethnicity and Democratic Governance
Edited by Kristin R. Good, Luc Turgeon, and Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos
Segmented Cities? How Urban Contexts Shape Ethnic and Nationalist Politics
© UBC Press 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Segmented cities?: how urban contexts shape ethnic and nationalist politics / edited by Kristen R. Good, Luc Turgeon, and Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos. (Ethnicity and democratic governance series, 1927-0720) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-7748-2583-2 (bound). – ISBN 978-0-7748-2585-6 (pdf ). – ISBN 978-0-7748-2586-3 (epub) 1. Sociology, Urban. 2. Ethnic neighborhoods. 3. Urban minorities – Political activity. 4. Ethnic relations – Political aspects. I. Triadafilopoulos, Triadafilos, editor of compilation. II. Turgeon, Luc, 1975-, editor of compilation. III. Good, Kristin R., 1974-, editor of compilation. IV. Series: Ethnicity and democratic governance series HT151.S38 2014 307.76089 C2013-906746-9 C2013-906747-7
UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program of the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens Set in Frutiger and Warnock by Artegraphica Design Co. Ltd. Copy editor: Joanne Muzak Proofreader: Lana Okerlund Indexer: Annette Lorek UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 www.ubcpress.ca
Contents
List of Illustrations / vii Preface / ix Acknowledgments / xi Introduction: Ethnic and Nationalist Politics in a Global and Urban World / 1 Kristin R. Good, Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos, and Luc Turgeon Part One: Globalization, Scale, and the Political Economy of Ethnically Plural “World Cities”
1 Adding Human Diversity to Urban Political Economy Analysis: The Case of Russia / 37 Blair A. Ruble 2 Citizenship and Livelihood Struggles in Turbulent Times: The City and Ethnic Politics in Postcolonial Africa / 60 Dickson Eyoh 3 Gentrification, Social Mix, and the Immigrant-Reception Function of Inner-City Neighbourhoods: Evidence from Canadian Globalizing Cities / 81 Alan Walks
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4 Globalization, Immigration, and Ethnoburbs / 115 Wan Yu and Wei Li Part Two: Ethnolinguistic Configurations and Relations in Segmented Cities
5 Cape Town’s “World-Class” Segregation / 143 David A. McDonald 6 Segmented Cities: Ethnic Conflict, Geographical Scale, and the Politics of Explanation / 165 David Ley 7 Immigrant Inclusion and Linguistic Struggle in the Brussels-Capital Region / 182 Yoann Veny and Dirk Jacobs Part Three: Managing Diversity through Local Institutions and Processes of Urban Governance
8 Jerusalem: Conflict in the City of Peace / 205 David Cameron 9 Managing Multicultural Cities in Divided Countries / 226 Scott A. Bollens 10 Social Cohesion and Democratic Voice: Paths to Political Incorporation / 250 Susan E. Clarke and Keeley W. Stokes Conclusion: Cities as Dynamic Sites of Integration and Segmentation / 277 Luc Turgeon, Kristin R. Good, and Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos List of Contributors / 293 Index / 297
Illustrations
Tables
2.1 Population estimates (thousands) for selected primary cities / 68 3.1 Incidence of low income (% below the LICO), visible minorities and whites / 88 3.2 The proportion of neighbourhoods experiencing gentrification, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver / 92 3.3 Mean neighbourhood proportions for foreign-born residents and the three largest visible minority groups (Chinese, South Asian, and black/African) by neighbourhood type, three largest cities, 1971-2006 / 95 3.4 Change in the mix of households with low, middle, and high incomes / 101 4.1 Racial composition of four ethnoburbs in San Gabriel Valley, 1990, 2000, and 2010 / 121 4.2 Comparison of San Gabriel Valley and Wangjing ethnoburbs / 126 7.1 Policy approaches of Flemish and Francophones toward people of immigrant origin / 193 9.1 Six cases of local governance and their influences on ethnic relations / 229 10.1 Measures of representational parity: Outer boroughs of London, 2002 and 2006 / 256 10.2 Measures of representational parity: Inner boroughs of London, 2002 and 2006 / 257
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10.3 Variable names, descriptions, and sources used to cluster the boroughs / 260 10.4 Cluster analysis summary / 262 Figures
3.1 Average income of recent immigrants as a proportion of the average income of native born, three largest CMAs, 1980-2005 / 86 3.2 Average income of visible minorities as a proportion of the average income of non-visible minorities (whites), three largest CMAs, 1980-2005 / 87 3.3 Location quotients (LQ) for foreign born by neighbourhood type, all three central cities, 1971-2006 / 97 3.4 Location quotients (LQ) for residents with Chinese, South Asian, or black/African origins, by neighbourhood type, all three central cities, 1971-2006 / 98 3.5 Proportionate change in the Simpson Diversity Index, by neighbourhood type, for all three central cities, 1971-2006 / 99 3.6 Map of ethnoburbs and isoburbs, Toronto CMA, 2006 / 106 5.1 Map of Cape Town metropolitan boundaries and key areas within the city / 152 7.1 Percentage of non-EU-origin elected politicians in the local and regional elections of the Brussels-Capital Region / 199 10.1 Map of London boroughs clustered by parity and incorporation scores, 2002 and 2006 / 261
Preface The EDG Series: Governing Diversity
The volumes in the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance series are the product of an international Canadian-based Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI) begun in 2006 under Bruce Berman of Queen’s University as principal investigator. Over the course of six years, thirty-nine international researchers and other associated organizations pooled their research and knowledge of one of the most complex and challenging issues in the world today – governing ethnic diversity. The EDG project began with one foundational question: How can societies respond to the opportunities and challenges raised by ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural differences and do so in ways that promote democracy, social justice, peace, and stability? To approach the complex issue of governing ethnic diversity, our academic investigations were broken into four interrelated research streams represented by four main research questions: • What are the causes of ethnic community formation, political mobilization, and conflict? • What are the institutional strategies and policies available to states for developing democracy in multiethnic societies? • To what extent can the international community facilitate the peaceful resolution of ethnic conflicts?
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• What normative principles of justice and democracy should be used in formulating or evaluating the governance of diversity? The themes around which our work has coalesced include nationalism, multiculturalism, federalism, ethnicity and moral economy, recognition and identity, accommodation and integration, conflict resolution, democratic governance, secularism and religious pluralism, citizenship, international intervention, immigration, social integration, self-determination, and territory. Core funding for the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance MCRI comes from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Although the project is headquartered at Queen’s University, the Université du Québec à Montréal, the University of Toronto, and the Uni versity of Victoria are also partner institutions in the initiative. It is our hope that readers will discover within all of our volumes – and in other project outputs – new understandings of previously neglected or understudied aspects of the nature of ethnic identity formation, the causes of ethnic conflict, and the relationship between ethnic conflict and democratic governance in the contemporary globalized world. For more information on the EDG project and for a list of other EDG publications, see www. queensu.ca/edg/.
Acknowledgments
This book has its origins in the Globalization, Urbanization, and Ethnicity conference held in Ottawa in December 2009. This was the second and final major public conference of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Major Collaborative Research Initiative on Ethnicity and Democratic Governance (EDG). We were privileged to have had the opportunity to assist in organizing the conference and in editing this final publication in the EDG series. We thank the EDG’s former director and principal investigator, Bruce Berman, and the EDG team at Queen’s Uni versity, especially Jennifer Clarke and Anne Linscott, for their dedication and support. We truly could not have completed this book without their help and thank them very much for their efforts. We also thank our editor, Emily Andrew, and her team at UBC Press for their professionalism and strong support. We appreciate the very helpful comments provided by the three referees asked to review the book and hope we have come close to meeting their exacting standards. Finally, we sincerely thank the book’s contributors for their excellent work. It has been a pleasure working with all of them.
Segmented Cities?
Introduction Ethnic and Nationalist Politics in a Global and Urban World Kristin R. Good, Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos, Luc Turgeon
In 2007, the United Nations reported that, for the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population would live in urban areas by the fol lowing year (UNFPA 2007, 1). Indeed, by 2010, 50.6 percent of the world’s population was urban (UN Habitat 2010-11, 12) and the United Nations predicts that this figure will increase to 70 percent by 2050 (ibid.). Urbanization marks a tectonic shift in how human populations settle and live together that has fundamental implications for economic development, social relations, and politics. Although patterns of urbanization are uneven, all regions of the world are becoming more urban. In 2010, North America was the most urban (82.1 percent) followed by Europe (75 percent). The least urban region of the world was Africa (40 percent): nevertheless, by 2020 even Africa is expected to pass its “tipping point” to become more than 50 percent urban (UN Habitat 2010-11, 12). Understanding urban development is and will continue to be central to managing countries’ economic, social, and political futures. This volume explores the urban roots and dimensions of ethnic and nationalist politics in a wide range of cities in the global North and global South. Globalization and urbanization are intimately linked. The literature on world cities posits that we are in a stage of capitalist development in which cities are the central driving force – cities have become the places of economic growth, development, and innovation as well as the command and
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control centres of the global economy. Since economic and educational opportunities as well as access to services are increasingly concentrated in urban communities, internal migration to cities has accelerated. The vast majority of immigrants also settle in urban places with many concentrating in countries’ largest cities. All across the globe, migrants (both internal and external) are heading to cities, transforming them in a multitude of ways, sometimes at staggering rates. A significant element of this transformation includes altered ethnic configurations. Both internal and international migration are changing the ethnic composition of cities. In Canada, for instance, the migration of indigenous peoples from reserves in rural areas is transforming the ethnic configuration of cities, particularly in the Prairie provinces but also in Toronto and Vancouver. Similar forces of urbanization are transforming cities in the global South in ways that have altered identity politics. In Africa, internal migration is transforming cities in fundamental ways, contributing to the rise in the salience of ethnic politics in communities whose identity politics had previously been focused on nationbuilding goals. Nevertheless, although internal migration has also led to significant changes in the ethnolinguistic composition of cities, it is international migration, its impact varying by place, that has resulted in the most dramatic social changes, especially in what urban scholars call “world cities” (BentonShort, Price, and Friedman 2005). There are more international migrants today than in any other time in recorded history (IOM 2010, 3).1 Such migration is largely an urban phenomenon. In fact, immigrant settlement is highly spatially concentrated within particular metropolitan areas in the world. According to Marie Price and Lisa Benton-Short’s (2007, 108) pioneering work on the relationship between world city formation and immigration, there are nineteen cities in the world that are home to more than one million immigrants. The pool of international migrants has also become more ethnically and culturally diverse (IOM 2010, 3; Benton-Short, Price, and Friedman 2005, 947). Scholars such as Steven Vertovec (2007) have developed new concepts such as “super-diversity” to describe the increasing complexity of ethnocultural diversity and its multidimensional interactions with other factors such as immigration status, labour market status, gender, and local service providers’ efforts to shape “where, how and with whom people live” (Vertovec 2007, 1025). Super-diversity is most pronounced in metropolitan areas and in particular world cities such as London, New York, Paris, and Toronto. Thus, as urbanization progresses, many city dwellers have experienced sometimes dramatic changes in many aspects of their
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day-to-day life, including the social and ethnocultural composition of their populations. Although migration patterns remain uneven across and within countries, the effect of international migration on urbanization is not restricted to traditional immigrant settlement countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United States. In fact, as Blair Ruble’s (Chapter 1) contribution to this volume highlights, the Russian Federation has become one of the most significant countries of migration (IOM 2010, 115). Both Moscow and St. Petersburg are among the twenty-five top immigrant destinations (Price and Benton-Short 2007, 109). More generally, as Rinus Penninx (2009, 24) observes, although European countries have “consistently defined themselves as non-immigration countries, in contrast to countries such as Canada, Australia and the United States,” demographic data show that “Europe has factually become an immigration continent” (ibid., 22). Nowhere is this more apparent than in large European world cities such as London and Paris that each host more than one million immigrants (and in London’s case about two million) and are among the top twenty-five immigrant destinations in the world (Price and Benton-Short 2007). Cities in the global South have also been dramatically affected by international migration. Although countries in the global South share a common experience as countries of emigration to the global North, many are also important migrant destinations.2 Several cities in the Middle East, for instance, have populations with a very high percentage of foreign-born individuals. With a population just over 30 percent foreign born, Jerusalem, for example (a city discussed by David Cameron in Chapter 8 of this volume), is among the top twenty-five immigrant destinations as measured by the percentage of foreign-born residents (Price and Benton-Short 2007, 112). Continental/regional dynamics vary in the global South as they do in all parts of the world. It is estimated that there were nineteen million migrants in Africa in 2010, although the number may in fact be much larger given the poor quality of data available on which such estimates are based (IOM 2010, 127). In African cities such as Cape Town, as David McDonald’s chapter highlights (Chapter 5), the debates and reality of international migration are mainly about the “Africanization” of the city.3 China, another nontraditional country of migration covered in this volume, was host to just over 686,000 migrants in 2010 (IOM 2010, 169); a negligible figure in relation to its population of about 1.3 billion. The on-the-ground impact of immigration, however, may be more dramatic than country level data suggest since immigrants to China also concentrate in urban areas. Wan Yu and
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Wei Li’s contribution (Chapter 4) demonstrates the emergence of an “ethnoburb” in Beijing’s Wangjing District; in 2007, Korean residents constituted just over 23 percent of this district. Thus, international migration is significant to all regions of the world, although migrant settlement patterns, both across countries and within them, are spatially uneven. As the contributions to this volume make clear, ethnic relations are shaped by the particularities of their local contexts. Regional, continental, and national debates and contexts matter, but migrants’ day-to-day experience of ethnic relations takes place at the local level. This volume explores the role of the city in ethnic relations, probing the circumstances under which they are sites of ethnic conflict and division or of interethnic reciprocity and harmony. A useful concept here is that of the “social sustainability” of cities. In a rare volume that considers the question of ethnic relations in cities that span the global North and South, Mario Polèse and Richard Stren (2000) define “social sustainability for a city … as development (and/or growth) that is compatible with the harmonious evolution of civil society, fostering an environment conducive to the compatible cohabitation of culturally and socially diverse groups while at the same time encouraging social integration, with improvements in the quality of life for all segments of the population” (15-16, italics in the original). By their very nature, cities – dense and populous human settlements – create interdependencies: they have the potential to both unite and divide. One might hypothesize that urban face-to-face contact facilitates the exchange of ideas, tolerance of difference, and ethnic harmony. Cities can be places of opportunity, inclusion, and innovation; they have, as contributor Scott Bollens puts it (Chapter 9), an “inherent ability” to bring people together. Nevertheless, as we discuss below, depending on the nature of contact among groups on the ground, city life can also accentuate divisions and contribute to conflict. Urbanization and city life also have the potential to solidify divisions and to further segment populations. Furthermore, urban places are contexts not only of the integration of international migrants but also sites of deeply embedded multinational coexistence. The distinction here is between polyethnic diversity and multinational diversity (Kymlicka 1995).4 Many typologies of multicultural diversity view the former as a result of immigration and the latter a con sequence of long-standing historical, ethnolinguistic, and religious differences. To these kinds of ethnic differences we would add deep-seated “racial” divisions that exist in cities in both the global North and South, including the legacy of various forms of racial oppression of blacks including,
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for instance, slavery and Jim Crow laws in the United States and apartheid in South Africa. Will Kymlicka (1995) argues that the goals of subnational groups and indigenous peoples are fundamentally different than immigrants’ goals. The former desire degrees of self-government and more fundamental accommodations whereas the latter desire to integrate into common public institutions and request accommodations to facilitate this process. Although the question of whether some immigrants truly wish to integrate is currently subject to a vigorous international debate, the important empirical point to be made here is that many Western states have accepted that multinational groups are entitled to some form of distinct legal and institutional status, and immigrant groups, on the other hand, are expected to integrate into common institutions with comparably minor accommodations to facilitate integration. Thus, multinational differences are more deeply entrenched historically, institutionally, and constitutionally and, one might argue, are inherently competitive. One important volume on local immigrant politics and policies refers to the historic and deep-rooted forms of diversity in European cities as the “old diversity” suggesting that it has “been accommodated to a very great extent, and [is] now reflected in the institutional arrangements, political structures and processes of decision-making in [divided] cities.” The same volume notes that “the crucial question for [such] cities is whether they are able to accommodate the new [immigrant] diversity” (Penninx et al. 2004, 5). The point worth underlining is that the two types of diversity are not mutually exclusive but coexist and intersect in potentially explosive ways in some cities, threatening to destabilize existing settlements where they exist. For instance, linguistically divided cities such as Brussels (see Chapter 7 by Yoann Veny and Dirk Jacobs as well as Chapter 9 by Scott Bollens, in this volume) and Montreal also receive very high numbers of immigrants, potentially threatening delicate existing multinational accommodations at the national and local levels. In his previous work, Bollens provides a list of cities with a high potential for conflict, including Jeru salem, Belfast, Nicosia, Algiers, Beirut, Montreal, and Brussels – multinational cities that span the global North and South (Bollens 2007, 6). A great deal of work remains to be done with respect to designing institutions to manage multinational and multilinguistic differences in ways that are responsive to urban contexts, including in European cities. Moreover, an important element of “hyperdiversity” (Price and Benton-Short 2007) or “super-diversity” (Vertovec 2007) includes the multilayering of “deep”
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diversity (Taylor 1994) and more recent immigrant diversity. Given the complexity of managing and integrating multiple diversities in cities, we appreciate Olivier Asselin et al.’s (2006, 138, emphasis in the original) definition of integration as “the process in which people and their activities become intertwined in social life and form mutual interdependent relations of some form and to a certain degree” because we view integration as an ongoing process and we acknowledge that accommodating multiple coexisting forms of diversity in cities involves accepting different degrees of integration. And, like Asselin, we also view the process as a “multidimensional” and “multilevel” process. The ultimate goal is to encourage the peaceful cohabitation of groups, as Polèse and Stren (2000) suggest, by encouraging cities to develop in a way that benefits all residents. To summarize, urban places are contexts of new forms of economic, social, and political division as well as sites of deeply embedded multinational coexistence and competition. They are places where new and old ethnic cleavages intersect. Place matters to our understanding of ethnic relations and urban centres are the foci, the face-to-face meeting grounds of those relations. We therefore need to know more about the conditions under which urban contexts lead to ethnic conflict and exclusion, as well as the conditions under which urban life engenders peaceful and inclusive coexistence. The volume’s core question is the following: under what circumstances does the intersection of various types of differences in urban contexts cause ethnic conflict and division rather than moderate it? In other words, under what conditions are cities places of integration or places of segmentation? The volume explores the influence of three factors on ethnic relations: 1 The political economy of ethnic relations in cities; 2 The impact of ethnolinguistic configurations of cities on nationalist and ethnic conflicts; and 3 The role of urban institutions and multilevel urban interventions in the management of ethnic conflict and incorporation of intersecting diversities in cities. As the empirical case studies in the book make clear, these factors typically intersect and reinforce each other. Nevertheless, we believe that highlighting the role of each is analytically useful; understanding the influence of political economy, ethnolinguistic configurations, or urban institutions and multilevel governance on urban ethnic relations allows us to distinguish
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cases where one or the other factor is more important in terms of explaining degrees of integration or segmentation. Perhaps even more importantly, useful policy prescriptions rely on pinpointing the particulars of the problem to be solved: while an entire social-economic-political system may be “broken,” one must understand what particular part of the system is most in need of repair if one is to offer useful policy advice. As we point out below and through the organization of our book into three sections, the chapters in this book often do highlight the particular influence of specific causal factors in explaining the broader outcomes in the cases under consideration. As such, the analytical framework developed here sharpens and complements the empirically oriented work undertaken by the book’s contributors. We will now describe each of these factors in turn. Theme 1: Globalization and the Political Economy of Migration and Ethnic Politics
Urban scholars have demonstrated that, contrary to many predictions about globalization’s effect on the salience of territorial space, place still matters. This broad literature links globalization to urbanization arguing that the relevant territorial scale has become the urban. This broad literature posits the rise of a hierarchy of cities with different functions in the global economic system. Although a great deal of urban scholarship discusses the increasing prominence of cities, what might be called the “world city literature” is an important strain. This literature stresses the importance of economic factors to urbanization trends. In particular, the literature points to how, beginning in the 1970s and accelerating in the 1980s, the growth of the service economy and the requirements of transnational capital for specialized services led to the concentrated clustering of management, financial, and other high-level services in cities. Although some view this literature as limited to the study of particular urban centres, namely the major players (core financial centres and headquarters of transnational corporations) in the global economy, others conceptualize it more broadly as literature that “attempts to analyze the changing worldwide geographies of capitalism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries” (Brenner and Keil 2006, 9). It is the broader definition of this literature that informs this book. John Friedmann (1986, cited in Brenner and Keil 2006, 67) was one of the first scholars to link urbanization and globalization, conceptualizing cities as “basing points” for global capital and describing “world cities” as “sites of the concentration and accumulation of international capital.” Saskia
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Sassen, also a pioneering contributor to this literature, theorizes a particular kind of world city – the “global city” that is at the top of what has become a hierarchy of cities competing for ascendancy in the global economy. She first developed this concept in The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991), which documents parallel processes of change in the economic bases, spatial organization, and social structures of these three cities. She attributes similar patterns of change in cities located in very different national contexts to changes in the global economy. She summarizes the central thesis of one of her more recent books that further develops themes in The Global City as follows: Since the 1980s, major transformations in the composition of the world economy, including the sharp growth of specialized services for firms and finance, have renewed the importance of major cities as sites for producing strategic global inputs. In the current phase of the world economy, it is precisely the combination of the global dispersal of factories, offices and service outlets, and global information integration – under conditions of continued concentration of economic ownership and control – that has contributed to a strategic role for certain major cities. (Sassen 2006, 6)
Sassen indicates that there are about forty such “global cities” in the world today (ibid., 7). According to Sassen (ibid.), from an economic perspective: “today’s global cities are (1) command points in the organization of the world economy; (2) key locations and marketplaces for the leading industries of the current period – finance and specialized services for firms; and (3) major sites of production, including the production of innovations, for these industries.” Furthermore, these cities must be seen as entities that form a network rather than as independent actors in the global sphere (ibid.). Changes in the global political economy have also been associated with a convergence in patterns of urban governance. Comparative scholars have documented a convergence in the Western world around growth agendas (Pierre 1999, 384). Essentially, the American “growth machines” (Molotch 1976; Logan and Molotch 1987) of the 1970s and 1980s have become pervasive and oriented towards competition at the global rather than national level. This trend has been described in different ways including as the rise of the “entrepreneurial city” (Clarke and Gail, 1998) or the “competitive city” (Kipfer and Keil 2002). Others have argued that the reorganization of capitalism and the rise of select cities are implicated in a process of “rescaling”
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power to the global and local levels. These shifting power dynamics have, in turn, resulted in a territorial refocusing of state activities to the local scale (see, for instance, Brenner 2004). Migration is fundamental to the process by which the new geography of capitalism is emerging. With some recent exceptions, the literature on world cities neglects to consider immigration as a global flow fundamental in shaping urban development and the world city system (Price and BentonShort 2007, 104). Rather immigration enters the analysis as a flow associated with social polarization (see our discussion of Sassen below). However, globalization has “rescaled” the politics of immigration and of ethnic relations in general. Cities have emerged as both the strategic command and control sites of the global economy and testing grounds for peaceful coexistence in contexts of new, old, and intersecting diversity. Success at managing diversity is fundamental to economic growth. Im migrant attraction/retention has become an economic development strategy in many cities across the globe (see Good 2009 and Good forthcoming, for examples in Canada). In Chapter 1 of this volume, Blair Ruble utilizes the conceptual framework of diversity capital to examine the potential role of pro-business interests and outlooks in promoting tolerance policies. Ruble argues that business can become a force for progressive change in cities confronting the transition from once autarkic economic regimes. More specifically, he explores the ways in which emerging development machines’ efforts to combat labour shortages in contemporary Russian cities promotes “diversity capital” as policy makers struggle to attract migrants of strikingly different racial, ethnic, and confessional backgrounds. He draws on empirical examples from three large Russian cities – Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg – to illustrate the ways in which municipal officials manage and promote tolerance as part of a strategy to attract and sustain local labour forces. Ruble’s piece appears to be consistent with what the International Organ ization for Migration (IOM) (2010, 9-10) has identified as a general con sensus among business elites that migration is good for business. World city discourse has also become normative. Local corporate elites are city boosters that strive to attain world city status. Many business leaders and other city boosters associate a city that can integrate a diverse immigrant population with attaining this status. As a result, promoting a city’s multiculturalism is now a strategy for some cities in the competition for elite migrants. In contexts where the term multiculturalism has been discredited, new terms, such as “welcoming society,” have been developed (Bertelsmann Foundation
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2012). In both cases, the aim is to brand the city as open to both diversity and business. Nevertheless, the IOM also describes a tension between the interests of the global corporate sector, which wants to see barriers to the free movement of people removed, and the interests of states that are embedded in local politics. Changing ethnic demographics have caused tensions in many cities across the globe. In fact, in many ways, support for immigration from the business community and resistance from ordinary residents are global phenomena. The IOM, media articles in countries around the world, and the academic literature document what seems to be rather pervasive social unrest concerning immigration. The IOM (2010, 10) notes the rise of “concerns, both legitimate and unfounded, about the arrival of people from other countries and cultures.” Scholars describe a widespread backlash against multiculturalism in Europe (Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010) and in new American immigrant gateways (Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008). As David Ley’s contribution to this volume (Chapter 6) and other work suggests (see Good 2009), there have even been growing pains in several local communities in Canada, a country known to be an exceptional case in its support for multiculturalism and immigration and the first country to become “officially multicultural.” Neil Brenner and Roger Keil (2006, 77) describe debates about the social effects of global city formation as “the most provocative, if also highly controversial, aspects of global cities research.” Sassen (1991) argues that global cities share patterns of social as well as economic change. In particular, she views social polarization as a consequence of global city formation since very high-level services concentrate in cities with a need for lowpaying service workers to serve the needs of the transnational elite. Servicebased economies are, according to this line of argument, more unequal than manufacturing-based economies. Well-known planning scholar Susan S. Fainstein rejects the polarization hypothesis as articulated by Sassen (1991) and other global city scholars. She finds that the middle class has not shrunk – although upper-income earners have benefited disproportionately from growth in global cities, middle- and lower-income groups have suffered only relative losses (in terms of their position in relation to the top group). She also argues that “national” public policies have played a crucial role in mediating labour market inequality (Fainstein 2001, 292-94). Many of our contributors similarly highlight the importance of national and regional policy contexts on ethnic relations in cities suggesting the
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importance of multilevel and multiscalar institutional analysis, a theme to be discussed further below. Where it exists, how might social polarization affect ethnic relations in cities? Sassen (2006, 180-82) found that polarization in global cities also intersects with race and immigrant status, with racial minorities and immigrants disproportionately found in the lower paying service jobs and informal economy. Her work suggests global cities have produced an immigrant underclass that is concentrated in low-end service jobs in service-driven global cities. Fainstein’s work provides only qualified support for this assessment arguing that, although a correlation between low income and racial or ethnic minority status exists, the relationship is complex and varies across global cities (Fainstein 2001, 294). Fainstein points out that in New York, for instance, immigrants have “done quite well” and although “race is highly correlated with income … within the black population West Indian immigrants fare better than African Americans” (ibid.). In Paris, she finds no correlation between income and immigrant status (ibid.). The case of New York suggests that long-standing ethno racial differences must be examined separately from immigrant differences. According to Michael Jones-Correa (2001b), differences among immigrants and native-born African Americans have provoked a deep cleavage in the United States’ most numerically significant immigrant destinations. These cleavages “have the potential for triggering conflict” (189). More generally, variation in the experiences of immigrants and long-standing racialized minorities points to the value of asking the central question that guides this volume: under what circumstances do city contexts serve to unite ethnic groups and when do they divide them and why? The authors in this volume offer complex answers to this question. Several authors stress the importance of placing changes in cities within a historical context. For instance, David McDonald’s chapter on Cape Town (Chapter 5) highlights how the historical legacy of apartheid has contributed to the racialization of world city dynamics. In particular, he shows that the city’s response to global forces has led to a somewhat paradoxical tendency on the part of the transnational elite to sell Cape Town as a white, English-speaking city while at the same time supporting efforts to attract African migrants to the city to meet labour market needs. Here the prerogatives of branding do not necessarily reinforce the logic of business, at least regarding low-skilled workers. David Ley’s study (Chapter 6) of the reaction of local residents to immigration-driven growth in Vancouver, Canada’s third largest city, demonstrates that racial minorities are not only immigrating to global cities as
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cheap labourers in a highly polarized economy (as the social polarization thesis highlights). Rather, many members of the transnational elite are also racial minorities. “Millionaire migrants” from Asia are local agents in world city formation in Canada, the United States, and Australia (see Ley 2010). Like McDonald, Ley’s discussion of Vancouver’s transnational elite also raises paradoxes inherent in world city formation. On the one hand, white residents who have long stood as the principal residents of elite neighbourhoods would prefer to contain growth and otherwise limit change in order to preserve the traditional character of their city districts. At the same time, however, they are part of the class that is driving and benefiting from Vancouver’s growth and insertion into the global economy. This paradox also highlights, at a different and indeed smaller, neighbourhood scale, the tension between global business interests and the local politics of demographic change discussed above. In a classic case of wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too, some business elites want to benefit from economic growth while preserving the cultural face of their neighbourhoods and cities in the face of urban development. Not surprisingly, some of their new, immigrant neighbours do not share their sense of aesthetics or tradition. The end result, as Ley points out, is a debate among new and old elites, shaped in part by racial dynamics. Also in the book’s first section on globalization and political economy, Dickson Eyoh reminds us in Chapter 2 that the impact of urbanization on national and continental development has been highly uneven. According to Eyoh, although in postcolonial Africa ethnic politics is primarily about resources rather than claims to cultural autonomy, patterns of urbanization in African cities have led to “urbanization without development,” a phenomenon that he argues has led to “heightened investments in ethnic, religious, gender, class and locality-based identities.” Ethnic identities are instrumental in an extremely resource-poor environment; they are used to make claims to resources and to build social networks for survival. His analysis shows how processes of state formation, urbanization, and changes in the political economy of African nations have ushered in a new, often corrosive, politics of identity in African cities that has undermined nationalist projects that are meant to bring ethnic groups together under a common identity. Another trend, apparent across the globe and linked with both globalization and immigrant settlement patterns, is the suburbanization of cities. The United Nations Habitat’s State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011: Bridging
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the Urban Divide report identifies suburbanization (also called horizontal spreading or, more commonly, sprawl) as a global phenomenon and challenge that raises questions about the affordability of urban infrastructure, automobile dependence, and access to services (UN Habitat 2010-11, 10-11). Immigrants increasingly settle directly in suburbs rather than in traditional ethnic enclaves in the core of metropolitan areas (for a collection of essays on this phenomenon in the United States, see Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008). Several contributions to this volume explore instances in which immigrant settlement patterns and suburbanization intersect to create problems of social cohesion. For instance, in Chapter 3, Alan Walks examines how processes of gentrification have altered the immigrant-reception function of urban cores and, consequently, influenced interactions among different ethnic groups in Canada’s three main immigrant destinations – Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Rather than creating more inclusive downtown communities, Walks argues that gentrification pushes low-income immigrants to the suburbs, disrupting the reception function of the central core and creating a mismatch between where immigrants settle and the services they need to integrate. He concludes that gentrification is associated with greater levels of race and class segmentation in Canada’s most important immigrant destinations rather than more inclusive communities. In an ironic twist, Canada’s tolerant urban centres are becoming less and less diverse as housing prices and other expenses drive recent immigrants to “inner” suburbs (Barber 2007). Nevertheless, Yu and Li’s contribution in Chapter 4 questions whether ethnic concentration in suburbs constitutes a long-term path to exclusion. Their chapter explores the link between globalization, international migration, and the rise of new immigrant settlements. It explores the global emergence of ethnoburbs – a term Li (1998) developed in the 1990s – through a case study of Monterey Park, California. Yu and Li’s chapter describes Monterey Park’s developmental trajectory since the 1990s, including the emergence of other types of suburban communities in the surrounding area. They also extend the concept geographically to document the emergence of an ethnoburb in a city in the global South, Beijing’s Wangjing District. The phenomenon of sprawl, most strongly associated with North American cities, has now spread to the developing world (UN Habitat 201011, 10). Yu and Li (Chapter 4) show that one aspect of this process involves the rise of ethnoburbs in the developing world. Similarities in patterns of urban development across the globe suggest that common structural forces
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are at work. However, the contributions also suggest that the consequences of suburbanization for social sustainability vary, which again indicates that local contexts matter. Theme 2: Ethnolinguistic Configurations and Relations in Cities
In addition to the political economy of cities, the ethnolinguistic configuration of cities has been identified as potentially contributing to ethnic and nationalist conflict. For proponents of contact theory, social isolation contributes to the stereotyping of members of other ethnic groups, while contact and personal acquaintance promote tolerance (Allport 1954). Not all types of contact, however, promote greater tolerance. In fact, one of the main challenges of contact theory has been to isolate additional variables besides the presence or absence of ethnic minorities to explain attitudes towards diversity. As argued by Donald Forbes (2004, 74), three major variables have been cited in the literature as conditions for positive effects of contact: the equality of status of the different groups in contact; their cooperative or competitive independence in the pursuit of common goals; and the presence or absence of social norms supporting intergroup contact. A vast literature applies some of the insights associated with contact theory. For example, Mary Jackman and Mary Crane (1986) found that the effect of interracial contact in the United States on whites’ attitudes towards blacks was contingent less on intimacy than on the variety of contacts and on the relative socioeconomic status of black contacts. In France, Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau (1996) have shown that it is neither those who live in the same neighbourhoods as immigrants nor those who live in rural and more homogeneous regions that tend to support the anti-immigrant Front National (FN) party, but rather those with more superficial contact living at the periphery of more diverse neighbourhoods and regions. Others have found ambiguous results for contact theory. Alan Morris’s (1999) study of Hillbrow in Johannesburg, one of the first racially diverse neighbourhoods in South Africa, found that, although respondents felt that racial barriers and acts of overt racism had declined and that racial tolerance had increased, many residents continued to voice racist sentiments during interviews. It is important to stress that government policies play an important part in encouraging, discouraging, and otherwise shaping contact among groups. Group conflict theory provides an opposite approach to contact theory. According to the economic perspective on group conflict theory, ethnic, racial, or linguistic majorities are more likely to feel threatened by and thus
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more likely to express greater hostility towards immigrant or racial minorities in more difficult economic contexts when minorities are perceived as competitors for scarce jobs or as exercising additional downward pressure on wages (Blumer 1958; Bobo and Hutchings 1996; Semyonov et al. 2004; 2006). In her study of mayoral voting in Los Angeles and New York, for example, Karen Kaufmann (2004) found that perceptions of interracial conflict caused in part by economic dislocation led to Republican victories in overwhelmingly Democratic cities in the early 1990s. Proponents of group conflict theory also argue that a feeling of threat arises in communities in which there are larger proportions of immigrants and racial minorities. Politics is viewed as a competitive struggle for resources and recognition in good and bad economic times: any gain by racial minorities or immigrants is perceived as a loss for the majority group (Glaser 1994; Quillian 1995). Nevertheless, as many of our contributors show, one cannot assume that either contact or conflict occurs between a monolithic majority (or “host” society) and ethnic minorities or immigrants (in the case of international migration). In many cities, ethnic change, including changes provoked by immigration, involves contact among various minorities rather than between a white majority and racial minority immigrant group. For instance, according to Jones-Correa, in the United States, the most important immigration centres (including Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Houston, Chicago, and Washington, DC) all have significant native-born black minorities. In these cities, immigrants with low levels of economic and social capital settle alongside and compete with African Americans for scarce resources, including political representation and public sector hiring (Jones-Correa 2001b, 188). Contact among minorities is shaped by a multitude of factors with class chief among them. For instance, class-based ethnic conflicts have emerged between African Americans and Korean immigrants in Los Angeles (Park and Park 2001). Changing demographics may be seen as a threat to the cultural identity as well as the economic interests of the majority in a given city. Proponents of the social identity approach to group conflict emphasize perceptions of cultural vulnerability in light of such changing demographics (Brown 1995, Capozza and Brown 2000). In Canada, worry regarding the survival of the French language in North America has been posited as the reason residents of Quebec cities – a high proportion of whom have French as their first or perhaps sole language – have been shown to have less positive attitudes towards immigrant groups than residents of cities in other Canadian provinces (Schissel, Wanner, and Frideres 1989). Not all minority groups may be
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perceived as threats though. For example, Marylee Taylor (1998) found that, in the United States, as the local black population expands, white negativity towards this group increases, but that increased concentrations of local Asian American and Latino populations does not engender white antipathies towards these two groups. Changing demographics also have the potential to engender cultural, economic, and political insecurities among long-standing minorities. To African Americans, Latino and Asian immigrants are considered economic threats in many American cities as the example of class conflict between Koreans and African Americans in Los Angeles suggests. In Miami, black– Hispanic relations are also tense as the two groups are “divided by class, power, ideology, language, color, and place of birth and political affiliations” and where blacks feel disenfranchised by the pervasive influence of Cubans in the political, economic, and social spheres (Grenier and Castro 2001, 143). The first contribution to this section of the volume shows how deep legacies of structural racism create tensions in world city development processes. More specifically, in Chapter 5, McDonald explores the tensions generated by Cape Town’s resistance to “Africanization” in the face of the extensive demographic “Africanizing” that is the result of internal migration from rural areas in South Africa and cross-border migration from other African countries. He argues that despite its Africanization, Cape Town remains culturally and organizationally white through a process of continuing and even increasing class and race segregation that is in great part due to efforts to become a world city. Whereas a great deal of the literature on Western cities indicates that cities’ ethnic diversity is being sold in an effort to attract business capital and migrants, Cape Town is pursuing a different strategy, one of selling the city as largely white. Cape Town’s insertion into the global economy has inherently brought with it neoliberal policies such as privatization and liberalization that have failed to address the extreme poverty in the city and have exacerbated currents of racism and xenophobia, justifying and exacerbating the kinds of spatially exclusionary outcomes created by apartheid and neoliberalism. Reactions to migration (and therefore contact among groups) is shaped by apartheid’s legacy with racist discourses against blacks and Africans common among whites and coloureds and xenophobia also present among the existing black population in Cape Town. As in American cities, competition among long-standing minorities influences responses to immigrant newcomers. Like other chapters in this volume, McDonald’s analysis highlights the complex interplay between
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broad structural forces in the global political economy and local identityand class-based interests, which are themselves shaped by the city’s (and country’s) long-term political development. The socioeconomic status of a neighbourhood can also influence the nature of group contact and potential conflict. For example, Donald E. Blake (2003) found lower negative attitudes towards diversity in Canadian neighbourhoods with higher socioeconomic status. In Chapter 6, David Ley explores the micropolitics of one such case. He challenges dominant explanations of ethnic conflict in middle- and upper-middle-income neighbourhoods in Vancouver’s West Side that resulted from long-standing residents’ reactions to property redevelopment and landscaping changes on behalf of wealthy East Asian immigrants. He shows that a multiscalar and historical approach to explaining the causes of this ethnic conflict calls into question racism as a dominant explanation of residents’ responses to these changes. He points to the neighbourhood’s historical antigrowth position, beginning in the 1970s prior to the influx of East Asian immigrants, as an alternate or at least contributing factor to residents’ reactions and demonstrates that antigrowth mobilization ceased in 1993 when compromise bylaws were passed by the city to protect historical elements of the neighbourhood. Ethnic configuration also seems to influence a local government’s approach to ethnic and racial diversity. In her book on municipal multicultural policy in Canada, Kristin Good (2009, 281) found that “bifurcated, biracial municipalities are more likely to be responsive to ethnocultural change than highly heterogeneous, multiracial municipalities.” The ethnic configuration of specific neighbourhoods can facilitate the integration of newcomers, although that topic, tackled by Alan Walks in this volume, requires more study. Cities are an important site of nationalist conflict. Studies of nationalism have long viewed urbanization as key in the development of such conflicts. Processes of modernization that bring previously isolated and relatively homogeneous groups together in larger urban centres have often resulted in multinational cities in which members of a nationalist group are confronted by other nationalities or religious groups. Unequal distributions of economic and political resources, discrimination, or simply prejudice experienced in the city can all feed nationalist feelings. As such, and as argued by Bollens (2007, 6) in relation to Jerusalem and Belfast, “a city is a focal point or magnet for unresolved nationalistic ethnic conflict.” Students of nationalism
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have also argued that nationalism has tended in many countries to be first and foremost a movement associated with an educated urban elite living in larger cities (see Breuilly 1993, 153), even if this elite often celebrates traditional or rural aspects of the nation over the artificiality and frivolity of urban life (Smith 2009, 85-86). Cities are not only crucial to nationalist conflicts as the sites in which different national groups come in contact or as the home base of nationalist elites. Nationalist politics is often, as demonstrated by the title of Marc Levine’s book Reconquest of Montreal, about the re-appropriation or “taking back” of a given city (Levine 1991). In a city such as Jerusalem, as David Cameron’s chapter demonstrates, the political status of the city itself is central to a nationalist conflict; the status of Jerusalem, and especially the Old City of Jerusalem, is one of the main impediments to a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine. Both sides view the city in almost mythical terms as embodying – for religious and historical reasons – the heart of their respective nations. In other cities, fear surrounding changing demographics in metropolitan regions has fuelled nationalist conflict. This is the case in Barcelona, Brussels, and Montreal, cities in which nationalist conflict has been driven in large part by the status of Catalan, Dutch, and French respectively. As argued by Dominique Arel (2001, 78), “as long as the language of the group attempting a reconquest of the city maintains a low status in the city, while the group’s nationalist movement is able to keep a mobilizing base (not necessarily in the city), the potential for instability remains.” Such fears have been exacerbated in the last half-century by the growing numbers of immigrants that have settled in these linguistically bifurcated cities. Immigration in cities can be the source of conflict to the extent that it has the potential to alter the demographic balance between linguistic groups in situations in which immigrants are more likely to adopt one language rather than another. The final contribution to this section explores a case where the intersection of multinational and immigrant diversity is fundamental to understanding ethnic contact and conflict. In Chapter 7, Yoann Veny and Dirk Jacobs show that the growing presence of immigrants in Brussels both accentuates and attenuates linguistic conflict. On the one side, the increasing presence of immigrants has revitalized entrenched linguistic conflicts. On the other side, the presence of immigrants has rendered the classic dyadic logic of Brussels’ linguistic conflict (according to which someone is either Francophone or Dutch-speaking) increasingly difficult to sustain. Veny and
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Jacobs demonstrate that nationalists’ efforts at creating alliances with immigrant groups is an important political element in the power struggle between the contending language groups in Brussels. Dickson Eyoh’s chapter in the first section (Chapter 2) offers yet another take on the role of cities in nationalist identity-based projects, demonstrating the interplay between resource scarcity, changing patterns of ethnic contact in cities, and country-level postcolonial nationalist projects. In Cameroon, migration from the west and northwest to cities and communities in the Southwest province has led to the “ethnic succession” of the migrant Bamilekes who now outnumber indigenes in Douala (the largest city) as well as other cities and towns. According to Eyoh, this demographic transition coupled with resource scarcity has contributed to the re-emergence of ethnic claims in a country that had stressed an undifferentiated “liberal” citizenship as a nationalist project. Theme 3: Institutions and the Management of Difference
Regardless of the scale at which they occur, social and political interactions among groups and individuals are structured by institutions, understood as the “formal and informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of the polity” (Hall and Taylor 1996, 938). Institutions diminish the vagaries of human interaction by affording them a degree of routine and predictability; exchanges among individuals and groups that might otherwise provoke confusion, discomfort, and, potentially, instability and conflict, are mediated by generally accepted “rules of the game” that make much of social life ordinary and predictable. The breakdown of institutions, through political or economic crises or slow disintegration and consequent transformation in the face of shifting ideas and norms, can throw life into flux, increasing insecurity and, in certain instances, imperilling stability (Krasner 1988; Thelen 2006). Whether for good or ill, institutional change is typically accompanied by uncertainty as actors deal with the vagaries of life in a world of shifting rules. Scholars of nationalism and ethnic politics have drawn on theories of individual behaviour and institutional responses to it to both analyze and devise institutions for regulating relations among groups. Theories of consociational democracy and multination federalism typically assume that groups in diverse societies will behave in a self-interested and hence potentially disruptive manner. Institutional limits to self-interested group behaviour allow for a modicum of stability and cohesion under such conditions
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(Lijphart 1977; Horowitz 1985; Kymlicka 2001). Questions of institutional design for post-conflict societies have loomed large both in the academic literature, on the agendas of international organizations charged with restoring peace and stability (Simonsen 2005) and in the minds of public servants close to the process of finding institutional solutions for peace, as David Cameron’s case study of the Old City Initiative shows. There are different strains of thought concerning how to design institutions in ways that encourage ethnic harmony or at least dampen conflict. Some scholars stress the need to institutionalize contact among groups whereas others advocate massive institutional reengineering, through the partition of territories and compulsory “unmixing” of antagonistic groups (Kaufman 1996). Common to these two otherwise very different approaches (power sharing versus partition) is the assumption that groups, or, more accurately, the political elites that take responsibility for their respective groups’ political affairs, are self-interested utility-maximizers whose behaviour can only be mediated through the imposition of institutional solutions. However, often, ethnic segmentation or mixing is not the result of institutional design. Rather, social and economic factors lead to particular patterns of settlement, which, in turn, shape and are shaped by institutions. For instance, as Susan Clarke and Keeley Stokes’s (Chapter 10) contribution to this section (and others discussed below) shows, ethnic concentration can be associated with greater levels of political incorporation where institutions create an incentive among parties to reach out to immigrants and ethnic minorities. This view of institutions as mechanisms for channelling the conduct of self-interested, utility-maximizing individuals and groups is challenged by a more sociological variant, which sees institutions as providing “moral or cognitive” templates for “interpretation and action” (Hall and Taylor 1996, 939). In this tradition, institutions reflect and embody deeply embedded norms that structure human interaction according to a “logic of appropriateness” rather than a logic of utility maximization (March and Olson 1989). With regard to ethnicity and politics, institutionally oriented scholars working in this more sociologically informed tradition have explored how longstanding and deeply entrenched “traditions of nationhood” or “philosophies of integration” shape interactions between immigrants and host polities, leading to greater or lesser degrees of openness to cultural difference (Brubaker 1992; Favell 1998). For Rogers Brubaker (1992), Germany’s exclusion of guest workers from its citizenship regime was based on a consensus regarding the ethnic dimension of German nationhood; being German
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meant being of German descent. Conversely, France’s more assimilatory approach to naturalization was rooted in its civic republican tradition, in which citizenship is premised on shared rights and responsibilities – qualities that are theoretically open to all regardless of their descent. Here institutions drive politics by shaping identities and limiting the degree to which established ways of life are open to political contestation. In Veny and Jacobs’s contribution (Chapter 7) we see that the coexistence of two main national groups within Belgium has led to the development of two distinct “philosophies of integration” in Brussels, their case study. However, interestingly, they raise the possibility that the strategic context of Brussels as it relates to immigration could lead the utilitymaximizing political elites described above to draw upon norms of the “other” nation to further their interests in connecting with immigrant groups. Namely, it raises the question of whether the Francophone Walloons will move from a republican, assimilationist approach to minority relations toward more of a multicultural approach that recognizes minorities as distinct cultural entities with which organizational relationships can be established. The potential interplay of interest-based and more ideationally informed action in Brussels that the authors raise suggests that both decisionmaking logics can inform group relations. Furthermore, it suggests that urban contexts are important arenas of strategic action in the governance of immigration, contexts that could, in turn, initiate change in deeply embedded norms concerning the recognition and integration of immigrants. In Chapter 8, David Cameron’s analysis of the Jerusalem Old City In itiative (JOCI) also highlights the importance of ideas to institution building, while also noting their limits in cases where they are not taken up by actors in institutionalized positions of power. Given Jerusalem’s critical importance in any future solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the JOCI, an initiative spearheaded by Canadian academics and former security and bureaucratic officials with experience in the Middle East, has formulated a plan that sets aside the excruciatingly difficult meta-question of sovereignty, to first address less contentious governance issues, most notably security in Jerusalem. The central idea animating the JOCI proposal is that sovereignty can only be dealt with effectively after agreement has been reached on matters relating to the governance of the city in more mundane and practical ways. Cameron notes that the JOCI approach has the advantage of being more workable than alternatives that deal with questions concerning sovereignty as it relates to Jerusalem as part of a comprehensive plan. Institu tional elegance and comprehensiveness are considered less important than
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potential day-to-day “workability.” And yet, it is not clear whether this approach will influence the strategic decision making of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, who typically do view the fate of Jerusalem in zero-sum terms. The deliberately incremental, “satisficing,” approach advanced by the JOCI is similar to the messy but ultimately effective approaches detailed in the next chapter in the third section. In Chapter 9, Scott Bollens compares the effectiveness of differing political-institutional approaches to managing multicultural cities in divided societies. He notes that “the capacity of local governance to contribute to intergroup tolerance can be hamstrung by national political settlements.” Cities are always embedded in broader political and institutional contexts over which they have limited influence. Bollens’s comparative analysis also suggests that the outcomes are not driven by the “quality of institutional design”; rather, he maintains that messiness has its virtues. The most successful of his cases are characterized by flexibility and a degree of redundancy that allows governance structures to adapt to changing conditions over time. Conversely, elegant but rigid institutions are often rendered ineffective as a result of inevitable changes in social and political conditions. Perhaps the more pressing nature of challenges in cities leads local governments to respond to them more quickly than other levels and in a more flexible manner. For instance, some scholars have noted that cities often pursue immigrant integration policies that are more expansive than those of their national government (Sennett 2002). In the case of Germany, neglect of immigrant integration by higher levels of government left cities little choice but to take charge of the issue, leading to quite extensive policy experimentation, which, later on, informed the federal government’s policy approach (Triadafilopoulos, Korteweg, and Garcia del Moral 2013). Nevertheless, cities’ institutional logics do not always promote greater levels of inclusion of immigrants and ethnocultural minorities. For instance, in Canada, a country whose mass public is exceptionally supportive of immigration and multiculturalism, municipalities vary significantly in the extent to which they have adopted the federal government’s multi cultural policy approach to immigrant integration (Good 2009). In fact, institutional logics vary even within a single metropolitan area, highlighting the importance of the question of boundaries in the design of political institutions.5 Another mode of institutional analysis highlights the role of distinctively political institutions such as electoral and party systems, modes of inter governmental relations, and rules ordering the interaction of executives,
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legislatures, and courts (Thelen and Steinmo 1992; Thelen 1999; Pierson and Skocpol 2002). The literature on the political incorporation of ethnic minorities shows that political integration is shaped by institutional design factors at the local level, including the establishment of municipal and ward boundaries and party systems. In general, greater levels of political incorporation occur in systems where minorities can translate their territorial concentration into political representation of their interests on local councils. In his comparative study of the political incorporation of minorities in Birmingham, Lille, and Roulaix, Romain Garbaye (2004) finds that ethnic concentration, parties, and the way in which power is organized in local councils are all important opportunity structures shaping political incorporation. In Birmingham, shifting alliances within the Labour Party and ethnic concentration in a first-past-the-post electoral system were important factors influencing political incorporation (ibid., 45-47). In Lille, the attitude of the Socialist Party and a strong mayor with extensive powers of patronage meant that the city’s North African immigrants were poorly incorporated (ibid., 47-48). In Roulaix, strong community organizations and weak parties as well as a large minority population all created an opening for ethnic activists (ibid., 50-51). Institutional differences have created multiple paths of political incorporation in these European cities. Similarly, in their widely cited Protest Is Not Enough (1984), which compares the responsiveness of ten northern Californian cities to blacks and Latinos, Rufus P. Browning, Dale Rogers Marshall, and David H. Tabb stress the importance of numbers, partisan/ideological factors, and the institutional location of minority representation on councils to minority political incorporation. As they summarize, “minority incorporation was associated with the replacement of conservative dominant coalitions by liberal coalitions, with more Democrats on city councils, and with the growth of minority populations” (243). In terms of the institutional location of minority representation, they stress the importance of representation in the governing coalition or party to minority political incorporation. In Chapter 10, Clarke and Stokes highlight the interplay of demographic, socioeconomic, and institutional factors in the political representation of black and minority ethnic (BME) councillors on London borough councils between 2002 and 2006. The first-past-the-post system of elections in British (and American) municipalities means that ethnic concentration can be translated into political incorporation (at least at the descriptive level) (on British cities, see Garbaye 2004, 45). Clarke and Stokes maintain that black and minority ethnic representation is driven by specific factors within
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a borough: levels of religious and ethnic diversity, levels of socioeconomic deprivation, Labour Party dominance, and, relatedly, the degree to which seats on borough councils are contested among political parties. While Labour Party dominance is correlated with high shares of BME councillors in “old immigrant boroughs,” party competition – spurred in part by electoral rules – has challenged Labour’s dominance in more recently diversifying boroughs in London. Clarke and Stokes’s findings challenge “assumptions that the Labour Party – or any traditional party – is the primary vehicle for BME immigrant incorporation.” Building on both rational choice and sociological institutionalism, historical institutionalists emphasize the capacity of political institutions not only to set the rules of the political game but to change the very nature of the game and of players’ identities in the process, often in ways that were not foreseen when the institution was initially devised. One of the principal mechanisms in historical institutionalist analysis is path dependency (Pierson 2000; Mahoney 2000). At its core, path dependency holds that decisions made at an earlier point in time shape subsequent decision making by narrowing the range of plausible options available to decision makers. “Sunk costs” make radical change costly and “increasing returns,” via policy feedback, empower discreet sets of actors, often shaping their identities and preferences in the process. Policy makes politics in this view. Several contributions in this volume show how past decisions concerning ethnic relations shape current ethnic dynamics in cities. These contributions also show that the influence of city politics must be placed within broader institutional, constitutional and policy structures (and their legacies). In other words, a multilevel analysis of institutions and their impact on the path of ethnic relations in cities is necessary. A straightforward example of how institutions shape ethnic relations in cities concerns how past decisions to designate particular groups as officially recognized national minorities – often based on self-interested, statebuilding reasons – shaped subsequent intergroup relations in ways that could not have been anticipated by policy makers (Brubaker 1996). For instance, as Veny and Jacobs’s contribution shows (Chapter 7), Belgium’s multinational federalism and the competition that it has channelled and mediated between Walloons and Flemish have shaped the politics of immigrant integration in Brussels. An implicit finding in their piece is that an unintended consequence of the institutionalization of multinationalism in Brussels, and in Belgium in general, has been a policy context that is open
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to immigrants and that has resulted in a sort of “race to the top” to respond to immigrants’ concerns (and to have them identify with each of the national groups). However, their piece also shows how immigrants resist identifying in such a binary way, which suggests that the addition of immigrant diversity to multinational diversity could serve as a source of ethnic harmony by creating a cross-cutting cleavage between the two national groups. However, the unintended consequences of policy legacies at multiple levels of government can also work to undermine ethnic harmony. In the United States, the failure of policy makers (and the courts in particular) to distinguish between the country’s long-standing racialized minority – African Americans – and immigrants in their application of special rights outlined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has had the unintended effect of causing tensions between African Americans and immigrants in America’s most significant immigrant destinations (Jones-Correa 2001a, 5-7). Similarly, McDonald’s (Chapter 5) contribution to this volume shows how the legacy of apartheid with its construction of a variety of racial categories has influenced relations among ethnoracial minorities in ways that continue to poison ethnic relations in Cape Town. In fact, as discussed above, he argues that, like whites and coloureds, blacks in Cape Town also exhibit xenophobic tendencies in their orientation towards other African migrants from rural South Africa and the broader continent. The general point is this: the local governance of ethnic and nationalist politics must take seriously the multidimensional, multiscalar, and multilevel nature of cities’ institutional and policy contexts. In his review essay of conceptualizations of multilevel governance, Paul Stubbs (2005, 67) summarizes the value of the concept of multilevel governance as such: “It allows for an understanding of complexity at and between levels. In this sense, the vertical notion of multi-level governance, including but also seemingly ‘above’ and ‘below’ the nation state, goes alongside the horizontal notion of complex governance to address relationships between state and non-state actors, and new forms of public-private partnerships.” Such a perspective acknowledges that even in the absence of both formal and informal multilevel governance arrangements or other modes of coordination, cities are governed and affected by the decisions of all levels of government as well as supranational institutions. Furthermore, the causal arrow goes both ways. What happens in cities also has the potential to shape national and supranational institutions in both intentional and unintentional ways. For instance, Good (2009) found that, in Canada, upper-level
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government decisions to fund immigrant settlement organizations in cities shapes willing municipal governments’ capacity to develop productive governance arrangements that respond to immigrants’ concerns. Once established, these governance arrangements in turn contribute to policy change at the national and provincial levels, sometimes in unexpected ways (ibid., Chap. 7). It is important to remember that cities are not simply passive actors within a hierarchical multilevel system. Local actors have also become deliberate agents of change in ethnic relations at the national level. For instance, due to the new challenges of immigration, cities in Europe (Penninx and Martiniello 2004, 158-59) and Canada (Good 2009) have begun to lobby national governments for national policy change, including more autonomy for local institutions. For instance, in Sweden and the Netherlands: The cities joined forces to demand more executive power and greater resources from their national governments to cope with such problems. In the Netherlands and Sweden in recent years, generalized policies targeting metropolitan areas and integration policies specifically targeting immigrants have been bundled together, formally at least, into a single framework, thus conceivably creating new, wider-ranging possibilities. (Penninx and Martiniello 2004, 159)
Thus, in multilevel systems, the decisions of one level of government have both intended and unintended consequences for other levels of government and for cities’ ability to contribute to ethnocultural harmony. Furthermore, approaches to immigrant incorporation and other policies related to ethnic and nationalist politics can be at odds with different ethnic relations models operating at other levels. Concluding Thoughts on the Purpose of This Volume
Traditionally, case study methodology has been the dominant approach to the study of cities. In the last decade, urban research has become more comparative and, in North America, where this volume has been published, there have been calls to link urban research to theoretical frameworks and developments in the mainstream of various disciplines (See Pierre 2005; Sapotichne, Jones, and Wolfe 2007; Eidelman and Taylor 2010). Most of the comparative studies that have emerged are limited to comparisons of cities in the global North. Essentially, there has been an implicit preference in much of the literature for the “most similar systems” design whereby the
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researcher selects highly similar cases that are characterized by variation in the dependent variable in question. The idea is that the researcher can “control” for all of the similarities in the cases and explain the variation in values of the dependent variable by examining the remaining differences among cases. In the discipline of urban political science and other related disciplines, this design is the dominant one. In fact, in classic articles defining the comparative method, subnational, or “intranation” comparisons have been presented as useful applications of the most similar systems designs (Lijphart 1971). In many ways, the study of urban politics is a natural fit with such a design. Examining how city contexts vary can be an important strategy for studying multilevel governance processes by controlling for national, and, in the case of federations, the subunit level policies and other factors common to the country. As this volume makes clear, a common structural force – globalization – is affecting cities in very different national and regional contexts. Further more, a fundamental idea underlying the literature on global cities is that the fates of cities that have been differently integrated into the global economy are disconnected to a certain extent from their national contexts.6 In our view, these empirically documented developments invite consideration of the other major option for comparative research designs – to select cases that are different or to employ the “most different systems design.” With this design, the researcher adopts the opposite strategy, choosing cases that are very different and that share similar values on dependent variables. In other words, in this design, cases are similar in some respects or have changed in similar ways despite their very different contexts. Furthermore, due to the very different contexts, the similarities stand out. Although rarely employed in the discipline of urban political science, this design is the implicit organizing principle of some of the comparative interdisciplinary “world cities” research that employs small-n comparative rather than large-n, statistical research designs. For instance, in her seminal work, The Global City, sociologist Sassen (1991) traces similar processes of change in three very different cities – New York, London, and Tokyo – to offer a theory of how globalization is changing major cities in the world. Although, like Sassen’s classic work, this early world city literature compares across continents, it notably neglected cities in the global South. To a certain extent, this gap is understandable, as one might argue that the most powerful world cities exist in the global North. However, many of the megacities, metropolitan places of ten million or more residents, exist in Asia – a reality that we can no longer overlook. World city researchers Neil Brenner and
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Roger Keil note in their Global Cities Reader that, although studies on cities in the global South now exist, including this broader range of cities required abandoning the theoretical goal of identifying “a particular type of urban agglomeration under contemporary capitalism.” Rather, global city theory “is instead increasingly mobilized in order to decipher the globalization of urban development throughout the contemporary world system,” a development that will lead to a “more nuanced mapping of the global urban system” (Brenner and Keil 2006, 192). The most fundamental contention of this volume is that cities are becoming not only the strategic sites of economic globalization but also the places where new challenges of ethnic relations emerge. We believe that in a world being transformed by global forces, examining ethnic relations in a variety of cities in the global North and South will yield generalizations about forces that contribute to ethnic harmony and conflict. As our framework implies, local contexts that reflect prevailing ethnic configurations and institutions play a crucial part in determining how globalizing pressures influence group relations. Understanding the place-specific impact of broadly encompassing macro-level forces like globalization necessarily requires us to take the distinctive demographic and institutional complexity of cities into careful consideration. Notes
1 The estimated figure of international migrants in 2010 was 214 million, a figure that will increase to as many as 405 million by 2050 should current trends continue (IOM 2010, 3, 115). 2 Some countries, such as India, are among both the top ten most significant hosts of immigrants and produce the most significant numbers of emigrants (IOM 2010, 115, 117). 3 Intracontinental dynamics are particularly important to the African migration experience. As the International Organization for Migration (2010) notes: “With the exception of North Africa, intraregional migration represents the most common form of migration, accounting for almost three quarters of migration outflows from East, Central and West Africa” (IOM 2010, 127-28). 4 Acknowledging that it is impossible to summarize the multitude of forms that multicultural diversity takes, philosopher Will Kymlicka notes three general trends within democracies in the global North that characterize the approaches and goals of Western states to diversity. First, there has been a reversal of policies to assimilate indigenous peoples and a movement toward policies that embrace the idea that “indigenous peoples will exist into the indefinite future as distinct societies within the larger country, and that they must have the land claims, cultural rights, and self government rights, needed to sustain themselves as distinct societies” (Kymlicka
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2007, 67). The second trend concerns a similar recognition that substate “national groups” such as the Québecois in Canada, Catalans and Basques in Spain, and the Flemish in Belgium, will endure and, therefore, accommodation often occurs through multinational federalism and the official recognition of minority languages (ibid., 69). Finally, in traditional countries of immigration such as the United States, Canada, and Australia, there has been a trend toward the adoption of race neutral immigration policies and a greater level of religious diversity among immigrants. Furthermore, with this greater diversity has come a recognition that the state ought to accommodate difference although the extent to which this has been done varies. “Multicultural policies” have become widespread, although the extent to which countries and even jurisdictions within countries have adopted them varies substantially. 5 For instance, the City of Mississauga, Canada’s largest suburb located just west of the City of Toronto, has been unresponsive to immigrants even though its population is more than 50 percent foreign born (Good 2009). 6 As Sassen (2006, 7) points out, rates of poverty can increase nationally while more wealth is generated in particular cities. This implies that to understand the implications of globalization for countries, one must “unpack” them and examine placespecific development indicators within countries. Works Cited
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Grenier, Guillermo J., and Max Castro. 2001. “Blacks and Cubans in Miami: The Negative Consequences of the Cuban Enclave on Ethnic Relations.” In Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict, edited by Michael Jones-Correa, 137-57. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Hall, Peter, and Rosemary Taylor. 1996. “The Three New Institutionalisms.” Political Studies 44 (5): 936-57. Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2010. World Migration Report 2010. The Future of Migration: Building Capacities for Change. Geneva: Inter national Organization for Migration. Jackman, Mary R., and Mary Crane. 1986. “‘Some of My Best Friends are Blacks …:’ Interracial Friendship and Whites’ Racial Attitudes.” Public Opinion Quarterly 50 (4): 459-86. Jones-Correa, Michael. 2001a. “Introduction: Comparative Approaches to Changing Interethnic Relations in Cities.” In Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict, edited by Michael Jones-Correa, 1-14. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. –. 2001b. “Structural Shifts and Institutional Capacity: Possibilities for Ethnic Co operation and Conflict in Urban Settings.” In Governing American Cities: InterEthnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict, edited by Michael Jones-Correa, 183-209. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Kaufman, Chaim. 1996. “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars.” International Security 20 (4): 136-75. Kaufmann, Karen M. 2004. The Urban Voter: Group Conflict and Mayoral Voting Behavior in American Cities. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Kipfer, Stefan, and Roger Keil. 2002. “Toronto Inc? Planning the Competitive City in the New Toronto.” Antipode 34 (2): 227-64. Krasner, Stephen. 1988. “Sovereignty: An Institutional Perspective.” Comparative Political Studies 21 (1): 66-94. Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship. New York: Oxford University Press. –. 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship. New York: Oxford University Press. –. 2007. Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Di versity. New York: Oxford University Press. Levine, Marc. 1991. The Reconquest of Montreal: Language Policy and Social Change in a Bilingual City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Ley, David. 2010. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley and Sons. Li, Wei. 1998. “Anatomy of a New Ethnic Settlement: The Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles.” Urban Studies 35 (3): 479-501. Lijphart, Arendt. 1971. “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method.” American Political Science Review 65 (3): 682-93. –. 1977. Democracy in Plural Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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Logan, John R., and Harvey L. Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mahoney, James. 2000. “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology.” Theory and Society 28 (4): 507-48. March, James, and Johan P. Olson. 1989. Rediscovering Institutions: The Organiz ational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press. Mayer, Nonna, and Pascal Perrineau. 1996. Le Front national à découvert. 2nd ed. Paris: Presses de Science Po. Molotch, Harvey. 1976. “The City as a Growth Machine.” American Journal of Sociology 82 (2): 309-30. Morris, Alan. 1999. “Race Relations and Racism in a Racially Diverse Inner City Neighbourhood: A Case Study of Hillbrow, Johannesburg.” Journal of Southern African Studies 25 (4): 667-94. Park, Edward J.W., and John S.W. Park. 2001. “Korean American and the Crisis of the Liberal Coalition: Immigrants and Politics in Los Angeles.” In Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict, edited by Michael JonesCorrea, 91-108. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Penninx, Rinus. 2009. “European Research on International Migration and Settlement of Immigrants: A State of the Art and Suggestions for Improvement.” In Migration in a Globalised World: New Research Issues and Prospects, edited by Cédric Audebert and Mohamed Kamel Doraï, 21-40. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Penninx, Rinus, Karen Kraal, Marco Martiniello, and Steven Vertovec. 2004. “Introduction: European Cities and Their New Residents.” In Citizenship in European Cities: Immigrants, Local Politics and Integration Policies, edited by Rinus K. Penninx, K. Kraal, M. Martiniello and Steven Vertovec, 1-16. Aldershot Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Penninx, Rinus, and Marco Martiniello. 2004. “Integration Processes and Policies: State of the Art and Lessons.” In Citizenship in European Cities: Immigrants, Local Politics and Integration Policies, edited by Rinus K. Penninx, K. Kraal, M. Martiniello, and Steven Vertovec, 139-60. Aldershot Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Pierre, Jon. 1999. “Models of Urban Governance: The Institutional Dimension of Urban Politics.” Urban Affairs Review 34 (3): 372-96. –. 2005. “Comparative Urban Governance: Uncovering Complex Causalities.” Urban Affairs Review 40 (4): 446-62. Pierson, Paul. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review 94 (2): 251-67. Pierson, Paul, and Theda Skocpol. 2002. “Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science.” In Political Science: State of the Discipline, edited by Ira Katznelson and Helen V. Milner, 693-721. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. Polèse, Mario, and Richard Stren. 2000. “Understanding the New Sociocultural Dynamics of Cities: Comparative Urban Policy in a Global Context.” In The Social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and the Management of Change, edited by Mario Polèse and Richard Stren, 3-38. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
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Price, Marie, and Lisa Benton-Short. 2007. “Immigrants and World Cities: From the Hyper-diverse to the Bypassed.” Geojournal 68: 103-17. Quillian, Lincoln. 1995. “Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-Immigrant Prejudice in Europe.” American Sociological Review 60 (4): 586-611. Sapotichne, Joshua, Bryan D. Jones, and Michelle Wolfe. 2007. “Is Urban Politics a Black Hole? Analyzing the Boundary Between Political Science and Urban Politics.” Urban Affairs Review 43 (1): 76-106. Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. –. 2006. Cities in a World Economy. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Schissel, Bernard, Richard Wanner, and James S. Frideres. 1989. “Social and Economic Context and Attitudes Toward Immigrants in Canadian Cities.” Inter national Migration Review 23 (2): 289-308. Semyonov, Moshe, Rebeca Raijman, A.Y. Tov, and Peter Schmidt. 2004. “Population Size, Perceived Threat, and Exclusion: A Multiple-Indicators Analysis of Attitudes Toward Foreigners in Germany.” Social Science Research 33 (4): 681-701. Semyonov, Moshe, Rebecca Raijman, and Anastasia Gorodzeisky. 2006. “The Rise of Anti-foreigner Sentiment in European Societies, 1988-2000.” American Socio logical Review 71 (3): 426-49. Sennett, Richard. 2002. “Cosmopolitanism and the Social Experience of Cities.” In Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice, edited by Steven Vertovec and Robin Cohen, 42-47. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simonsen, Sven Gunnar. 2005. “Addressing Ethnic Divisions in Post-conflict Institution-Building: Lessons from Recent Cases.” Security Dialogue 36 (3): 297-318. Singer, Audrey, Susan W. Hardwick, and Caroline B. Brettell, eds. 2008. Twenty-first Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Smith, Anthony D. 2009. Ethno-symbolism and Nationalism: A Cultural Approach. Oxford: Routledge. Stubbs, Paul. 2005. “Stretching Concepts Too Far? Multi-level Governance, Policy Transfer and the Politics of Scale in South East Europe.” Southeast European Politics 6 (2): 66-87. Taylor, Charles. 1994. Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Taylor, Marylee C. 1998. “How White Attitudes Vary with the Racial Composition of Local Populations: Numbers Count.” American Sociological Review 63 (4): 512-35. Thelen, Kathleen. 1999. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” Annual Review of Political Science 2: 369-404. –. 2006. “Institutions and Social Change: The Evolution of Vocational Training in Germany.” In Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, edited by Ian Shapiro, Stephen Skowronek, and Daniel Galvin, 135-70. New York: New York University Press.
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Thelen, Kathleen, and Sven Steinmo. 1992. “Historical Institutionalism in Com parative Politics.” In Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Com parative Analysis, edited by Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Triadafilopoulos, Triadafilos, Anna Korteweg, and Paulina Garcia del Moral. 2013. “The Benefits and Limits of Pragmatism: Immigrant Integration and Social Cohesion in Germany.” In Diverse Nations, Diverse Responses: Approaches to Social Cohesion in Immigrant Societies, edited by Paul Spoonley and Erin Tolley, 107-32. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. UNFPA. 2007. UNFPA State of World Population 2007. New York: United Nations Population Fund. UN Habitat. 2010-11. State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011: Bridging the Urban Divide. Nairobi: UN Habitat. Vertovec, Steven. 2007. “Super-diversity and Its Implications.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024-54. Vertovec, Steven, and Susanne Wessendorf, eds. 2010. The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Politics and Practices. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Part 1 Globalization, Scale, and the Political Economy of Ethnically Plural “World Cities”
Adding Human Diversity to Urban Political Economy Analysis The Case of Russia Blair A. Ruble
Chapter
1
Literature that examines contemporary urban development often highlights the emergence of development machines – business-dominated coalitions that promote economic expansion and drive cities to compete with one another for financial capital in an era of globalization (Molotch 1976, 309-32; Logan and Molotch 2007; Jonas and Wilson 1999; Sassen 1991). Much of this literature focuses on cities’ manipulation of tax and land-use regimes to maximize return on business investment in an effort to lure capital to their own community. Often based on the experience of North America, such analysis tends to amplify the role of financial incentives and private profit maximization in shaping the twenty-first-century city (Smith 1996). As a result, the literature has emphasized the regressive nature of business-driven urban development in terms of equity for all social classes (Harvey 1989). The challenges facing cities that have long remained outside the global capitalist economy can bring new depth and fresh insight to urban political economy analysis, as David McDonald reveals in his chapter on Cape Town. Indeed, the business community can become a force for progressive change in cities confronting the transition from once autarkic economic regimes bounded by xenophobic nationalism. Moreover, business lobbies – especially those dominated by large multinational corporations with global experience – can promote policies to improve the quality of life for all residents, regardless of their economic status. Such business lobbies have been particularly active in the early twenty-first-century Russian
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Federation, where human capital is scarcer than financial capital. The extent to which pro-development business lobbies promote socially regressive or progressive policies in a specific city depends on local context and conditions. This chapter explores the ways in which emerging development machines in contemporary Russian cities promote diversity capital by expanding the repertoire of equitable responses to diversity as they struggle to attract migrants of different racial, ethnic, and confessional backgrounds. I examine the Russian Federation’s acute demographic crisis that drives its search for migrants and argue that the promotion of tolerance is essential to successful labour market strategies. The chapter will set out one conceptual framework – that of diversity capital – for thinking about how tolerance can be promoted in such contexts. Empirical examples drawn from three large Russian cities – Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg – illustrate some of the ways in which municipal officials seek to manage and promote tolerance as part of strategies to attract and sustain local labour forces. Russia’s Labour Market Crisis
The population of the Russian Federation fell from 148,927,000 in 1991, on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, to an estimated 142,905,200 in 2010 (Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2009; 2011). This decline reflects patterns that emerged prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, which other western Eurasian Soviet legacy states, such as Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine, also experienced (Eberstadt 2010; Vishnevsky and Bobylev 2008). The decline in birth rates that accompanied growing relative economic prosperity – a decline that followed a similar pattern to Europe and Japan – has been accelerated by increasing age-specific mortality rates and a decline in male life expectancy – the consequences of high death rates due to trauma, heart disease, and alcohol-related illnesses (Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2009). This process has been exacerbated by the echo effects of the Great Terror and the Second World War; official statements prior to 1991 calculated that these events resulted in over sixty million “excess” deaths among Soviet citizens.1 Finally, many Russian families decided not to have children during the economic and social disruptions of the early 1990s that accompanied the political breakdown of the Soviet Union (Eberstadt 2010, 34-36). Consequently, the Russian labour force is shrinking, and will continue to do so until 2016, after which point there is the possibility of natural population growth taking place as the “absent births” of the early 1990s
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work their way through the system. However, the shortfall in the workingage population will continue until at least 2025, creating a gap of a projected fourteen million working-age citizens that is likely to be offset only through immigration (Vishnevsky and Bobylev 2008, 21). Such patterns have had a devastating impact on cities in a country in which nearly three-quarters of the population is defined as urban (Kingkade 1997; Ruble 1989). All but a handful of Russia’s cities have steadily lost population since 1991. The stability and growth that exists in a few cities is exclusively the result of migration (Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2009; 2011; Kingkade 1997; Ruble 1989). That migration – be it from the increasingly depopulated regions of the Russian north and east, or from neighbouring states with more robust demographic patterns (i.e., Central Asia) – has been predominantly non-Russian in ethnic composition (Eberstadt 2010, 161-66). Moreover, the Russian Federation’s minority populations are growing at a faster rate than that of the ethnic Russian population. As a result, the Russian labour force as a whole, and in particular the working-age population of nearly every large Russian city, is increasingly diverse. These demographic trends have been accompanied by the relative economic success of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Highly dependent on revenues from oil and gas and home to the world’s eighth largest petroleum and largest natural gas reserves, the Russian Federation flourished when oil revenues rose rapidly during the years leading up to the 2008 global financial crisis (Cooper 2008). GDP, real wages, and personal disposable income had steadily and vigorously increased in the decade that followed the deep Russian financial collapse of 1998 (ibid., 7). Prior to the 2008 global collapse, the country had accumulated a foreign reserve balance approaching $500 billion and had considerably reduced both foreign indebtedness and government deficits (ibid., 9). The Russian economy then contracted by 7.9 percent in 2009, but recovered in 2010, growing by an estimated 3.8 percent that year (Bogetic et al. 2010). The net result of these trends has been that businesses and cities throughout the Russian Federation must work harder to attract the human capital necessary to sustain economic growth than they do to secure sufficient financial capital. In an environment of labour scarcity and investment availability, business becomes a powerful lobby for improved health services, expanded educational opportunities, and the promotion of tolerance. The business community promotes social inclusion in the name of economic power at moments when populist politicians demonstrate a propensity to
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proclaim xenophobic slogans in the name of political power. By doing so, business lobbies seek to convert the diversity of their labour force into a form of capital. Diversity Capital
As centres of changing patterns of social interaction, cities are inevitably diverse. The existence of diversity, as Phil Wood and Charles Landry (2008) argue, is an insufficient condition to promote economic development. To convert such diversity to advantage, cities must develop new modes of operation that expand the social and economic capital generated by diversity and they need to nurture spaces in which interaction can transpire. They must cultivate a characteristic that Mario Polèse and Richard Stren (2000, 3) have labelled urban social sustainability – “policies and institutions that have the overall effect of integrating diverse groups and cultural practices in a just and equitable fashion.” Communities achieve higher levels of urban social sustainability through expanding their repertoire of equitable responses to diversity. Such a perspective seeks to move beyond a focus on integration and tolerance towards one that embraces the dynamic and continuing interaction among community members, be they long-standing residents or new arrivals. This approach emphasizes both the repertoire of equitable responses to diversity and the consequent evolution of local responses to diversity over time. Most importantly, it emphasizes the open nature of engagement among diverse groups within a city. Communities once thought to be welcoming of diversity can squander their diversity dividend through benign and not-so-benign neglect, generating unexpected outbursts of conflict and tensions. Similarly, communities long considered hostile to diversity can mitigate their diversity liability and evolve into more welcoming neighbourhoods and cities. Repertoires can be used effectively or squandered, can be invested for the long-term accrual of urban social sustainability, or expended on short-term gains. In this sense, the repertoire of responses to diversity is dynamic, changes over time, and constitutes a form of social capital. Although Polèse and Stren’s standard of “just and equitable” often represents an objective beyond the grasp of many communities, those cities with high stocks of what might be considered diversity capital nurture deepseated capacities for absorbing diversity over the long term (Ruble 2005). By contrast, many cities find themselves with diversity capital deficits as they attempt to come to terms with the recent arrival of new groups in
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communities that have long been relatively homogeneous. The arrival of migrants since the mid-1990s (Brettell and Nibbs 2010) in many metropolitan regions has disrupted long-standing systems of political, social, and economic dominance. Openness toward out-groups (diversity capital) that enables cities to capitalize on their diversity can all too easily fall prey to the barriers aimed at outsiders that are reinforced by in-group forms of trust. Diversity thus becomes a challenge rather than an opportunity. Zones of Urban Contact
For diversity to become an asset a city must nurture arenas in which meaningful and unstructured contact can take place. Contemporary social scientists problematize such venues for intense group interaction as zones of contact, a notion first used by Mary Louise Pratt in the early 1990s. For Pratt (1995, 183), such zones are the spaces where “cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths.” She observes that, although they are “commonly regarded as chaotic, barbarous, lacking in structure,” such zones are often full of improvised relationships and a “co-presence” that mark the coming into contact of peoples “geographically and historically separated … usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict” (ibid., 6-7). Such districts are the spaces in a city in which diversity nurtures innovation. To achieve such spaces, local officials must intervene at times to re-orient reward structures to favour “co-presence.” Such interventions are based on the assumption that communities are dynamic and mutable, without essentialist elements that could form a permanent core of values, norms, customs, traditions, or habits into which migrants might assimilate. Migrants, be they from elsewhere in a given country or from outside the nation, are themselves actors rather than objects on which the host communities impose their will. By their presence and behaviour, they make demands on their hosts that promote change and force host societies to alter the manner in which they function in ways large and small. They revitalize and energize older, smaller, and more homogeneous urban communities through this process of constant negotiation and renegotiation that takes place (Hanley, Ruble, and Garland 2008). Diversity capital grows in those urban spaces that confront and confound. It thrives in urban spaces that constantly challenge people to rethink who they are and with whom they share common fates. These are the wetlands
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of urban life. Like wetlands in the natural environment, such fragile mixing bowls of diversity often appear to outsiders to be little more than wastelands. They are the first places to be rebuilt, redesigned, reconceived, and reconstituted when “reformers” think about “improving” a city. Yet this is a terrible mistake. Like wetlands, these spaces are among the most productive corners of the urban environment. They can be nurtured as well as destroyed, renewed as well as dissipated. Diversity in Russia’s Largest Cities
The remainder of this chapter explores the confluence of pro-development urban regimes in three major Russian cities – Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg. These cities have a considerable repertoire of equitable responses to diversity. In other words, they have growing reserves of diversity capital. Local sources, including media reports, official pronouncements, and interviews with local officials, business representatives, and migrant organizations, highlight an increasing embrace of diversity in these three cities. Because the densely opaque Russian political system obscures the mechanisms through which pro-business interests shape local policy, this chapter can only set forth an initial explication of those policies rather than of the processes by which those policies came about. That the local governments in major Russian cities are pursuing promigrant policies is a startling finding in itself. The vast preponderance of research on Russian responses to migration has examined the distinctly hostile policies of the Moscow City administration under former long-time mayor Yuri Luzhkov.2 Beyond Moscow’s city limits, responses to increasing migration and expanding diversity are variegated, complex, and ambitiously transformational. Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg represent cities with metropolitan labour forces that have become more diverse and economies that are increasingly reliant on migrants. Their repertoires of equitable response to diversity facilitate local economic development in the Russian context by encouraging the arrival of new employees essential for business growth. “Diversity” and the “Russian city” do not frequently appear in the same phrase. Indeed, Russia is one of the least ethnically diverse countries in Europe; major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg are even less ethnically diverse, if official statistics are to be believed (Vendina 2009, 105-12). Nonetheless Russian cities are not as uniformly “Russian” as they might appear at first glance. According to World Bank calculations, Russia ranks second only to the United States in terms of the number of “foreign-born”
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residents, while Germany ranks third (Mansoor and Quillin 2007, 23-26). There are, however, some statistical anomalies behind the Russian diversity figures. First, many of the “foreign born” were born prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, so that they never had to move to become recategorized as “foreign born.” The majority of immigrants (but not all immigrants) to the Russian Federation were born in other union republics of the Soviet Union that are now independent states (Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, etc.). Although classified as “foreign born” by the UN, they in fact did not cross a border: the border crossed them. Second, while there has been considerable migration into the Russian Federation, many of those identified by the World Bank as being foreign born are ethnically Russian, having moved to the Federation from neighbouring states after the demise of the Soviet Union. Even so, migration into Russia marks one of the most important post-Soviet demographic trends and is most visible in cities. As important as this current trend is, its impact will only grow in the years ahead. Many Russian cities have been affected by the country’s demographic implosion, which has produced significant labour shortages as ever smaller generational cohorts enter the Russian workforce. The population of Vladivostok in the Far East, for example, plummeted from about one million at the end of the Soviet period to around 600,000 in 2010 (Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2002; 2011). The primary means for meeting the growing labour demands of the Russian economy is likely to be labour migration from abroad. This demand will increase or decrease depending on the country’s economic growth rate but in the medium term it can only grow, even if Russian economic growth remains minimal in the face of the global economic crisis. Russia already is a country of net in-migration, receiving approximately 250,000 migrants annually during the early years of the twenty-first century, while the number of Russians leaving the country simultaneously declined (Korobkov 2008, 72-75). The majority of migrants have come from neighbouring states that were once part of the former Soviet Union (about six million since 1991). This trend does not diminish the challenges of diversity management for two main reasons (Heleniak 2008, 42-56). First, most of the ethnic Russians who were likely to leave neighbouring states had done so by the late 1990s. Second, twenty years into the post-Soviet era, even ethnic Russians residing in neighbouring states have become less like those Russians residing in the Federation itself as more recent arrivals often assimilated local customs, values, and modes of behaviour that differed from those in the Russian heartland.
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Beyond these general trends, many major Russian cities have significant ethnic divisions. The country’s eighth largest city, Kazan, located in the central Volga region and home to 1.1 million residents, is 52 percent Tatar, is 43 percent Russian, and has significant Chuvash, Ukrainian, Azeri, and Jewish populations (Mukhametshin 2008; Terent’ev 2008). The southern metropolis of Rostov-na-Donu, the country’s tenth largest city with just over one million residents, is home to significant Ukrainian, Armenian, Korean, Chechen, and Metsketian communities. Indeed, approximately 50 percent of its population, according to the 2002 census, consisted of migrants (Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2002). Such patterns indicate that Russia faces new challenges arising from the slow but real diversification of its population as well as challenges associated with the trend for migrants to settle in cities, as is the case everywhere in the world. This general global trend is amplified in the Russian Federation because nearly three-quarters of the population already live in cities (Kingkade 1997; Ruble 1989). In other words, Russian urban communities continue to deal with new, geographically and culturally specific challenges as well as the well-known global challenges of diversity accommodation, as they have since the later years of the Soviet Union during the 1980s (Iukhneva 1984; Starovoitova 1987). In the post-Soviet era, responses to these realities have rested primarily with local officials, who have created a range of policies toward diversity, from open hostility in Moscow to more welcoming policies elsewhere. More positive approaches are often most visible in cities that are struggling to maintain an environment conducive to economic development. Businesses in Kazan, for example, have supported the efforts of local officials to nurture peaceful relations through enhanced educational opportunities in various languages. Fearful that tensions over language will destabilize communities and labour markets, business and political elites have come to embrace the establishment of schools that offer instruction in several languages. Similarly, the local development lobby in St. Petersburg has launched a variety of campaigns to promote tolerance in the hope that non-Russian labour migrants will be attracted to the city’s hundreds of unfilled jobs. Meanwhile, local officials and business leaders in Yekaterinburg celebrate the city’s population growth, which has been primarily driven by migration from Central Asia. The ethnic compositions of Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg differ in interesting ways. Kazan is a city that is more or less equally divided between two core ethnic and confessional communities – Islamic Tatars
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and Orthodox Christian Russians – so that the negotiation of positive accommodation, the foundation for diversity capital formation, has become an essentially bimodal process. Historically, St. Petersburg has remained an overwhelmingly Russian city despite the presence of numerous minorities. The large number and diversity of St. Petersburg’s various communities, as well as their varied historical presence in the city, make the negotiation of positive accommodation a more complex challenge with more actors and multiple levels of engagement. Located away from Russia’s historic centre, Yekaterinburg has always been a magnet for migrants from throughout the Empire and Soviet Union. Processes of arrival and departure in Yekaterinburg are more fluid and less hierarchical than in other places in the Russian European heartland. Accommodation arises in Yekaterinburg from the interaction of communities and individuals, almost all of whom consider themselves to be from elsewhere. Together, the examples of Kazan’s, St. Petersburg’s, and Yekaterinburg’s more recent embrace of migration as a solution to their labour shortages reveal some of the ways in which prodevelopment business lobbies seek to promote socially progressive diversity policies. The recent experiences of all three cities amplify the ways in which local actions can expand diversity capital. Embracing the Confessional Divide
The central Volga River–basin city of Kazan, as already mentioned, is a city that is especially diverse, and has been since its origins. Although historians debate whether there were earlier cities on the same site, the present city of Kazan was founded by the Mongols in the thirteenth century and became the capital of its own khanate following the collapse of the Golden Hord in 1438 (Shnirelman 1996). This thriving trading centre stood at the intersection of trading routes that crisscrossed Central Eurasia. Covetous of the city’s wealth and strategic importance, Russian Tsar Ivan IV (“the Terrible”) conquered the city in 1552 following an extended siege (De Madariaga 2005, 92-105). City residents – both Russian and Tatar – frequently took advantage of collapsing central power. They declared independence in the early 1600s, formed a focal point of the Pugachev Rebellion against the rule of Catherine the Great in 1774, and established a partnership with Polish rebels in 1863 (Bukharaev 1995). By the early nineteenth century, Imperial authorities had opened Kazan University – one of the oldest universities in the Russian empire – encouraged Islamic scholarship, and promoted industrialization (Schimmelpenninck van der Oye 2010). Kazan fell under Bolshevik rule after another brief period
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of independence in 1918 and, like many central Soviet cities, became a hub for Stalinist industrialization efforts during the 1930s. Numerous factories relocated to Kazan from the western regions of the Soviet Union during the Second World War and remained in the city following the end of hostilities. The city at the close of the Soviet period, therefore, was a major industrial and academic centre marked by a diverse population, including Russians and Tatars as well as other ethnic groups (Gorenburg 2006, 273-303). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the division between those who view themselves as culturally Christian and culturally Islamic has become particularly pronounced, as has that between practising believers of the Orthodox Christian and Sunni Muslim faiths (Graney 2009). Given this complex history, one might well expect that ethnic and religious tensions would mark Kazan life. Indeed, outbreaks of ethnic intolerance and violence occur on the city’s streets from time to time (Safarov 2009). However, as the chairperson of the city’s Jewish Community Council observed in the local media in 2007, this harsh reality is mitigated by the praiseworthy attempts of local authorities to confront intolerance generally and anti-Semitism in particular. His point is that Kazan is a city in which intolerance does not go unanswered (Vel’der 2007). This is in part because the authorities of the Republic of Tatarstan, the constituent part of the Russian Federation in which Kazan is located, have established an Assembly of Nationalities to promote interethnic and interconfessional dialogue. The establishment of this assembly in 2007 was prompted by the realization that a number of diaspora communities, recent migrants from the Caucasus region, Central Asia, and even Vietnam, were generating new and increasing conflicts around the Republic. Because Tatarstan is a national and confessional enclave within a larger Russian state, Tatar leaders have frequently emphasized their geographic and historical function as a meeting ground of various peoples and religions. Significantly, diversity as a positive value permeates the language of official representations on a sustained basis, sending a clear signal that minorities must be treated with fairness and dignity in a city whose dominant population is a minority in the Russian Federation overall. In the Republic of Tatarstan, there are 1,147 primary and secondary schools that offer instruction in Tatar: 147 in Chuvash, forty-seven in Udmurt, thirty-five in Russian, twenty-two in Marii, and four in Mordovian, with one school offering a Jewish-centric education and another a Bashkir-centric curriculum. In addition, fifty-two Sunday schools offer instruction in languages such as
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Ukrainian, Azeri, Armenian, Polish, German, Georgian, Hebrew, and Bashkir (Terent’ev, 2008). The variety of languages of instruction available in Tatarstan’s schools demonstrates that diversity is a lived reality throughout the republic. This diversity of school-language offerings is, in turn, used by Kazan and Tatarstan as a major marketing tool to attract investment to their local economies. The negotiations that led to the creation of this wider space for diversity accommodation largely took place between two groups of long-standing presence in Kazan and Tatarstan: Russian Orthodox Christians and Tatar Muslims. The process of creating diversity capital is more complex in cities in which the number of groups increase, as is the case in Russia’s second largest city, St. Petersburg. Confronting a Climate of Hate
The trauma accompanying the collapse of the Soviet Union accelerated a general decline in both the health and the size of St. Petersburg’s population. During the early 1990s, male life expectancy and births fell in the city at a faster rate than in all but a handful of the country’s eighty-nine regions (Saint Petersburg City Administration 2010a). The combined impact of these trends on St. Petersburg’s population has been devastating. Between February 1988, when the city’s fifth millionth resident was born, and the official census of 9 October 2002, St. Petersburg’s population plummeted by nearly 350,000 residents to 4,661,219. By 2007, the city’s population had fallen to 4,596,000 before reversing the trend as a result of migration into the city, largely from abroad, to reach 4,848,700 by the 2010 census (Sovetskaia Rossiia 1988; Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2002; 2011; Saint Petersburg City Administration 2010a). The years since 1988 have not been the only period of precipitous population decline for St. Petersburg. Founded in 1703 as a tentative Baltic Sea military outpost by Peter the First (“The Great”), who named the town as his capital a decade later (George and George 2003), St. Petersburg would continue to serve as the Russian Empire’s capital, except for a brief hiatus between 1728 and 1732 under Peter the Second. The city had grown to over one hundred thousand residents by the 1762-96 reign of Catherine the Second (“The Great”) and to over a half million by 1861 at the time of the emancipations of the Serfs (Ruble 1990, 27). St. Petersburg stood at the centre of Russia’s industrial revolution during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pulling waves of peasant migrants to work in local
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factories. The city’s metropolitan population reached two and a half million at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. That figure fell to 720,000 by the end of the Russian Civil War in 1920 and following the wartime transfer of the capital to Moscow in 1918. Stalin’s rapid industrialization unleashed another wave of in-migration to the city’s factories beginning in 1928, with 3,421,000 residents living in the metropolitan area at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1941. During the 872-day Leningrad Blockade (1941-44) 1.4 million residents evacuated the city and another 1.5 million civilians and military personnel perished so that the city’s population had fallen below six hundred thousand when the blockade was lifted. The city rebounded from that low point with new migrants from surrounding regions who filled the city. The metropolitan Leningrad region had again reached its prewar population levels by the time of the 1959 census and continued to grow as a result of internal migration throughout the remainder of the Soviet period (Ruble 1983; Bubis and Ruble 1985). The present period of decline, beginning with the city’s peak population in 1988, therefore, does not necessarily appear alarming against a backdrop of such demographic volatility. St. Petersburg is still the fifth largest metropolitan region in Europe after Moscow, Istanbul, London, and Paris. More importantly, the general picture of decline following the collapse of the Soviet Union obscures the story of the arrival of thousands of new Petersburgers who have moved to the city – often from beyond the borders of the Russian Federation – in response to the labour demands of local employers. The city’s economy entered a period of explosive growth around 1999, led by an expanding port together with rapidly recovering shipbuilding and automotive industries (Saint Petersburg City Administration 2010b). As a consequence of these various trends, what had been an almost exclusively ethnic Russian city at the end of the Soviet period has become home to over one million non-Russians (Koptin, interview; Iukhneva 1984; Starovoitova 1987; Ruble 1990). Not everyone in the city has been pleased by these developments. St. Petersburg has been plagued by particularly violent and repugnant racist and xenophobic attacks on individuals who do not appear to be “Russian” (Shnirelman 2007). More recently, violence against the gay community similarly has taken a nasty turn, which has cast light on a dark side of violent intolerance in the city. In February 2012, the St. Petersburg legislature passed a law banning the dissemination of “propaganda” promoting
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homosexuality among minors as part of a larger anti-gay campaign by official and unofficial “guardians” of public morality (Schwirtz 2012). This law gained international notoriety in August of that year when a group of local anti-gay activists sued the American singer Madonna for $10 million after she had protested the local law by performing with the words “No Fear” on her back at a St. Petersburg concert (Dobkina 2012). Russian and international media reports about such incidents threaten the city’s efforts to attract the domestic and transnational migrants essential to sustain the city’s economic growth. The particularly horrifying murder on 9 February 2004 of a nine-year-old Tadzhik girl, Khursheda Sultanova, by a group of local teenagers who attacked her because she appeared to be Central Asian, prompted St. Petersburg City Governor Valentina Matvienko to speak out for the first time against growing racialist violence in her city (Shnirelman 2007). This event galvanized local community and political leaders to formulate a systematic response to intercultural conflict. Government and nongovernmental actors reached out to one another in a variety of venues and forums. St. Petersburg could not rely on the elite accommodation evident in Kazan. The programs intended to create new diversity capital had to establish a policy arena open to elites and non-elites, natives, long-term residents, and new arrivals alike. Accordingly, in July 2006, the government of St. Petersburg launched a “tolerance program” aimed at “promoting harmony of interethnic and intercultural relations, and preventing ultra-nationalist tendencies, and strengthening tolerance for all in St. Petersburg” (Pravitel’stvo Sank-Peterburga 2006). City authorities developed the program, which was extended in 2010 until 2015, on the basis of extensive consultation with local law enforcement agencies, academic specialists, civil society leaders, and educational officials (Akopov and Rozanova 2010). The program’s goals include enhanced coordination between city agencies on questions of tolerance, expanded initiatives to integrate nationalities living in the city into public and cultural life, greater effort to preserve and develop the cultural heritage of all groups within the city, and stronger enforcement of laws intended to prevent ethnic violence and punish the perpetrators of hate crimes (Koptin, interview). In addition, the city made funding available to encourage the organization of local ethnic associations – especially those representing the city’s 200,000 Azeris, its 150,000 Tatars, and many smaller groups such as Petersburg’s historic Jewish community – as well as annual cultural festivals (ibid.). City officials, for example, joined
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with Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan on 20 June 2010 to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the formation of an Armenian community in the city (Kavkaskii Uzel 2010). More ambitiously, city officials are working with the Russian Federation Ministry of Education to introduce a comprehensive tolerance curriculum throughout the city’s school system (Pravitel’stvo Sank-Peterburga 2006). School children and youth now are being taught skills to interact more peacefully with those who are different from themselves. As a follow-up to the new curriculum intended to expand the tolerance curriculum, in 2010, the city awarded the local nongovernmental organization Strategia a major grant to initiate programming to combat xenophobia in the city’s Kupchino district, an area that has been plagued by high levels of interethnic violence (Rozanova, interview). Between Europe and Asia
Russia’s fourth largest city, Yekaterinburg, offers another example of how local Russian officials are trying to expand their reserves of diversity capital. Established late in the reign of Peter the First (“The Great”) and named after Saint Catherine (Yekaterinburg) in honour of the Tsar’s wife, it drew settlers from across the Empire. This imperial outpost grew slowly, only achieving the status of a town in 1796 (Starikov et al. 2008, 8-29). It eventually emerged as a major mining and manufacturing centre, revolving around the exploitation of the rich mineral deposits throughout the Urals region. The arrival of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in the late nineteenth century further secured Yekaterinburg’s status as one of Russia’s most important industrial centres (Ames 1947, 57-74). Yekaterinburg was the focal point of intense fighting during the Russian Civil War, and on 17 July 1918 the basement of a city merchant’s home – Ipatiev House – became the scene of the bloody execution of Russia’s royal family – Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and his four daughters, son, and trusted aides (Service 1997, 107). Half a dozen years later, in 1924, the city was renamed for Bolshevik hero Yakov Sverdlov, a moniker that remained until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (Harris 1999, 102). Stalin’s campaign of forced rapid industrialization, beginning with the launch of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928, stimulated further growth as the city became home to numerous defence-related industrial plants, including the largest heavy machinery factory in a “European economy,” the giant Uralmash works (Davies 1994). The city, which escaped German occupation during the Second World War, was the evacuation site of numerous factories
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and cultural institutions from cities further west such as Moscow and Lenin grad. Many of these facilities and their specialists remained following the war (Harris 1999, 32-36). The area, with a population of over one million, then became a focal point for Cold War military industrial production, which drew on both the city’s many research facilities as well as its factories. In 1979, one such research site specializing in biological warfare accidentally released anthrax into the atmosphere, leading to one of the worst biological contaminations of a civilian population in history (Guillemin 2002). The city’s key role in Soviet defence research and development as well as industrial production led to its closure to foreigners and unapproved Soviet citizens. Its significance to the Soviet defence effort also elevated its political power. By the 1980s, the local Communist Party organization, under its First Secretary Boris Yeltsin, had become a leading force for reform, while Uralmash director Nikolai Ryzhkov became Mikhail Gorbachev’s longest serving prime minister between 1985 and 1991 (Aron 2000, 48-128). Yekaterinburg confronted the terrible dislocations of post-Soviet deindustrialization, its opening to the world at large, and its evolving political status as previous home to the initial post-Soviet Kremlin elite with just over 1.3 million residents (Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2002). With many of the larger industrial facilities, especially those with connections to national defence, entering a period of precipitous decline, city leaders were able to encourage linkages between the numerous research facilities that had emerged in the region and a burgeoning civilian manufacturing sector. Striving for national and international prominence in education, two local universities with a combined student body of nearly sixty thousand – the giant Urals State Technical University and the humanities and social science-oriented Urals State University – merged in April 2010 to form one of seven “national research universities” intended to form a new Russian “ivy league” of research-based institutions of higher learning, which also includes a newly consolidated research university in Kazan (Putin 2010). Local elites leveraged the region’s political connections during the Yeltsin presidency to attract international attention (there currently are over a dozen consulates in the city) as well as foreign investment. In 2010, Forbes Magazine described Yekaterinburg as among the best sustainable business climates within the Russian Federation (Yekaterinburg City Official Web site 2010). As everywhere in Russia, Yekaterinburg must attract migrants from around the country and beyond if it is to benefit from sustained economic growth. The city, in fact, has become a major destination for transient, seasonal, and permanent migrants.
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While still a predominantly Russian city, Yekaterinburg experiences increasingly active migration networks with Tajikistan, and the surrounding Sverdlovskaia region (oblast’ ). Local Tajik leaders claim, for example, that between 150,000 and 200,000 Tajiks have moved to the city and region since the end of the Tajik Civil War in 1997 (Mirzoyev, interview). Tajiks are the largest, but not the only, immigrant community that has come to the city in recent years. Significant Uzbek, Chinese, and Kyrgyz communities are to be found as well (Nekliudova 2010). As in St. Petersburg and Kazan, local officials have become increasingly active in trying to ensure that the growing diversity of their city’s workforce can become an asset rather than a challenge. Goodwill in and of itself has not proven sufficient ground for the promotion of diversity capital. Local officials have come to believe that the first hurdle to ensure that migrants are properly treated is to have them officially registered, thereby making them less vulnerable to harassment by the police and more able to switch jobs and residences. Accordingly, the region’s commissioner on human rights, a number of nongovernmental agencies in the region, and several consulates actively assist immigrants to properly file all the necessary documentation for legal residence in the Russian Federation (Merzliakovo, interview; Orozbaev, interview). For example, in 2007, city officials approached a new nongovernmental organization called Urals’ Home (Ural’skii dom) to develop an integrated “migration bridge” that would provide support structures for migrants from Kyrgyzstan.3 The city shows signs of becoming increasingly attractive to more skilled workers. By the time of the 2010 census, the city’s population had stabilized at 1,350,100 residents (Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki 2011). The relative proportion of professionals and medical personnel within the Yekaterinburg Kyrgyz community has increased as local officials have been able to regularize the migrant experience. Some of those professionals, as well as their colleagues from other migrant communities, are finding work teaching in the city’s numerous secondary schools and institutions of higher education. As in Kazan and St. Petersburg, the school rooms and lecture halls of Yekaterinburg have become forums for enhancing diversity capital. Immigrants in Yekaterinburg have come to feel sufficiently comfortable in the city to demand recognition of their rights. A number of employers in the city and region began to withhold back wages from both native and migrant workers following the onset of the global financial crisis in autumn 2008. Tajik construction workers quickly organized and took to the streets. Through their use of international media contacts, news of their strike
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action quickly reached major media outlets in Europe, an embarrassment that prompted the Russian Federation government in Moscow to intervene to secure the unpaid wages. Still displeased with their treatment, Tajik workers pooled their resources to purchase stock and voting rights in miscreant companies a year later (Merzliakovo, interview; Mirzoyev, interview). Building Diversity Capital to Build Financial Capital
While the experiences of Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg are not completely happy ones – hate crimes and discriminatory practices are disturbingly visible at times – they do reveal that ethnic differences intersect in daily urban life in the contemporary Russian city. The strategies used to promote diversity capital vary according to cities’ different experiences with diversity. In Kazan, two historically dominant communities seek accommodation through school language curriculum. In St. Petersburg, local officials try to create new arenas in which a mix of long-standing and newly formed communities would come to view one another with respect and accept one another’s presence. In Yekaterinburg, governmental and nongovernmental leaders focus on providing a level legal playing field for migrants by promoting registration with federal migration authorities. Similarly, the immediate impact of these strategies has varied among all three cities. Officials in Kazan have proven to be the most successful in limiting outbursts of group tensions over the short run. Implementation of longer-term strategies of educating a new generation of Petersburgers and formalizing the legal status of migrants in Yekaterinburg has accelerated in the face of recent violent outbursts against migrants. Much more time is required to evaluate the lasting influence of policies directed at educating school children in Petersburg and elevating migrant rights in Yekaterinburg. Nonetheless, profound change has taken place in all three cities as their diversity capital has grown. Tatar political leaders have systematically extended the right of minorities to an education in their own language in their republic. Meanwhile, St. Petersburg’s city leaders are firmly on record as condemning intolerance and violence while city agencies actively highlight the contributions of various economic groups to the city’s overall wellbeing. Yekaterinburg’s nongovernmental organizations have attracted teachers from a variety of backgrounds. In all three communities, serious long-term efforts are underway to ensure that future Russian urbanites may well consider diversity to be a normal state of affairs. These strategies have been enacted out of a desire to promote economic growth rather than out of an embrace of tolerance as a
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value in its own right. Prodded by business elites starving for employees, local politicians have struggled with the implications of a new environment in which labour force requirements demand diversity. They have grown to view diversity as a form of capital to be nurtured, invested, and prized. Prodevelopment coalitions in Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg are beginning to speak about how new civic identities must embrace a variety of urban communities and individuals. While most evident in the migration arena, pro-development investment in human capital is evident in many spheres of public policy. Major Russian and international companies regularly finance local healthcare facilities, educational programs, sports programs, and housing developments in an effort to attract and retain quality workers. To offer just one example, at the September 2011 opening ceremony of an ultramodern Komatsu tractor and bulldozer factory in Yaroslavl, former Japanese prime minister Yoshirō Mori announced the firm’s expansive investment in upgrading local vocational and higher educational institutions with an explicit goal of encouraging the best among the city’s fifty-eight thousand university students to remain in town (and perhaps working for Komatsu) (Mori 2011). More generally, the post-Soviet Russian experience demonstrates that profitseeking corporations may choose to invest in improving the quality of urban life and expanding opportunities for a city’s work force at those moments when human capital is more scarce than financial capital. Perhaps most surprising, the experience of post-Soviet Russia suggests that pro-development business coalitions can animate policies that seek to ameliorate social inequality. In this regard, contemporary Russia illuminates the ways in which political economic analysis advances our understanding of how cities respond to the complex challenges of ethnic, confessional, and linguistic diversity by creating new forms of social capital. The experiences of post-authoritarian cities such as those in Russia bring unexpected richness to discussions of urban political economy predicated solely on the North American experience. They suggest that, under certain circumstances, business can become a force in encouraging progressive social policies. Perhaps such a finding is a peculiar artefact of the particular political economies that took shape during the self-enforced isolation of the Soviet Union and apartheid South Africa prior to the 1990s. Or, perhaps, their experience suggests that municipal political-economic regimes can embrace social inclusion should labour become a scarcer good than financial capital.
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Notes
I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Kennan Institute Research Assistant Eugene Imas in the preparation of this article and thank him for his work. In addition, I am grateful to the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) for supporting a June 2010 research trip during which I gathered some of the materials concerning Yekaterinburg. This research was conducted in connection with an NSF grant titled “People, Power, and Conflict in the Eurasian Migration System,” administered by the University of Texas at Austin with Cynthia Buckley serving as principal investigator. Other research team members include Beth Mitchneck, University of Arizona; Timothy Heleniak, University of Maryland; Erin Hoffman Trouth, Uni versity of Texas at Austin; and Liz Malinkin, Woodrow Wilson Center. I would like to thank this volume’s editors, as well as Paul Goble of the blog Windows on Russia, for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. 1 Estimates of the number of Soviet citizens who died as a result of human decision between the beginning of the First Five-Year Plan in 1928 and the end of the Second World War in 1945 are hotly contested. An official 1989 Soviet commission chaired by Alexander Yakovlev established to investigate deaths from political terror or deliberate starvation, estimated thirty-five million deaths from the “Stalin Terror” alone. In addition, in 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev estimated between twenty-seven and twenty-eight million Soviets died during the Second World War. My reference to over sixty million “excess” deaths is based on these two estimates, which cover both the political terror and deliberate starvation of the 1930s and the estimate of Soviet deaths during the Second World War (Leitenberg 2006, 9-11). 2 The English language literature on Moscow City administration policies toward immigrants under the long tenure of Mayor Yuri Luzhkov (1992-2010) is dispersed among hundreds of news articles. At a 2009 Woodrow Wilson Center conference examining “Transnational Migration to New Regional Centers” (Herzer, Klump, and Malinkin, 2009, 105-12), Moscow geographer Olga Vendina provided an excellent overview of this literature. For a Russian language overview of Moscow’s immigrant communities, see the work of demographer Zhanna Zaionchkovskaia (2009). 3 This account is based on field observations and meetings with community leaders in Yekaterinburg, 8 June 2010. Works Cited
Akopov, Sergey, and Marya Rozanova. 2010. “Migration Processes in Contemporary St. Petersburg.” NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy 3 (1): 77-89. Ames, Edward. 1947. “A Century of Russian Railroad Construction: 1837-1936.” American Slavic and East European Review 6 (3-4): 57-74. Aron, Leon. 2000. Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life. London: HarperCollins. Bogetic, Zeljko, with Sergei Ulatov, Karlis Smits, Olga Emelyanova, and Victor Sulla. 2010. “The World Bank in Russia.” Russian Economic Report 22. Washington, DC: World Bank.
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Brettell, Caroline B., and Faith G. Nibbs. 2010. “Immigrant Suburban Settlement and the ‘Threat’ to Middle Class Status and Identity: The Case of Farmers Branch, Texas.” International Migration 49 (1): 1-30. Bubis, Edward, and Blair A. Ruble. 1985. “The Impact of World War II on Leningrad.” In The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union, edited by Susan J. Linz, 189206. Totowa, NJ: Roman and Allanheld. Bukharaev, Ravil. 1995. Kazan: The Enchanted Capital. London: Flint River. Cooper, William H. 2008. CRS Report for Congress: Russia’s Economic Performance and Policies and Their Implications for the United States. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Davies, R.W. 1994. “Industry under Central Planning, 1929-1941.” In The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union, 1913-1945, edited by R.W. Davies, Mark Harrison, and S.C. Wheatcroft, 135-57. New York: Cambridge University Press. De Madariaga, Isabel. 2005. Ivan the Terrible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dobkina, Liza, 2012. “Anti-gay Russian Activists Sue Madonna for $10 million,” Reuters, 18 August. Eberstadt, Nicholas N. 2010. Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis: Dimensions, Causes, Implications. Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research. Federal’naia sluzhba gosudarstvennoi statistiki, 2002. Vserossiiskaia perepis’ naseleniia 2002 goda. Chislennost’ naseleniia Rossii, sib”ektov Rossisskoi Federatsii v sostave federal’nykh okrugov, raionov, gorodskikh poselenii, sel’skikh naselennykh punktov – raionnykh tsentrov i sel’skikh naselennykh punktov s naseleniem 3 tysiachi I bole chelovek. Moscow: Federal State Statistical Service. –. 2009. Informatsiia o sotsial’no – ekonomizheskom polozhenii Rossii – 2009 goda. www.gks.ru. –. 2011. Predvaritel’nye itogi vserossiiskoi perepiski naseleniia 2010 goda. www. perepis-2010.ru/. George, Arthur L., and Elena George. 2003. St. Petersburg: Russia’s Window to the Future. The First Three Centuries. Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing. Gorenburg, Dmitry. 2006. “Soviet Nationalities Policies and Assimilation.” In Rebounding Identities: The Politics of Identity in Russia and Ukraine, edited by Dominique Arel and Blair A. Ruble, 273-303. Baltimore, MD/Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson Center. Graney, Katherine E. 2009. Of Khans and Kremlins: Tatarstan and the Future of Ethno-Federalism in Russia. New York: Lexington Books. Guillemin, Jeanne. 2002. “The 1979 Anthrax Epidemic in the USSR: Applied Science and Political Controversy.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 146 (1): 18-36. Hanley, Lisa M., Blair A. Ruble, and Allison Garland, eds. 2008. Immigration and Integration in Urban Communities: Renegotiating the City. Baltimore, MD/ Washington DC: Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson Center. Harris, James R. 1999. The Great Urals: Regionalism and the Evolution of the Soviet System. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Harvey, David. 1989. The Urban Experience. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Heleniak, Timothy. 2008. An Overview of Migration in the Post-Soviet Space. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center. Herzer, Lauren, Sarah Dixon Klump, and Mary Elizabeth Malinkin, eds. 2009. Eurasian Migration Papers Number 2: Transnational Migration to New Regional Centers: Policy Challenges, Practice, and the Migrant Experience. Conference Pro ceedings. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center. http://wilsoncenter.org/. Iukhneva, Natalia. 1984. Etnicheskii sostav I etnosotsial’naia struktura naseleniia Peterburga. Leningrad: Nauka. Jonas, Andrew, and David Wilson. 1999. The Urban Growth Machine: Critical Perspectives Two Decades Later. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kavkaskii Uzel. 2010. V Sankt-Peterburge otmechaiut 300-letie armianskoi obshchiny, 20 June. www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/. Kingkade, Ward. 1997. International Brief. Population Trends: Russia [IB-96-2]. Washington, DC: United States Bureau of the Census. Korobkov, Andrei V. 2008. “Post-Soviet Migration: New Trends at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century.” In Migration, Homeland and Belonging in Eurasia, edited by Cynthia J. Buckley, Blair A. Ruble, and Erin Trouth Hofmann, 69-97. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center. Leitenberg, Milton. 2006. “Deaths in Wars and Conflicts in the 20th Century.” Occasional Paper 29. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Peace Studies Program. Logan, John, and Harvey Molotch. 2007. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mansoor, Ali, and Bryce Quillin. 2007. Migration and Remittances: Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Washington, DC: World Bank. Molotch, Harvey. 1976. “The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place.” The American Journal of Sociology 82 (2): 309-32. Mori, Yoshirō, 2011. “Remarks at Opening of Komatsu Plant, Yaroslavl Russia,” as witnessed by author. Mukhametshin, Farid. 2008. Interview. Nash Dom: Tatarstan. Nekliudova, Natalia. 2010. “Registered Immigrants in Yekaterinburg.” Seminar Presentation, Urals State Economics University, Yekaterinburg, Russia, 9 June. Polèse, Mario, and Richard Stren. 2000. “Understanding the New Sociocultural Dynamics of Cities: Comparative Urban Policy in a Global Context.” In The Social Sustainability of Cities: Diversity and the Management of Change, edited by Mario Polèse and Richard Stren, 3-38. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1995. “Arts in the Contact Zone.” In Reading the Lives of Others, edited by David Bartholomae, and Anthony Petrosky, 180-95. Boston: Bedford Books. Pravitel’stvo Sank-Peterburga. Komitet po vneshnim sviaziam. 2006. Programma garmonizatsiimezhetnicheskikh I mezhkul’turnykh otnoshenii, profilatiki proiavlenii ksenofobii, ukrepleniia, tolerantnosti v Sankt–Peterburge na 2006-2010 gody. Programma “Tolerantnost.” Putin, Vladimir. 2010. “Prime Minister Vladimir Putin Chairs a Meeting on Modernizing the Higher Education System.” Official Website of the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, 8 April. http://premier.gov.ru/.
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Ruble, Blair. A. 1983. “The Leningrad Affair and the Provincialization of Leningrad.” Russian Review 42 (3): 301-20. –. 1989. “Ethnicity and Soviet Cities.” Soviet Studies 41 (3): 401-14. –. 1990. Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City. Berkeley: University of California Press. –. 2005. Creating Diversity Capital: Transnational Migrants in Montreal, Wash ington, and Kyiv. Baltimore, MD/Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press/Woodrow Wilson Center. Safarov, Asgat. 2009. Interview. Nash Dom: Tatarstan. Saint Petersburg City Administration. 2010a. Population. http://eng.gov.spb.ru/. –. 2010b. Recent Economic Trends. http://eng.gov.spb.ru/. Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Prince ton University Press. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David. 2010. Russian Orientalism: Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Schwirtz, Michael. 2012. “Anti-Gay Law Stirs Fears in Russia.” New York Times, 28 February. Service, Robert. 1997. A History of Twentieth-Century Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shnirelman, Viktor. 1996. Who Gets the Past? Competition for Ancestors among NonRussian Intellectuals in Russia. Baltimore, MD/Washington, DC: Johns Hopkins University Press /Woodrow Wilson Center. –. 2007. Chistil’shchiki moskovskikh ulits: skinhedy SMI I obshchestvennoe mnenie. Moscow: Academia. Smith, Neil. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. New York: Routledge. Sovetskaia Rossiia. 1988. “Pavlom Nazvali. S dnem rozhdeniia, Leningradets!” 26 February. Starikov, A.A., V. E. Zavel’skaia, L.I. Tokmenninova, and E.V. Cherniak. 2008. Ekaterinburg: Istoriia goroda v arkhitekture. Yekaterinburg: Sokrat. Starovoitova, Galina. 1987. Etnicheskaia gruppa v sovremennom Sovetskom gorode: sotsiologicheskie ocherki. Leningrad: Nauka. Terent’ev, Aleksandr. 2008. Interview. Nash Dom: Tatarstan. Vel’der, A.M. 2007. “Obrashchenie predesdatelia Evreiskoi obshiny gooroda Kazani k glavnomu redaktoru.” Nezavisimaia gaezta, 3 December. Vendina, Olga. 2009. “The Case of Moscow.” In Eurasian Migration Papers 2: Transnational Migration to New Regional Centers: Policy Challenges, Practice, and the Migrant Experience. Conference Proceedings, edited by Lauren Herzer, Sarah Dixon Klump, and Mary Elizabeth Malinkin, 105-20. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center. Vishnevsky, Anatoly G., and Sergei N. Bobylev. 2008. National Human Development Report. Russian Federation. Moscow: United Nations Development Programme, Russia. Wood, Phil, and Charles Landry. 2008. The Intercultural City: Planning for Diversity Advantage. London: Earthscan.
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Yekaterinburg City Official Website. 2010. “Forbs: Yekaterinburg voshel v troiku lychshikhgorodov dlia biznesa.” http://www.ekburg.ru/. Zaionchkovskaia, Zhanna, ed. 2009. Immigranty v Moskve. Moscow: Tri Kvadrata. Interviews by Author
Koptin, Boris. 2007. Head of the Administration for Contacts with National Associations of the St. Petersburg Government Committee for External Relations. 25 April. Merzliakovo, Tatiana. 2010. Commissioner on Human Rights in the Sverdlovsk Region. 8 June. Mirzoyev, Farukh. 2010. Board Chairman of the Regional Non-Governmental Institution “Somon – Tajik Cultural Community” Yekaterinburg, Russia. 8 June. Orozbaev, Turdali. 2010. Consul General of the Kyrgyz Republic in Yekaterinburg, Russia. 9 June. Rozanova, Marya. 2010. Head of the Center for Civil, Social, Scientific and Cultural Initiatives, Strategia, St. Petersburg, 29 April, 30 December.
Citizenship and Livelihood Struggles in Turbulent Times The City and Ethnic Politics in Postcolonial Africa Dickson Eyoh
Chapter
2
This chapter examines the dynamics of urban ethnicity in postcolonial Africa, focusing on the ways in which ethnic politics in cities are shaped by and in turn shape the rhythms of national politics. Ethnic politics in post colonial Africa are rarely about the defence of the cultural autonomy of groups; they are mainly about the distribution of power and resources. Ethnic differences do not inherently lend themselves to political competition and conflict; when and how they do depends on the manner in which they are imagined, woven into fabrics of power, and deployed in elite-led struggles for authority and influence. The main drivers of political competition and conflict between ethnic groups are the tensions between two inherently contradictory conceptions of citizenship on which Africa’s postcolonial states are founded. The first, inclusive citizenship, is the universalized liberal notion of citizens as individuals with reciprocal rights and obligations to the nation-state, unfettered by subnational affiliations. The second, ethnic citizenship, rests on membership in kin-based groups that claim an ancestral homeland – a culturally demarcated fragment of the nation-space. Ethnic citizenship is in essence exclusionary, as rights and obligations, including access to resources and political participation, are deemed contingent upon membership within groups whose boundaries are defined in opposition to “ethnic others” who happen to be national compatriots.1 Since the 1970s, unrelieved economic hardships for the overwhelming majority of Africans have engendered new and complex struggles over the
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meanings of citizenship and corresponding economic and political rights. In the countryside, population growth, ecological degradation, and the expansion of commercial agriculture have combined to intensify competition over land and other resources. Neoliberal globalization has reinforced a pattern of “urbanization without development,” the most telling signs of which are declining prospects for formal wage employment and the inexorable expansion of informal sectors as the source of livelihood for the majority of urbanites. The changed macroeconomics of cities have spurred the growth of “identity economics” through heightened investments in ethnic, religious, gender, class, and locality-based identities in the construction and maintenance of social networks for survival and accumulation that transverse the rural-urban divide (Meagher 2010). Dire economic and political circumstances have provided fertile ground for what has been labelled the politics of belonging: the resort to ethnic citizenship to assert prior rights to resources and political participation in local society by self-designated “sons of the soil” and the contestation of such claims by national compatriots labelled “migrants” because of their later settlement in localities.2 Mindful of the diversity of African experiences across any range of substantive issues and societal processes, the chapter sketches in very broad strokes how ethnic politics in cities and nationally are underpinned by the tensions of contending conceptions of citizenship. It focuses on how these tensions are modulated by continuities and shifts in the interconnected processes of state formation, urbanization, and political economic change. It is organized along a threefold periodization of modern African history, ranging from the colonial period with 1960 as the modal terminal year; the first phase of the postcolonial era through the 1970s; and onward into the most recent era of economic and political liberalization since the 1980s. Two neighbouring states, Nigeria and Cameroon, with differing postcolonial nation-building strategies illustrate the similarities and differences in the dynamics of the interplay of ethnic politics in urban and national contexts in the contemporary era. The Colonial Moment: Creating Ethnic and Incipient National Citizens
Although Africa’s precolonial history includes a rich legacy of urban settlement, contemporary processes and patterns of urbanization across SubSaharan Africa were set in motion by the establishment of colonial extractive economies and states (O’Connor 1983, 25-56). The growth of colonial cities (some built on pre-existing ones but most newly created as administrative
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and commercial nodes of colonial states) was driven by migration. Migrants were initially drawn from the immediate hinterlands and subsequently from more remote regions within and outside colonial territories. I highlight here the ways in which the dynamics of colonial transformations – within the broader context of colonial state formation and economic organization – positioned urban centres as epicentres for the formation of contemporary ethnicities.3 Colonial cities were polyglot cultural spaces in which migrants had to assume new roles and construct new modes of social interaction. Residents were simultaneously involved in multiple overlapping communities: urban labouring communities, middle-class society, differently structured commercial circuits, ethnic networks, and diasporas within such networks (Rakodi 1997, 32-34). Ethnic networks, which evolved out of the constant redefinition of communal boundaries and identities, remained the most crucial vehicle for the socialization of migrants into cities. The dominant pattern of circulatory migration – in which migrants returned temporarily to their region of origin – enabled urban migrants to retain strong ties with their villages or regions of origin. In cities, people drawn from different localities and for whom village-centred kinship ties may have been primary in rural societies, acquired new (pan-ethnic) identities, which they then transported back to their now spatially enlarged ancestral homelands. These networks, such as the fabled “hometown associations” in West Africa and similar ones elsewhere, united ethnic compatriots across divisions of class, gender, locality, and religion. They facilitated access to housing, employment, commercial circuits, and resources for the discharge of individual and collective obligations such as marriage, funerals, religious rituals, and development schemes (schools, community halls, health clinics, etc.) in home villages and regions (Banton 1957; Cohen 1969; Little 1965). Colonial cities were also multiply segregated spaces, organized along overlapping racial and class divisions that separated “white” and “native” spaces, and also along ethnic lines, as migrants tended to gravitate toward neighbourhoods with peoples from their regions of origin. Negligible industry throughout the colonial period meant miniscule formal paid employment opportunities for unskilled and semi-skilled labourers and even fewer opportunities for middle-class professionals. For the vast majority of urban Africans, informal sectors provided the means for livelihood and accumulation, mainly through social networks that underpinned the ethnic segmentation of commercial circuits and labour markets. In Nigeria, for example, Ibos from the southeastern region who experienced high levels of
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out-migration due to demographic pressures dominated trade in manufactured goods across colonial Nigeria and in neighbouring territories, while Hausas from the north controlled the trade in cattle in the southern cities. Because of the uneven spread of Western schooling – partly due to a policy that discouraged in the Emirate North the Christian evangelization and thus the missionaries responsible for spreading that schooling – southern ethnic groups supplied the bulk of educated African labour for state and commercial enterprises in the North (Anthony 2002, 31-54). Alongside the overarching racially divided labour characteristic of colonial societies (white managers versus black workers), the recruitment of labour, organization of work parties, housing of workers, pursuit of leisure, etc. in large mining complexes as well as in agro-industrial plantations were often based on ethnic divisions. The evolution of pan-ethnic identities and the complex reworking of relationships between identity and space that they entailed were powerfully aided by many cultural changes including, importantly, the advance of vernacular literacy. Promoted by Christian missionaries for evangelization purposes and by colonial states, vernacular education involved the transformation of oral linguistic forms into written languages through new grammars and dictionaries that standardized related indigenous dialects into pan-ethnic languages. In a process that Berman (1991) has noted mirrors Anderson’s (1991) account of the role of print capitalism in the cultural construction of the modern nation-state in the West, the transition from oral to written languages gave rise to print vernacular literatures that have been key to the development of ethnic nationalism. For colonialism’s primary interlocutors – translocal and bilingual elites including school teachers, preachers, clerks, and state interpreters, among others – vernacular literacy was ideal for propagating a territorially bounded ethnic consciousness. It enabled the production of ethnic histories that, based on legends and myths of purportedly original founders, promoted a shared sense of historical community among groups with differing narratives of origins and histories of intergroup relations. The political cartographies and institutional frameworks of colonial states gave political content to new ethnic identities and ways of experiencing ethnic identity. There were differences in the ideologies and practices of rule among colonial regimes. British colonies were governed through indirect rule – the rule of natives through their traditional authorities under the supervision of metropolitan officialdom. Conversely, France and Portu gal practised direct rule through a more centralized administration model:
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power was concentrated in and radiated downward from the metropolitan centre with much less regard for traditional authorities. Under doctrines of assimilation, the French and Portuguese held out the prospect of citizenship for Africans upon acquisition of the requisite European values and behaviours. British colonial rule, on the other hand, held fast to the notion that colonial subjects’ inferior status was largely fixed. These differences aside, colonial state power in all instances depended on some form of indirect rule through the use of traditional authorities as primary intermediaries between state and local communities. Indirect rule was premised on the presumption that “tribes” – conveniently assumed to be frozen in time and located in the demarcated spaces deemed their ancestral homelands – were the fundamental unit of African social, cultural, and political organization. The use of tribe as the basic unit of local political administration gave administrative-judicial sanction to hierarchies of local citizenship between “natives” and “strangers.” Based on presumed sequences of group settlement, those qualified as original settlers were classed as indigenes and deemed to possess prior rights to resources (particularly land) and political representation in local communities over later arriving groups. The powers of traditional rulers were circumscribed in urban centres, more intensely supervised through modern planning techniques and other technologies of governance. Yet ethnic-based hierarchies in local citizenship were also manifest in the administration of cities, albeit with variations between colonial administrations and in the context of migration-propelled urbanization.4 British indirect rule, through Native Authority Councils in rural and urban settings as its institutional anchor, best illustrates the reliance on ethnic-based hierarchies in the administration of urban areas. Kano (and to a lesser degree other major urban centres in the Emirate North), for example, maintained a sharp spatial segregation between the walled “old city,” inhabited by indigenous Hausa-Fulani, and the sabon garis (stranger quarters), home to migrants mainly from the South. Immigrant communities were kept outside the administrative remit of the Native Authority, which focused on indigene affairs (Anthony 2002). Likewise, the Buganda Accords, a component of the legal instruments that established Uganda as a British colony, granted substantial autonomy to the Buganda Kingdom, where the traditional headquarters, Kampala, the colony’s administrative capital and still Uganda’s apex city, is located. The formal administration of Kampala was bifurcated, with traditional authorities responsible for the mainly Baganda residents in the seat of the precolonial Kingdom and the management of meilo (royal) lands into which it gradually expanded.
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European, African, and Asian residents of the “new town” were subject to a different state-invented urban administration (Bryceson 2009). Urban migrants maintained complex relations with host communities and relied on traditional authorities for access to land and mediation of conflicts. This differentiation of local citizenship in an urban setting was the source of ambiguity and tension in relations between migrants and original residents. It simultaneously placed migrants within and outside the structures of urban native politics, as the option of seeking political redress from colonial authorities in disputes with host communities was always open to them. As migrant communities enlarged, they created their own patronage networks to advance interests that overlapped but also conflicted with those of host communities. The overarching effect of modes of governance predicated on ethnic differences was the encouragement of politics both locally oriented and hued by cultural differences. Given colonially ordained constraints on the growth of territory-wide African political participation, the political ambitions of traditional as well as those of the emergent educated urban-based elite hinged on leadership within ethnic communities. Both were invested in the expansion and defence of the boundaries of ethnic homelands. Sorting Out “Who is Who”: The Quandary of Citizenship during and after the Transition to Independence 5
African anticolonial nationalisms and the movements through which they were channelled were predicated on individuals’ rejection of their status as subjects of alien rule and the longing to be self-governing citizens of sovereign nation-states. Determination of who was to be included and excluded from citizenship in prospective nation-states became an increasingly vexed issue during the terminal phase of colonialism. The territorial boundaries of colonial states provided the spatial referents for future independent nationstates and nascent national identities premised on distinctions between “indigenous subjects” and “foreigners” from other colonies. Colonial boundaries, however, were porous and movement by Africans across them unhindered by official restraints. As labour availability was the main impediment to economic expansion, colonial regimes encouraged intra- and cross-territorial movement to economically dynamic regions. The search for economic opportunity through commerce and paid employment motivated individual migration within and across colonial territories, resulting in economic diasporas of varying composition in most colonies. Ethnic identities remained important within these diasporas but to these were added
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nascent national identities (Cameroonian, Senegalese, Nigerian, Ugandan, Kenyan) and so on. Due to the centrality of ethnic networks in migration and urban settlement, members of particular diasporas were at times conspicuous in certain economic sectors of host territories. This visibility made them easy targets of anti-immigrant xenophobia. Prior to independence, fishermen from the Gold Coast who plied their trade along the West African coast were expelled from Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and other colonies. The first African-led pre-independence government in Gold Coast repatriated large numbers of Nigerians as punishment for their suspected support of opposition parties in the 1954 pre-independence elections; four years later, the colonial government in Ivory Coast caved in to the demands of rioting unemployed youth in the capital, Abidjan, and expelled large numbers of Nigerians, Dahomeyans, and Togolese, who accounted for a significant portion of the city’s working and trading communities. The issue of citizenship entitlement in emergent nations was partly resolved following independence by regimes that premised national citizenship on membership in kin-based ethnic communities within territories when colonial borders were demarcated.6 At their core nativist, such regimes sanctioned the legal exclusion of so-called foreigners from citizenship regardless of the length of their residence; at best, they made these claims to citizenship open to contest and left immigrants vulnerable to xenophobic politics. The establishment of nativist citizenship regimes also meant that postcolonial states, from the moment of their inception, were founded on the two contradictory conceptions of citizenship alluded to earlier. Elites’ efforts to manage the tensions of these opposing conceptions shaped dominant nation-building strategies during the early post-independence decades and influenced the development of ethnic politics at local and national levels. As the end of colonial rule became a foregone conclusion, broadly based anticolonial nationalist movements fragmented into ethnoregional electoral machines. Even those nationalist movements that transformed into political parties tended to derive their core support from particular ethnic groups and regions. Ethnoregionally-driven political competition was invigorated by combinations of factors that varied across colonies. In general, underdeveloped colonial economies and weak patterns of socioeconomic differentiation meant that little political traction could be gained from appeals to shared class interests or ideology. For predominantly rural societies, the overlap of political constituencies with ethnic boundaries meant that leadership within ethnic communities was important for political success at both
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local and national levels. This was no different for the urban-based Europhile elites to whom control of states devolved. They also relied on co-ethnic intermediaries to mobilize support in rural communities. The centrifugal pressures of the politics of decolonization during the early independence years threatened the survival of new states as fraying elite coalitions challenged the legitimacy of incumbent regimes. The common response to these challenges was rapid regression to colonial authoritarianism. With the exception of a limited number of states, such as Senegal, Gambia, and Botswana who retained multiparty systems but had dominant parties, the single party fused with the state, and this configuration became the norm. Opposition parties were either banned or co-opted into dominant parties, and autonomous organs of civil society (labour unions, women’s, youth, professional organizations, etc.) were transformed into auxiliaries. Regression to colonial-style authoritarian rule was justified as necessary to nation building and development. In this argument, multiparty political competition threatened national unity based on shared citizenship insofar as it encouraged ethnic political mobilization. The widespread hostility to the use of ethnicity in formal political organization was evident in proscriptions against ethnic-based political parties or stipulations of minimum regional thresholds for success in national elections in early post-independence constitutional revisions (LeVine 1997). The predominant nation-building strategy sought to confine ethnicity to the private sphere. However, while authoritarian rule helped moderate the polarizations of ethnic competition and arguably contributed to a growing sense of national belonging, it failed to debase the value of these identities as political currency; it simply positioned state-controlled institutions as the central arenas for their expression. Regimes were essentially multiethnic elite coalitions sustained through neopatrimonial networks sutured by ties of class, kinship, and community. With powerful antecedents in colonial state organization, the elaboration of patronage networks as the institutional bedrock of political power resulted in the differential incorporation of ethnoregional communities into state-centred networks of power.7 Com monly, rulers’ ethnic compatriots and their favoured allies, whose political pre-eminence rested on demonstrated leadership within their ethnic communities, occupied privileged positions within governing alliances. A ubiquitous state-driven model of development reinforced access to public resources as the primary vehicle of accumulation and socioeconomic mobility. Elite political competition revolved around struggles for access to public resources for personal gain and the reward of political supporters.
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TABLE 2.1 Population estimates (thousands) for selected primary cities City Abidjan Accra Douala Kampala Lagos Lusaka Nairobi
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005 65 192 548 1,384 2,102 3,032 3,564 177 192 393 863 1,197 1,674 1,948 95 153 298 571 931 1,432 1,766 95 137 340 469 755 1,097 1,318 305 762 1,414 2,572 4,764 7,233 8,767 31 91 278 469 757 1,073 1,261 137 293 531 860 1,380 2,233 2,787
Source: UN, 2007, “World Urbanization Prospects,” 2007 Revisions Database, http:// esa.un.org/.
The governing logic of politics ensured that popular perceptions of the relationships between the organization of political power and the distribution of material opportunities were framed in terms of both unequal class and communal advantage. Urbanization rates increased significantly during the terminal phase of colonialism and accelerated after independence, further positioning primary cities as the locus of national politics and as regulators of the ethnic dimensions of national politics. Between the 1960s and 1980s, urban populations increased at an annual average of 5 to 6 percent (ahead of an estimated 3 to 4 percent growth in national populations) and primary cities grew faster at an annual average of 9 to 11 percent. While the pace of urbanization varied across regions, with the least urbanized registering the fastest (Simon 1997, 87-98), any random sample of national apex cities will attest to the magnitude of the pace (see Table 2.1). This rapid urbanization, propelled by the migration of mainly young men from rural areas, occurred in a context of steady, if unspectacular, economic growth through the early 1970s. States and international development agencies, the main agents of the prevailing development model, were preoccupied with the expansion of formal corporate sectors. Investments in public infrastructure, nascent capital-intensive industries, as well as education, housing, health, and other social services were concentrated in primary cities. Despite ensuing gains in formal paid employment, much of it state-related, informal small-scale manufacturing, artisan production, commerce, and service provision remained the leading sources of livelihood and accumulation for the overwhelming majority of urban residents. The chaotic expansion of cities,
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especially the shantytowns that housed poor and mixed income neighbourhoods, muted for the most part earlier patterns of ethnic residential segmentation. Individuals’ dependence on identity-based networks for employment in informal sectors of the economy reinforced urban ethnicities. As states’ capacities to maintain basic services were overwhelmed by the pace of urban expansion, such informal networks increased in significance as organizational platforms for individual and collective initiatives to secure housing and other basic services. Urban Ethnicity and Citizenship in the Age of Open Economy and Political Liberalization
African economies began to stagnate in the early 1970s and continued to decline during the following three decades, in spite of neoliberal reform programs intended to restructure and place them on more positive development trajectories (Eyoh and Sandbrook 2003). The severity of this economic regression was underscored by declines in total factor productivity, labour productivity per worker, and agricultural productivity, factors mirrored by the unrelieved downward trend in GDP per capita across the region into the new millennium. According to World Bank estimates, GDP per capita in the region averaged $1,629 (USD) in 1990, dropped to $1,501 in 1995, improved slightly to $1,557 in 2000, and only crept back to $1,618 in 2003 (Kessides 2006, 2). These abysmal economic conditions did not moderate urbanization rates, which continued at an annual average of 5 percent in the 1980s and ’90s and through to 2000. In particular, the growth rate of apex cities continued to be overwhelming (see Table 2.1; Potts 2009; Tacoli 2001). Policies intended to rein in state profligacy and excessive regulation of economies led to public sector retrenchment, while trade liberalization, currency deregulation, and other policies aimed at opening economies to international competition further weakened inefficient domestic firms unable to compete with cheap imports. As one observer poignantly put it, for Africa with its nascent industrial sectors, neoliberal structural adjustment amounted to enforced de-industrialization (cited in Kessides 2006, 10). This de-industrialization extended beyond the formal corporate sector. Smallscale informal sector manufacturing firms, faced with increased competition from cheap Asian imports supported by tight supply networks, faced diminished upscaling opportunities and more often downscaled as established and prospective entrepreneurs were forced to pursue survivalist economic strategies (Meagher 2006; Bryceson and Potts 2006, 39-105). In these altered macroeconomic settings, informal sectors expanded rapidly;
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urban poor and middle classes turned to them en masse to compensate for declines in real urban wages. With secondary and tertiary sectors accounting for 80 percent of GDP growth, informal sector activities accounted for 90 percent of all new jobs and 61 percent of urban employment between 1990 and 2003. The picture was bleaker for women, for whom 92 percent of all non-agricultural jobs were in the informal sector (Kessides 2006, 10-11). For the poor and better off, recent migrants and long-established residents alike, the exigencies of everyday life in cities encouraged renewal or strengthening of rural connections to ensure access to rural assets, especially land. The neoliberal reform agenda promoted NGOs as alternative service delivery vehicles that bypassed corrupt and inefficient states and as bulwarks of vibrant civil societies on which pluralist political systems depend. But it was hometown and other identity-based mutual associations that proliferated as organizational vehicles for individual and collective efforts to secure public goods (education, healthcare, security, transportation etc.) that states were no longer capable of providing or were all too willing to transfer responsibility for to foreign-financed NGOs (Tostensen, Tvedten, and Vaa 2001, 7-26). Experimentation with the open economy model advanced the complex rearrangements of economic relations between states and their citizens. By the early 1980s, most states were unable to meet recurrent expenditures for basic services, pay salaries regularly, or finance even minimal public investments. Underpinned by an ideological-driven determination to “roll back the state,” neoliberal policies weakened the ability of regimes to nourish the patronage networks on which their power depended, giving lease to ruthless competition among elites and communities over shrinking resource pools. The destitution caused by deteriorating economies and the resulting political alienation traversed the urban-rural divide; it was more pronounced, however, in burgeoning cities where established groups and internal and foreign migrants – mainly young people as the dominant demographic – were forced to confront each other in dire struggles for survival in informal sectors. The open economy model also compromised the foundations of material security for urban-based middle-class professional groups, whose growth had been enabled by the expansion of state institutions. Cities, not surprisingly, became epicentres of mobilization against authoritarian rule. Cross sections of social groups from the late 1980s onward applied pressure, which was reinforced by demands for political reform voiced by Western donors, so that multiparty politics returned by the 1990s.
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Any attempt to posit straightforward causal connections between economic insecurity, heightened investments in kinship affiliations, and the intensification of ethnic politics in the era of neoliberal restructuring will be hard-pressed to avoid being overly deterministic. As noted earlier, ethnic differences do not inherently lend themselves to political competition and conflict; when and how they do depend on the ways in which they are woven into fabrics of, and deployed in, elite-led struggles for power. A powerful strand in current analyses regarding the factors that feed the “politics of belonging” or the “autochthony problem,” ably represented by Peter Geschiere (2009), argues that the confluence of neoliberal economic globalization and the liberalization of politics has spelled the death of the nationbuilding projects of the early independence decades, with their emphasis on national unity. This is a broadly valid argument with which the preceding analysis aligns. The structuring of post-independence regimes as, more or less, alliances of ethnoregional elites and the networks of patronage that propped them up entailed hierarchical representation of ethnic communities within state-centred networks of power. Destabilization of the pillars of state power opened space for elite-led struggles over extant patterns of power and access to public resources among communal groups. Multiparty electoral competition and decentralization encouraged the mobilization of ethnic citizenship because they required control over local communities for political success. This argument can, however, be misleading if it is taken to intimate a more or less clear rupture in phases of postcolonial nation-state formation in Africa (as in before and after the onset of the debt crisis of the 1970s). Not only would this underestimate the extent to which the seeds of current polarizations were incubated in the preceding decades, it would also limit our appreciation of how dynamics and effects vary across states, reflecting differences in sociocultural composition and political histories. Nigeria and Cameroon illustrate some of the similarities and differences in how contemporary ethnic politics in cities and nationally are shaped by continuities and shifts in the conjoined processes of state formation, urbanization, and globally induced recalibrations of national political economies. Since the late colonial period, national politics in Nigeria has been driven by competition among its three dominant ethnoregional elite blocs – Hausa-Fulani in the north, Yoruba in the southwest, and Igbo in the southeast (Mustapha 2004). Rivalry between these groups triggered a civil war in 1966, six years after independence, and has been the root cause of
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the perennial political instability that oscillated control of the state between military and civilian elites. Picking up from its predecessor, the postcolonial state has progressively institutionalized the policy of “sons of the soil” over “strangers” in political representation and in resource allocation at the subnational level. This policy is so assimilated by the vast majority of Nigerians that it is no longer contested (Fourchard 2009, 214-15). At the end of the civil war, the three initial regions of the federation were replaced by four in an effort to tame the overbearing regional groups’ threat to national unity. Military and civilian regimes since have multiplied the subnational politicaladministrative units (federal states and Local Government Areas within states) as elites and subalterns pursue the elusive dream of political administrative boundaries that coincide with cultural/ethnic community boundaries. The overvaluation of autochthony in the definition of local citizenship has caused periodic eruptions of localized ethnic conflicts between indigenes and strangers in urban and rural communities – conflicts that easily get transformed into national crises through reciprocal ethnic violence within and across states. Nigeria’s approach to the accommodation of ethnic differences, often interlaced with religious divisions, has had the paradoxical effect of helping to preserve the territorial unity of the nation while entrenching the ethnic-driven patronage politics that have rendered the postcolonial state incapable of addressing the dire material conditions of its citizens, despite the enormous oil-related wealth at its disposal. Nigeria entered an extended phase of its perennial economic and political crises in the early 1980s. A coup d’état in 1983 ushered in sixteen years of military rule, the longest since independence. Arguably, the most significant new element in urban ethnic politics since the 1980s has been the eruption of youth into the public sphere, a common phenomenon across the continent (Diouf 1999; Honwana and DeBoeck 2005). Neoliberal reforms had a profoundly negative impact on the material prospects of all youth but especially on the more privileged educated youth. For them, the contraction of formal employment was tantamount to the indefinite postponement of the economic autonomy needed to transition to a meaningful adulthood. The resulting alienation pushed high school and university students and recent graduates to the forefront of the 1990s pro-democracy movements, while also engendering myriad youth identity-based movements against the excesses and failures of patrimonial politics. Animated by different concerns and built on overlapping identity markers (religion, gender, locality, etc.), these predominantly male movements mutated into powerful vectors of urban-centred ethnic conflict.
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Youth vigilante groups such as the Area Boys in Lagos, Bakassa Boys in the southeastern states, and Yan dada in Kano emerged as a major presence in cities in the late 1980s. The same period witnessed the proliferation of urban-based movements led by young men dedicated to ethnoregional interests.8 For example, Oodua Peoples Congress and allied groups in the southwest advocated for an independent Yoruba nation, based on the claim that the Yoruba had been disadvantaged in the power and resource distribution of a federal state dominated by northerners. The Arewa Peoples Congress in the northern cities deployed religion (Islam) to mobilize northerners against purported efforts to marginalize them in national politics and to defend local political spaces and economies from migrants. In the oil rich delta regions in the southeast, the Ijaw Youth Congress and the Move ment for the Survival of Ogoni Peoples, among others, claimed to be fighting for a fairer share of oil revenues for producing areas that had long been victims of neglect and the ecological violence of the oil industry. Like the initially apolitical youth vigilantes, these groups enjoyed some measure of public support due to their performance of law-and-order functions, neighbourhood cleanup campaigns, and other public endeavours. As the return to multiparty politics in 1999 approached, both types of groups were increasingly patronized by political elites with expectations that they would intimidate rivals and non-compliant communities. They have since become “positioned in ambiguous ways between vigilante group, ethnic militia and criminal gang” and have established themselves as the main vehicles of reciprocal xenophobic violence against migrant ethnic others in what Niger ians popularly refer to as a new pattern of “urban communal violence” (Smith 2006, 65-66). In contrast to Nigeria, Cameroon’s post-independence political history began with a regime whose national unity project was hostile to any forms of political expression outside its supervision, including those based on subnational identities.9 Ahmadu Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first president, who ruled from 1961 to 1982, oversaw the rapid construction of a highly centralized, authoritarian state. The federal union of West and East Cameroon, former colonies respectively of Britain and France, was replaced by a unitary state in 1966, and in 1972 officially became a one-party state. Authoritarian rule positioned the state as the locus of power, and the presidency as the node of a constitutionally sanctioned network of state and party institutions that blurred the divide between public administration and politics. Recruitment into professional schools that were the vehicles for socialization and entry into the administrative-cum-political elite, and the composition of the higher
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echelons of state and party reflected the country’s ethnoregional makeup. Although members of the political-administrative elite were projected as representing ethnoregional communities, they understood that they owed their positions to presidential discretion and were proscribed from cultivating independent political bases. Their political ambitions were better served by undermining potential rivals from their own regions rather than competing with elites from other regions. These constraints on elite mobilization mitigated the more or less formal institutionalization of ethnoregional elite blocs ostensibly similar to Nigeria. State-centred networks of power, however, could not mask the differential ethnoregional representation at the summit of power. In the popular imagination, northerners, especially Ahidjo’s Fulbe-Muslim co-ethnics, formed the core of his regime, followed by certain groups (misleadingly attributed a common ethnicity as Ewondo) from the south. Bamilikes in the western province, who had backed the radical anticolonial movement over which Ahidjo had triumphed with the connivance of colonial administrators, and anglophone communities of the northwest and southern provinces (former West Cameroon), were less privileged. Ahidjo voluntarily transferred power to Paul Biya, his Ewondo prime minister in 1982, with little change to the architecture of state power. Following an abortive coup d’état in 1984, Biya sought to strengthen his grip on power by increasing the prominence of his co-ethnics within the inner sanctum of the regime and weakening the position of northerners suspected of sympathizing with the coup plotters and consequently lambasted in the state-controlled media as representing an “Islamic menace.” A liquidity crisis and collapse of state banks in the mid-1980s were blamed on Bamilekes, the dominant actors in urban commercial circuits. Tagged as “ethnofascists” in the state media, they were accused of flexing their economic muscle to undermine the regime’s sensible economic policies. The selective demonization of communal groups marked a departure from the obsession with national unity during the first two decades of independence. It presaged the Biya regime’s politicization of communal differences as a key strategy to contain the groundswell of popular opposition to authoritarian rule from the late 1980s that culminated in the return to multiparty electoral politics in 1992. Cameroon’s popular movement for democracy was urban-centred and animated by grievances (growing economic destitution, rampant corruption, arbitrary use of power, etc.) shared by a cross-section of socioeconomic and communal groups. The return to multiparty politics opened space for
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competition among regional elites for control of power and access to resources at multiple levels. While the ruling party was supported by established elites from all ethnoregional groups, the main opposition party (Social Democratic Front), although boasting a national following, had its strongest support amongst anglophones in the Southwest and Northwest provinces and the Bamilekes in the West Province. For elites long accustomed to rule without popular mandate, multiparty electoral competition made control of local communities imperative to political success. The Biya regime emerged as a key driver of the new politics of belonging in its efforts to fend off challenges to its incumbency. It made obvious the fact that continued access to public offices and state patronage was contingent on open support for the ruling party; civil servants and elites whose well-being was wedded to state patronage were obliged to become directly involved in politics in their hometowns and regions. It is in cities and large towns, whose cosmopolitan character disrupts fantasies of congruence between identity and space, that the exclusionary politics of ethnic citizenship have been most marked and contested. The main pattern of in-country migration, set during the colonial period and accelerated after independence, has been movement from the more densely populated West and Northwest provinces to cities, to towns, and increasingly into rural communities in the south. As a result, Bamilikes are both numerically preponderant and the dominant economic group in Douala, the nation’s largest city, and constitute a sizeable presence in cities and towns across the south. In the case of the anglophone provinces, persons who trace their origins to communities of the Northwest and other provinces (notably Bamilekes) outnumber so-called indigenes in cities and towns in the Southwest province. Democratic politics premised on universal citizenship has raised the spectre of the political domination of indigenes by so-called strangers similar to the domination already evident in the economic sphere. Anxieties intensified during the first cycle of elections in the 1990s when the Social Democrat Front emerged victorious in national and municipal elections in most southern urban centres. These anxieties prompted the formation of regional elite associations such as the Southwest Elite Association (whose professed goal was to counteract political domination by northwesterners) and SAWA (people of the sea), an association of indigenous Douala elite agitating against the domination of electoral politics in the city by the numerically preponderant Bamilekes. A revised constitution of 1996, which laid
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the framework for the decentralization of political-administrative authority based on the existing ten provincial administrative units, bestowed legal sanction to inequality in local citizenship that ran counter to previous investments in national unity. It stipulated that the interests of autochthonous communities must be reflected in the makeup of local and regional political institutions. This has been commonly understood to imply the political primacy of natives over migrants in political representation and the distribution of public resources at subnational levels. Conclusion
In Africa as elsewhere, processes and patterns of urbanization, nation-state formation, and political-economic change are interconnected. The dynamics of these processes and the politics that shape them are defined by the interaction of global and local forces. The constitution and resilience of ethnicity as political identity are profoundly ordered by the interrelations of these processes. The management of appeals based on competing conceptions of citizenship has been pivotal to the politics of state formation and nation building in Africa. The exhaustion of the statist models of development and nation formation of the early decades of African independence and neoliberal globalization and political liberalization in the decades following have triggered complex struggles over rights to resources and political representation that includes increasingly strident appeals to exclusionary ethnic citizenship. The link between ethnic politics in urban communities and national level politics is complex, shaped by myriad factors such as macroeconomics, class structures, ethnic composition, histories of host/ stranger relations, and relative prominence in national economic and political arrangements. Regardless of the constellation of factors, it is urbanbased elites who, in their struggle for power, have been the lead agents of the politicization of ethnicity and in shaping ethnic politics at local and national levels in the postcolonial era. The broad historical sweep of this chapter accents shared patterns in trajectories of nation-state formation, urbanization, and development. The brief summaries of the Nigerian and Cameroonian cases, however, point to the significance of national histories in shaping variations in the dynamics and effects of the politics of identity and citizenship in the current conjuncture. The recognition of the prior rights of indigenes to political power and resources at local levels in Nigeria’s federal system has arguably prevented the break-up of that large and unwieldy nation, while rooting the ethnicdriven patronage politics that has emasculated the potential of the Nigerian
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state as an agent of development despite the enormous resources at its disposal. The more recent proliferation of urban-based ethnic militias, gangs, and vigilantes is in line with Nigeria’s ethnic-driven patronage politics. Born out of youth frustrations with the shortcomings of patrimonial politics, in the end, these groups are instruments through which their agents assert claims to public resources through insertion into dominant patronage networks. The politicization of ethnicity in post-1980s Cameroon is a more marked departure from an earlier nation-building model that placed a premium on shared citizenship. It has been driven mainly by the incumbent regime’s manipulation of communal differences to safeguard its hold on power and the imperative of control over local communities by elites (who remain heavily dependent on the state for their material well-being) for success under political liberalization. But the differential incorporation of ethno regional groups into state-centred networks of power in early decades sowed the seeds of polarization that feed the politics of belonging. It would be foolhardy to predict how the future of either state will be shaped by the current dynamics of their politics of identity and citizenship. What seems more certain is that it will be in Africa’s cities, whose rapid and chaotic expansion since independence readily lends them to representation as dystopias, that the effects on future trajectories of nation-state formation will be largely determined. Notes
1 See Young (2007) and Ndegwa (1997), who label these respectively as liberal and republican citizenship. 2 See Geschiere (2009, Chap. 1) for an enlightening introduction to the politics of belonging in Africa with comparisons to Europe. Other common related binary constructs include original settlers/natives/autochthons and foreigners/strangers/ migrants/allogenes. 3 See Eyoh (1999) for an overview of the formation of modern ethnicity during colonialism as well as a relevant bibliography. 4 See Fourchard (2009) for a comparison of British and French colonial approaches to the allocation of space to urban migrants. 5 The title of this section is a play on Ruth Marshall’s 2006 article, “The War of ‘Who is Who’: Autochthony, Nationalism and Citizenship in the Ivorian Crisis.” See Eyoh (2008) for more detailed discussion of urban migrants and the dilemmas of citizenship in late colonialism and beyond. 6 See Manby (2009) for a comprehensive survey of the evolution of citizenship law. 7 The centrality of patronage to colonial rule is a common theme in analysis of colonial state legacies; see Herbst (2000), Mamdani (1996), and Young (1994).
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8 On ethnic movements/militias and youth vigilantes see Falola (2004), Meagher (2007), Smith (2006), Ukiwo (2003). 9 See Eyoh (2004) for background; see Geschiere (2009, 39-96) for a fine-grained ethnographic account of the politics of belonging in Cameroon. Works Cited
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins of Nationalism. London: Verso. Anthony, Douglas. 2002. Poison and Power: Ethnicity, Power and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. Banton, Michael. 1957. West African City: A Study of Tribal Life in Freetown. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berman, Bruce. 1991. “Nationalism, Ethnicity and Modernity: The Paradoxes of the Mau Mau.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 25 (1): 181-206. Bryceson, Deborah. 2009. “The Urban Melting Pot in East Africa: Ethnicity and Urban Growth in Kampala and Dar es Salaam.” In African Cities: Competing Claims on Urban Spaces, edited by Francesca Locatelli and Paul Nugent, 241-60. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Bryceson, Deborah, and Deborah Potts, eds. 2006. African Urban Economies: Viability, Vitality or Vitiation? New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cohen, Abner. 1969. Custom and Politics in Africa: A Study of Hausa Migrants in Yoruba Towns. Berkeley: University of California Press. Diouf, Mamadou. 1999. “Urban Youth and Senegalese Politics: Dakar 1988-1994.” In Cities and Citizenship, edited by John Holston, 42-65. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ekeh, Peter. 1975. “Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical State ment.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 17 (1): 91-112. Eyoh, Dickson. 1999. “Community, Citizenship and the Politics of Ethnicity in Post-Colonial Africa.” In Public Spaces and Public Quarrels: African Cultural and Political Landscapes, edited by Ezekiel Kalipeni and Paul Zeleza, 271-300. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. –. 2004. “Contesting Local Citizenship: Liberalization and the Politics of Difference in Cameroon.” In Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa, edited by Bruce Berman, Dickson Eyoh, and Will Kymlicka, 96-112. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. –. 2008. “Urban Migrants and the Claims of Citizenship in Postcolonial Africa.” In Immigration and Integration in Urban Communities: Renegotiating the City, edited by Lisa Handley, Blair Ruble, and Allison Garland, 269-98. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press for Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Eyoh, Dickson, and Richard Sandbrook. 2003. “Pragmatic Neo-Liberalism and Just Development in Africa.” In States, Markets and Just Growth: Development in the Twenty-first Century, edited by Atul Kohli, Chung-in Moon, and Goerg Sorensen, 227-57. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Falola, Toyin. 2004. “Ethnicity and Nigerian Politics: The Past in the Yoruba Present.” In Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa, edited by Bruce Berman, Dickson Eyoh, and Will Kymlicka, 148-65. Oxford: James Currey Publishers.
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Fourchard, Laurent. 2009. “Dealing with ‘Strangers’: Allocating Urban Space to Migrants in Nigeria and French West Africa.” In African Cities: Competing Claims on Urban Spaces, edited by Francesca Locatelli and Paul Nugent, 187-217. Boston: Brill. Geschiere, Peter. 2009. The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship and Ex clusion in Africa and Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Herbst, Jeffrey. 2000. States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons on Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Honwana, Alcinda, and Frederick DeBoeck, eds. 2005. Makers and Breakers: Child ren and Youth in Postcolonial Africa. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. Kessides, Christine. 2006. “The Urban Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implica tions for Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction.” African Region Working Paper Series, no. 97, Washington, DC: World Bank. LeVine, Victor. 1997. “The Rise and Fall of Constitutionalism in West Africa.” Journal of Modern Africa Studies 35 (2): 181-206. Little, Kenneth. 1965. West African Urbanization: A Study of Voluntary Associ ations in Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Manby, Bronwen. 2009. Struggles for Citizenship in Africa. London: Zed Books. Marshall, Ruth. 2006. “The War of ‘Who is Who’: Autochthony, Nationalism and Citizenship in the Ivorian Crisis.” African Studies Review 49 (2): 9-43. Meagher, Kate. 2006. “Social Capital, Social Liabilities and Political Capital: Social Networks and Informal Manufacturing in Nigeria.” African Affairs 105 (421): 553-82. –. 2007. “Hijacking Civil Society: The Inside Story of the Bakassi Boys Vigilante Gang in South-Eastern Nigeria.” Journal of Modern African Studies 45 (1): 89-115. –. 2010. Identity Economics: Social Networks and Informal Economy in Nigeria. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. Mustapha, Abdul Raufu. 2004. “Ethnicity and the Politics of Democratization in Nigeria.” In Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa, edited by Bruce Berman, Dickson Eyoh, and Will Kymlicka, 257-75. Oxford: James Currey Publishers. Ndegwa, Stephen. 1997. “Citizenship and Ethnicity: An Examination of Two Tran sition Moments in Kenya.” American Political Science Review 91 (3): 599-616. O’Connor, Anthony. 1983. The African City. London: Hutchinson and Co. Potts, Deborah. 2009. “The Slowing of African Urbanization: Evidence and Implica tions for Urban Livelihoods.” Environment and Urbanization 21 (1): 253-69. Rakodi, Carole. 1997. “Global Forces, Urban Change and Urban Management in Africa.” In The Urban Challenge in Africa: Growth and Management of Its Large Cities, edited by Carole Rakodi, 17-72. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Simon, David. 1997. “Urbanization, Globalization and Economic Crisis in Africa.” In The Urban Challenge in Africa: Growth and Management of Its Large Cities, edited by Carole Rakodi, 74-110. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Smith, Daniel. 2004. “The Bakassi Boys: Vigilantism, Violence and Political Imagin ation in Nigeria.” Cultural Anthropology 19 (3): 221-38.
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–. 2006. “Internal Migration and the Escalation of Ethnic Conflict in Urban Nigeria.” In Cities in Contemporary Africa, edited by Martin Murray and Garth Myers, 5169. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tacoli, Cecile. 2001. “Urbanization and Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: Changing Patterns and Trends.” In Mobile Africans: Changing Patterns of Movement in Africa and Beyond, edited by Mirjam de Bruijn, Rijk Van Dijk, and Dirk Foeken, 25-42. Boston: Brill. Tostensen, Arne, Inge Tvedten, and Mariken Vaa, eds. 2001. Associational Life in African Cities: Popular Responses to the Urban Crisis. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikaininstitutet. Ukiwo, Ukoha. 2003. “Politics, Ethno-religious Conflict and Democratic Crisis in Nigeria.” Journal of Modern African Studies 41 (1): 115-38. Young, Crawford. 1994. The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. –. 2007. “Nation, Ethnicity and Citizenship: Dilemmas of Democracy and Civil Order in Africa.” In Making Nations, Creating Strangers: States and Citizenship in Africa, edited by Sara Dorman, Daniel Hammett, and Paul Nugent, 241-63. Boston: Brill.
Gentrification, Social Mix, and the Immigrant-Reception Function of Inner-City Neighbourhoods Evidence from Canadian Globalizing Cities Alan Walks
Chapter
3
Globalization has produced a new geography of immigration, not only by linking together cities in a worldwide network of production, decision making, exchange, and flows of information and migrants, but also in reconfiguring the social spaces of cities that receive immigrants. The three largest metropolitan regions in Canada – Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver – are each cited as important second- or third-tier “global” cities within the world city system, and each has followed a globalizing agenda tied to reorienting their economies to attract mobile flows of investment (Boudreau et al. 2007; Taylor, Catalano, and Walker 2002). All three metropolitan areas attract large numbers of immigrants, with Toronto and Vancouver in particular characterized by very high rates of immigration. These three cities function as the main regions within which new immigrants are integrated into Canadian society, and the processes and outcomes that emanate from them largely determine the immigrant experience as well as the politics of race, tolerance, and accommodation that characterize the Canadian polity. Globalization is associated not only with high levels and new forms of immigration but also with particular forms of urban economic restructuring, including the gentrification of the inner cities in many global cities throughout the world. Gentrification can be defined as the reproduction of localized urban space for progressively wealthier residents, often through waves of social displacement of prior residents (see also Glass 1964;
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Hackworth 2002; Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2007; Ley 1996), and involves changes in the social status, built form, tenancy, land values, and political power of neighbourhoods. Gentrification has occurred most saliently within neighbourhoods close to city centres that have traditionally housed tenants and functioned as immigrant-reception neighbourhoods, as documented by the early ecological models of urban structure (see Bauder and Sharpe 2002; Murdie and Teixeira 2006). Strengthened headquarter functions in the central business districts (CBDs) of global cities – mainly due to growth of financial and producer services as well as particular creative industries tied to information and computing sectors – have led to increased demand for nearby residential space by members of well-paid occupational groups. Such changes have spurred speculation in inner-city land and encouraged the conversion of rental housing to home ownership (Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2007; Ley 1996; N. Smith 2002). Global competition has also compelled city leaders to market their communities as cosmopolitan, liveable, and tolerant to attract both this mobile capital and the “talent” that theorists whose work centres on “the creative class” suggest is necessary for future economic growth (see Florida 2005; Peck 2005; N. Smith 2002). Gentrification has been encouraged, whether passively or actively, under a policy agenda that attempts to reap the economic benefits of being networked into global flows of investment. Under neoliberal entrepreneurial governance frameworks, often imposed on cities by upper levels of government, policy discourse has shifted from concern regarding the displacement of the poor and manufacturing industries to promotion of gentrification and “neighbourhood revitalization” (Blomley 2004; Boudreau, Keil, and Young 2009; Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2007; Rose 2004; Slater 2006). The new discourse assumes that “new-build” market housing and/or the restoration of older housing to owner-occupation will stabilize inner-city neighbourhoods, priming these areas for investment by reducing the level of concentrated poverty, providing a new “social balance” of tenants and homeowners, and fostering a local diversity and “social mix” that better matches the social structure at large (see Blomley 2004; Cole and Goodchild 2001; Musterd and Andersson 2005; Rose 2004; H. Smith 2003; Wyly and Hammel 2005). Proponents claim that more mixed neighbourhoods will facilitate social interaction and intergroup understanding, thus raising local levels of social capital and reducing problematic “neighbourhood effects” resulting from concentrated poverty (Dansereau, Germain, and Eveillard 1997; Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2007; Ostendorf, Musterd, and De Vos 2001; Rose 2004; Wyly and Hammel 1999). The emphasis on fostering social mix has allowed urban
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policy makers to shift from protection and servicing of low-income neighbourhoods to managed gentrification (DeFilippis and North 2004; Slater 2006). As Lees, Slater, and Wyly (2007, 199) explain, the push to bring the middle classes “back to the central city” is “motivated by, and indeed sold, as an attempt to reduce sociospatial segregation and strengthen the ‘social tissue’ of deprived neighbourhoods.” That gentrification might lead to higher levels of neighbourhood diversity and social mix has been accepted at face value by the mainstream business media, and even by some critical academics (see Atkinson and Bridge 2005, 5, Table 1.1). However, such an assumption has not been confirmed through empirical research. In fact, the literature suggests that in the United States gentrification is instead associated with increased levels of racial and class segregation, particularly in cities with a tight rental housing market characteristic of global cities (see Betancur 2002; N. Smith 1996; Wyly and Hammel 2004). Critical urban scholars (Butler 1997; Davidson 2012; Robson and Butler 2001; Slater 2004) suggest that gentrification is not associated with social mixing and integration but with growth of a social “tectonics” in which different social groups reside close to one another but fail to interact socially, and so inhabit separate life-worlds characterized by mistrust and superficial contact. Furthermore, efforts to engineer social mix by increasing the numbers of middle- and upper-income households, such as through socially mixed social housing redevelopment, can dilute and marginalize the political voice of the poor, preventing them from being able to influence local policies that might mitigate such a social tectonics or not-in-mybackyard-ism (NIMBYism) (August and Walks 2012). The critical literature concerning gentrification and urban revitalization indicates that urban development occurs in stages. While gentrification may increase the level of social diversity in the early stages of some neighbourhoods as middle- and upper-income households share space with poorer households, the transformation does not typically end at this stage but continues until the neighbourhood joins the ranks of elite residential addresses: the poor and even middle classes have been displaced. In such a scenario, levels of social diversity and income mix will first increase but eventually decline. Gentrification would then have to be seen not as a public policy tool for creating socially inclusive cities or fostering social integration, but instead as an exclusionary process that leads to sociospatial polarization and segregation. This is particularly true if it limits the ability of the city to integrate new immigrants and/or contributes to the racialization and marginalization of minorities.
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This chapter sheds light on the relationships between globalization, its impacts on occupational and income structure, gentrification of the inner city, and the geography of immigration and racial integration. In particular, it examines levels of inequality among immigrant and visible minority groups, the effects of gentrification on the immigrant-reception function of older inner-city neighbourhoods, and changes in the settlement patterns of racialized communities. In doing so, it expands upon and updates the work of Walks (2001; 2010), Walks and Bourne (2006), and Walks and Maaranen (2008a; 2008b). The chapter examines the relationship between immigration and social inequality in Canada’s three largest cities and outlines the problem that gentrification poses for proponents of social mix. The Canadian experience with gentrification and the literature regarding stage effects is explored in more detail and related to the potential for fostering social mix. I conclude that gentrification is associated with the decline of traditional immigrant-reception neighbourhoods in the centre of the global city, and the dispersion and reconcentration of immigrant communities elsewhere. Gentrification is related to new patterns of segmentation and segregation in the city and poses new challenges for understanding the direction of urban and national politics in the age of the new globalization. Immigration and Social Inequality in Canada’s Globalizing Cities
Canada’s largest cities rank among the most open to immigrants on the globe. Of the approximately 235,000 immigrants who arrived in Canada annually between 1999 and 2008, 170,000 of those flowed every year into Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 2009, 26). These three cities – together containing only 35 percent of Canada’s population – attracted over 72 percent of all Canadian immigrants during this time, more than double their population share. Toronto alone attracted on average 43 percent of all immigrants, while Montreal and Vancouver each attracted approximately 14 percent (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 2009, 26). Although only 24 percent of the Canadian population is foreign born, in Toronto it is over 44 percent, in Vancouver 39 percent, and in Montreal over 20 percent. Immigration has changed the “face” of urban Canada, with the vast majority of immigrants since the late 1960s originating in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and with over 80 percent self-identifying as members of visible minorities. Roughly 43 and 42 percent of the populations of Toronto and Vancouver self-identified as visible minorities in the 2006 census, while Montreal’s visible minority population was 16.5 percent, slightly higher than the Canadian average of
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16.2 percent (Statistics Canada 2006). These facts make Canada’s three global cities important case studies for examining the implications of immigrant settlement and integration experiences as well as patterns of socio spatial segregation. Two main narratives have emerged in regard to the high levels of immigration and the concomitant growth of visible minorities in Canada since the 1990s. On the one hand, Michael Adams (2007) paints a picture of Canada as an “unlikely utopia,” in which immigrants are respected and welcomed, different cultures are tolerated and embraced, racism is minimal, and immigrants are free to pursue their economic and political goals within a pluralist polity. On the other hand, Grace-Edward Galabuzi (2006) warns of a growing “economic apartheid” characterized by the polarization of incomes of racialized groups – most of whom are immigrants or the children of immigrants – and increasing racial and ethnic discrimination within both the labour and housing markets. The stark contrast between these perspectives behooves us to inquire more deeply into the reality of the urban experience of immigrants and racialized minorities within the cities where they live and work. Processes occurring within these global cities largely determine how Canada’s politics of pluralism and tolerance, as well as marginalization and racialization, will evolve. The truth is that recent immigrants to Canada find it more difficult to earn incomes comparable to earlier cohorts. Statistics Canada data shows that within each of the three cities under consideration, the income gap between recent immigrants (those arriving within the ten years preceding that particular census) and the native born has increased steadily since 1980 (Figure 3.1). By 2005, recent immigrants in Toronto had incomes less than half that of the native born, while incomes of recent immigrants in the other two Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) were only slightly higher, between 52 and 57 percent. Relatedly, successive waves of immigrants have also found it more difficult to become homeowners and have suffered declining levels of disposable income (Mok 2009). This decline in the relative earnings of immigrants is directly related to the persistent decline in the incomes of visible minorities in comparison to whites (Figure 3.2). Most visible minorities are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Declining incomes and disproportionately higher levels of unemployment among visible minorities contribute to an increasing racialization of poverty as noted by Galabuzi (2006). This is particularly evident in, and driven by, processes originating within Canada’s global cities in which three-quarters of all visible minorities reside. Rates of low income,
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FIGURE 3.1 Average income of recent immigrants as a proportion of the average income of native born, three largest CMAs, 1980-2005
Note: Data refer to the total per capita income of individuals and include employment earnings, investment income, and government transfers. Recent immigrants are those arriving in the ten years preceding each census. Source: Author’s calculations from Census of Canada, Public Use Microsample (PUMS) files (1981, 1991), and Census of Canada, Special Interest Profile files (2001, 2006).
often accepted as a proxy for the rate of poverty, reveal not only increasing poverty among visible minorities, but also a widening poverty gap between whites and racialized communities (Table 3.1). Those of Aboriginal ancestry, who are classified separately from visible minorities in the census, also suffer from very high levels of unemployment and poverty, although Canada’s largest cities have some of the smallest proportions of Aboriginals in the country (Peters 2001). Despite the declining position of immigrants and visible minorities within urban labour markets, there is no evidence that ghettos of racialized disadvantage are forming in Canadian cities (Walks and Bourne 2006; Walks 2010). Indeed, visible minority groups are increasingly concentrated in the middle-class “ethnoburbs” located in the postwar suburbs (see Li 1998; 2009). However, not all members of visible minorities are able to live in ethnoburbs, and the racialization of poverty has expanded the number of poor minorities. Clearly, new immigrants enter Canada with varying levels of wealth, education, social capital, and job skills. Visible minorities are concentrated in particular occupational sectors and relatively absent in others. They are notably underrepresented among managers, artists, and athletes,
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FIGURE 3.2 Average income of visible minorities as a proportion of the average income of non-visible minorities (whites), three largest CMAs, 1980-2005
Note: Data refer to the total per capita income of individuals and include employment earnings, investment income, and government transfers. Members of visible minorities selfidentify as such in the census. The non-visible-minority / white category includes everyone who does not identify as a visible minority in the census. Source: Author’s calculations from Census of Canada, PUMS files (1981, 1991), and Census of Canada, Special Interest Profile files (2001, 2006).
and among social scientists, lawyers, teachers, and government workers. They are disproportionately concentrated in manufacturing and processing occupations, followed by sales and services – both of which have average incomes well below the national average – while at the same time also overrepresented in the generally well-paying professional fields of health and, to a lesser extent, natural and applied sciences and engineering (Walks 2011, Table 6.2). Such an occupational profile reveals a polarized employment experience among racialized minorities. Those minorities employed in professional occupations are better able to choose between neighbourhoods while poorer members of racialized groups are forced to search out low-cost, highly accessible residential locations. Most such neighbourhoods have traditionally been found within the inner city where public transit and higher densities provide high levels of access to jobs, services, and amenities, helping immigrants to establish themselves, expand their levels of social and cultural capital, and improve their quality of life. These have also traditionally been the most diverse “socially mixed” neighbourhoods. This, however, is changing.
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TABLE 3.1 Incidence of low income (% below the LICO), visible minorities and whites City
1990 2000 2005
Toronto
Whites Visible minorities
10.1 10.9 12.0 18.3 21.8 26.9
Gap
Montreal
Whites Visible minorities
18.0 18.6 17.1 35.5 37.5 41.0
Gap
17.5 18.9 23.9
Vancouver
Whites Visible minorities
14.5 15.0 14.2 19.1 26.6 29.8
Gap
8.2 10.9 14.9
4.6 11.6 15.6
Note: This table shows the proportion of the population in private households whose family or individual incomes are less than Statistics Canada’s Low-Income Cutoff (LICO) in each census year. The LICO is not strictly a measure of poverty, but is often used as a proxy for a poverty line, as it measures the ability of families and individuals to afford a basket of necessary items, in similar fashion to the poverty lines developed in other countries. Source: Statistics Canada, 2001 and 2006 Census of Canada Special Interest Profile Tables, and 1991 PUMS files.
From the Stages of Gentrification to Social Mix?
One of the central claims of contemporary efforts to promote gentrification in its different guises is that it will create a more socially diverse and mixed community in what likely had been a low-income working-class neighbourhood. Such efforts include encouraging developers to build new housing in low-income communities (often high-density condominium tenure) – so-called “new-build” gentrification (Davidson and Lees 2005) – as well as the conversion of older stock from rental tenure to owner-occupation, and the redevelopment of social housing estates into private market or mixed public and private sector neighbourhoods. Such efforts assume that the gentrification process naturally evolves in linear fashion toward an ever more diverse and socially mixed endpoint, or that it can be managed effectively to prevent negative outcomes such as the displacement of the poor or the capture of residential space by the wealthy. The literature concerning potential stages of gentrification casts some doubt on these assumptions. The classic stage models of gentrification suggest that a series of changes characterize the process. In the original stage models, the first stage begins
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after the neighbourhood has suffered from disinvestment, as owners and landlords make incremental, economically rational decisions to undermaintain properties in response to the perception of greater economic return elsewhere (N. Smith 1987; 1996). The neighbourhood becomes a locus of cheap rents that attract a first wave of “pioneers,” usually assumed to be artists or students who have little displacing effect (Ley 1996; 2003). The second stage sees the in-migration of less risk-averse groups with more status, while the local commercial streets begin to attract new forms of retail, in keeping with the changing aesthetic. As newcomers with higher incomes are able to outbid lower-income tenants (and landlords are able to raise rents), they displace many of the original working-class residents. In the third stage, housing stock is transformed, first through investment by individual homebuyers who perform basic renovations. Once the development industry gets wind of the profitable conversions and renovations, investment capital begins to flow and corporations buy up the real estate. At this stage, many if not most of the original residents have been displaced, unless social housing allows some of the original low-income residents to remain in the neighbourhood. At the end of the process, the neighbourhood may be regentrified for members of the elite in a process of “supergentrification,” joining the ranks of the most prestigious areas of the city (Lees 2003). Recent literature suggests that this classic stage model may not sufficiently cover variability between gentrification processes within different cities (Rose 1996; Lees 2000; Van Criekingen and Decroly 2003) or the fact that the processes by which gentrification flows through a neighbourhood may change over time. Hackworth and Smith (2001) suggest, for instance, that gentrification skipped a number of early stages in selected New York City neighbourhoods in which capital was generated to buy up, renovate, or replace existing structures despite there having been no prior wave of successful efforts by young pioneers or individual households. Similarly, Lees, Slater, and Wyly (2007) suggest that heightened speculation on the part of finance capital generated, from 2000 on, an influx of investment in inner-city real estate that bypassed traditional channels and stages in purchasing older hotels, large apartment buildings, and industrial lands to transform into high-income residential spaces. The processes fuelling gentrification and neighbourhood change have been intensified by neoliberal public policies, which view gentrification as a solution to fiscal crises and place pressure on the state at various levels to relax tenant protections (Hackworth 2002; Slater 2004; Wyly and Hammel 2005).
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Even if the stages of gentrification are modified or shortened over time, the implication is that any true instance of social mix must be a transitory phase. Regardless of the precise local conditions spurring gentrification, the logic of the stage models suggests that in the absence of factors limiting gentrification’s onslaught, such as the construction and protection of significant new social housing or other protections (see Ley and Dobson 2008; Newman and Wyly 2006; Walks and August 2008), low-income residents will ultimately be displaced at the hands of groups with more social, economic, and political capital. This portends the break-up of existing communities and the usurpation and commodification of community-building efforts and local community assets (see Betancur 2002; Lees, Slater, and Wyly 2007). Class and race structures within these neighbourhoods are solidified when gentrifiers with access to greater social and political capital are able to make political claims that protect their property values through methods such as zoning, historic designation, and NIMBY-based politics, thus erecting barriers of entry to different social groups (Filion 1991). Thus, as gentrification progresses, the local social structure would be expected to first pass through a more diverse and mixed stage, but as the neighbourhood continues to gentrify, it might then be expected to become more socially homogeneous, eventually driving down levels of social diversity. However, this is by no means the only possibility. If the poorest are protected from displacement because they live in social housing, then gentrification might be characterized not by declining ethnic or racial mix but instead by increasing race and class polarization. Globalization is associated with increasing proportions of immigrants and visible minorities, as well as the polarization of immigrant incomes. Wealthy immigrants could be drawn to accessible locations within the inner city leading to increasing levels of social diversity. Also, gentrifiers are by no means a monolithic group, as a number of authors have argued (Butler 2003; Butler and Robson 2001; Rose 1984; 1996; Shaw 2005b). There are different local cultures among gentrifiers, some of which are more tolerant and aim to foster higher levels of local social inclusion and diversity (Shaw 2005a; 2005b). It is thus an empirical question as to whether gentrification constitutes a process of neighbourhood “cleansing,” culminating in “ghettos of the rich” (Lees 2003), or alternatively, neighbourhood mixing, racial integration, and tolerance. Gentrification in Canada’s Cities
Canada’s global cities not only have high levels of immigration and proportions of visible minorities, but have also experienced significant rates of
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gentrification and neighbourhood upgrading since the late 1960s. They are, therefore, prime candidates for testing the relationship between gentrification and racial diversity. Gentrification began in the late 1960s in Toronto and Montreal, and in the early 1970s in Vancouver, and has continued expanding within inner cities of each metropolis with every passing decade. The methodology for identifying and tracking the trajectory of gentrification in this chapter derives from the work published by Walks and Maaranen (2008a; 2008b). Canadian census data (at the level of the census tract) from each decade of the postwar period was tracked (using a GIS-based interpolation) to identify the timing and different forms of gentrification and upgrading within neighbourhoods.1 A principal components analysis (PCA) was conducted to detect decade-by-decade changes in the neighbourhood concentration of average personal income, tenant households, social status, those employed as artists, and average monthly rents. This method detected three distinct waves of gentrification. The first wave can be distinguished as beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The second wave began in the mid-1980s, while a third emerged in the mid-1990s. Data from the 1951 and 1961 censuses demonstrated that gentrification and upgrading were not present in Canada’s inner cities during the 1950s. Census tracts were classified according to the wave of initial upgrading, even if gentrification continued into the present. The term gentrification is reserved here, in keeping with the literature (Bourne 1993; Wyly and Hammel 1998), for those areas that were clearly working-class in character in both the 1951 and 1961 censuses but that then experienced significant upgrading. Upgrading of middle-class and elite neighbourhoods and other forms of neighbourhood transformation detected by this methodology are thus maintained as distinct from gentrification. Gentrification can take the form of the deconversion of tenanted older stock back to owner-occupation, the renovation of older nonresidential buildings into lofts and condos, and “new-build” forms resulting from demolition and new construction (see Walks and Maaranen 2008b for more information). Gentrification is further distinguished by whether the process has been fully consummated or, alternatively, whether it remains incomplete. Those neighbourhoods that witnessed gentrification but did not see income rises above the CMA average by 2006 (indicating that it stalled or continued at only a very slow rate) are classified as having “incomplete” forms of gentrification. Meanwhile, neighbourhoods whose average incomes rose above the CMA average by the end of the period are classified
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TABLE 3.2 The proportion of neighbourhoods experiencing gentrification, Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver Gentrification Complete and incomplete 1960s gentrification 1970s gentrification 1980s gentrification 1990s gentrification
Toronto Montreal Vancouver Total Inner Total Inner Total Inner city (%) city (%) city (%) city (%) city (%) city (%) 16.4 39.2 20.8 35.7 17.1 24.0 3.1 7.5 1.0 1.7 0.0 0.0 2.5 6.0 2.8 4.9 6.7 9.4 1.4 3.4 1.6 2.8 3.8 5.3 0.8 1.9 0.4 0.7 1.0 1.4
1970s incomplete gentrification 2.3 5.5 3.2 5.5 0.0 0.0 1980s incomplete gentrification 3.9 9.3 6.9 11.9 1.9 2.7 1990s incomplete gentrification 2.5 6.0 4.9 8.5 3.8 5.3 Potential future gentrification 2.9 6.9 6.9 11.9 2.9 4.1 Rest of the city/inner city
80.7
53.9
72.3
52.4
80.0
71.9
Notes: Only forms of gentrification and potential future gentrification are delineated here. The “Rest of the city/inner city” includes all other forms of neighbourhood change, including non-gentrification upgrading, recapture, decline, and stability (see Walks and Maaranen 2008b for more information). The inner city in this table refers to only those contiguous neighbourhoods developed before 1945. Numbers are rounded to one decimal place. Source: Author’s calculations from Census of Canada, various years, adapted from Walks and Maaranen 2008b.
as completely gentrified. The presence of potential future gentrification was identified by a separate component, an increase since 1996 in the number of artists and social status levels of residents but not in income or owneroccupied tenures. Such areas may witness gentrification in the future, and so are labelled as potential future gentrification.2 Gentrification has clearly affected a large proportion of eligible neighbourhoods within Canada’s global cities. Table 3.2 outlines the proportions of neighbourhoods (census tracts) in each inner city that experienced gentrification in some form. Gentrification is most prevalent in Toronto (39 percent of neighbourhoods), followed by Montreal (36 percent), while in inner-city Vancouver – where many neighbourhoods remained middleclass over the entire period and thus were ineligible for gentrification – just under one-quarter of neighbourhoods have been affected. Overall,
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incomplete forms of gentrification were more common in Montreal, a finding echoing the marginal forms of gentrification uncovered in that city by other researchers (see Rose 1984; 1996; Van Criekingen and Decroly 2003) while gentrification processes were most likely to have reached the final stages in Vancouver by 2006 (for further discussion, see Walks and Maaranen 2008b). Toronto had roughly equal proportions of neighbourhoods exhibiting complete and incomplete forms of gentrification.3 The distinction between complete and incomplete forms of gentrification is important because the strategy pursued under contemporary global city policies is to make inner-city neighbourhoods attractive to globally mobile workers, and the assumption is that social mix will be attained only by bringing in higher-income households. Social Mix and Ethnic Diversity in the Gentrifying Inner City
Has globalization led to greater or lower levels of social mix and ethnic diversity within the inner city? Canada’s global cities have relied on immigration for much of their population growth since the 1970s, which has resulted in substantially increased levels of ethnic diversity. Social mix has many connotations and definitions. One such definition involves the degree to which members of different ethnic or racialized communities cohabit a neighbourhood. Each of Canada’s three largest cities experienced significant growth in the number and proportion of immigrants from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia (particularly China, India, and Pakistan). If gentrification truly had no effect on ethnic mix, immigrants would continue to be concentrated in the same inner-city neighbourhoods that functioned as immigrant-reception areas in the past. However, gentrification reduces the stock of affordable rental housing, raises rents, and increases land values, factors that might be expected to limit a neighbourhood’s function as an immigrant-reception area as lower-income migrants become excluded. Gentrification is associated not only with direct displacement, but also with what Marcuse (1986) terms “exclusionary displacement,” as the transformation of the rental sector and land market prevents those households that might have moved into the neighbourhood in the future from being able to do so.4 At the same time, many immigrants to Canada are solidly middle class themselves, work downtown, have significant “locational choice,” and aspire to live in the same neighbourhoods as the nativeborn middle class (Myles and Hou 2004). Perhaps gentrification allows the immigrant-reception function of the inner city to continue, maintaining
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disproportionately high levels of inner city ethnic and racial diversity? Even if gentrification reduces the function of immigrant-reception neighbourhoods, perhaps the effect is weak and overshadowed by the growth of diversity within the global city? When changes in the proportions of immigrants and the main visible minority groups are examined over time across different neighbourhood trajectories, the effects of gentrification on local levels of ethnic and racial diversity, and the timing of shifts in those levels, become evident (Table 3.3). There is a distinctly different trajectory between areas that had fully gentrified by 2006 and those that remained incompletely gentrified. In both Toronto and Vancouver, areas classified as completely gentrified and that had begun that process in the 1960s and 1970s reveal declining or stabilized proportions of foreign-born residents beginning in those early decades. Likewise, immigrant and minority proportions began to decline in the 1980s in areas that began gentrifying in the 1980s, and in the 1990s for areas that began gentrifying in that decade. The pattern is less clear for gentrified areas in Montreal, most of which began with smaller immigrant populations. Until 2001, areas of “incomplete” gentrification had bucked the trend toward declining proportions of immigrants, showing fairly consistent growth in the proportions of foreign born, mirroring to some extent the vast increase in ethnic and racial diversity across the rest of the metropolitan landscape. However, after 2001, neighbourhoods affected by each and every wave of gentrification in both Toronto and Vancouver reveal declining proportions of immigrants. Only in Montreal did some of the areas experiencing gentrification continue to see increases in immigrant proportions. Thus, in Toronto and Vancouver, and to a lesser extent in Montreal, the evidence suggests that gentrification is associated with declining inflows of immigrants, and a reduction in the immigrant-reception function of those neighbourhoods. The early 2000s would appear to represent a watershed. By 2006 none of those areas witnessing gentrification had shares of immigrants higher than the rest of the city. The trends are similar, although more muted, with members of visible minorities.5 As immigration has changed the face of urban Canada, racial diversity has increased both in many gentrifying neighbourhoods and across the rest of the central city. Visible minorities continued increasing in a number of gentrifying neighbourhoods even as their function as ethnic enclaves and immigrant-reception neighbourhoods began to wane. Yet even here the increase in ethnic and racial mix was notably more limited in gentrified neighbourhoods than elsewhere. Furthermore, after 2001, this trend
42.4
47.0
51.3
51.5
46.4
3.2 6.8 12.1 22.7 18.8
▶
Mixed trends/rest of the city 32.8 41.5 48.2 55.2 56.7 1.7 7.0 16.1 27.8 28.1 Montreal 16.9 21.5 25.7 29.0 30.2 0.9 1.8 3.9 10.1 12.3 1960s gentrification 27.6 29.1 26.2 30.6 27.2 1.9 3.5 4.9 8.1 6.7 1970s gentrification 19.3 20.3 21.8 23.2 24.1 2.3 2.7 3.4 5.2 6.6 1980s gentrification 4.8 9.0 16.9 17.1 19.9 0.3 0.9 1.8 4.4 8.1 1990s gentrification 17.9 29.1 29.8 35.2 18.9 0.5 4.1 3.4 6.0 5.1
Potential future gentrification
2.3 6.9 14.2 27.2 27.8 4.8 6.4 10.4 14.6 14.5 3.8 7.7 9.0 10.3 9.7 3.1 5.5 9.2 15.2 12.4 2.2 4.3 6.9 11.3 9.7 8.8 11.9 17.2 27.1 17.3 4.2 9.2 15.3 21.7 15.9 7.5 14.3 19.4 28.5 19.5
35.2 41.3 45.6 50.1 49.4 42.4 40.1 39.5 40.9 33.5 43.6 38.9 35.6 32.6 28.6 55.2 56.6 41.2 38.6 30.8 39.0 55.8 55.6 34.6 29.6 37.4 38.3 43.6 45.4 37.4 51.4 54.0 49.6 45.9 40.3 57.0 56.3 54.7 48.4 42.2
Toronto 1960s gentrification 1970s gentrification 1980s gentrification 1990s gentrification 1970s incomplete gentrification 1980s incomplete gentrification 1990s incomplete gentrification
Chinese, South Asians, and blacks (%)
1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 1971 1981 1991 2001 2006
Foreign born (%)
Mean neighbourhood proportions for foreign-born residents and the three largest visible minority groups (Chinese, South Asian, and black/African) by neighbourhood type, three largest cities, 1971-2006
TABLE 3.3
10.1 13.4 17.8 21.1 21.9
Potential future gentrification
34.0
Mixed trends/rest of the city
42.1
32.1 48.6
31.8 54.0
34.1
51.7
32.9
7.1 22.0 32.5 40.7 39.1
21.9 26.1 19.6 20.8 16.9
Notes: South Asian not included in 1971. Bolded figures for 2006 represent instances in which the proportions declined from 2001. Source: Author’s calculations from Census of Canada, various years, adapted from Walks and Maaranen 2008a, and updated to 2006.
36.1
Potential future gentrification
Mixed trends/rest of the city 17.8 22.6 27.0 31.0 31.5 0.8 1.7 4.5 10.2 13.1 Vancouver 34.6 39.8 43.6 48.0 45.1 7.5 17.6 25.1 34.8 31.5 1970s gentrification 36.1 32.1 31.8 34.1 29.4 5.2 5.3 7.2 12.4 11.4 1980s gentrification 38.7 36.5 32.0 46.5 42.9 9.3 10.3 12.3 20.2 21.4 1990s gentrification 36.3 39.0 29.0 27.4 26.7 4.5 6.0 4.1 7.7 11.4 1980s incomplete gentrification 41.6 38.3 31.4 28.9 24.3 15.3 17.8 12.7 18.0 12.1 1990s incomplete gentrification 44.8 49.0 47.5 47.9 34.7 21.0 26.6 24.8 26.2 19.1
0.3 1.3 2.9 7.1 10.1
2.5 3.7 4.3 8.9 11.3 1.8 2.2 3.7 8.1 8.9 0.5 0.5 2.0 5.6 8.1
22.5 25.6 27.7 29.6 27.3 15.7 22.6 26.0 27.4 23.2 9.0 13.3 19.2 21.0 18.9
1970s incomplete gentrification 1980s incomplete gentrification 1990s incomplete gentrification
Chinese, South Asians, and blacks (%)
1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 1971 1981 1991 2001 2006
Foreign born (%)
◀ TABLE 3.3
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FIGURE 3.3
Location quotients (LQ) for foreign-born residents by neighbourhood type, all three central cities, 1971-2006
Source: Author’s calculations from Census of Canada, various years, adapted from Walks and Maaranen 2008a, and updated to 2006
reversed and a number of gentrified and gentrifying neighbourhoods experienced declines in their proportions of visible minorities even while minorities’ population shares boomed in the rest of the city. Only within Montreal did a majority of gentrifying neighbourhoods continue to show increases in their relative proportions of visible minorities, but even here, as Table 3.3 demonstrates, areas that saw the onset of gentrification in the 1970s and 1990s reveal absolute declines in diversity in the 2001 to 2006 census period. The impact of gentrification is evident when the simple proportions are converted to location quotients (LQs) and the trends are aggregated across all three metropolitan areas (Figure 3.3). All those neighbourhoods sub sequently experiencing gentrification had substantially higher immigrant location quotients in 1971 but this had reversed by 2006 with fully gentrified neighbourhoods revealing the lowest location quotients for the foreign born. Areas of incomplete gentrification witnessed a similar decline in this metric, although to a level above that of gentrified tracts and thus
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FIGURE 3.4
Location quotients (LQ) for residents with Chinese, South Asian, or black/ African origins, by neighbourhood type, all three central cities, 1971-2006
Source: Author’s calculations from Census of Canada, various years, adapted from Walks and Maaranen 2008a, and updated to 2006.
closer to the rest of the cities’ neighbourhoods. The implication of this last finding is that limiting or halting gentrification can slow, and even potentially reverse, the decline of the immigrant-reception function of affected inner-city neighbourhoods. Figure 3.4 similarly tracks changes in location quotients of the main visible minority groups over time. While Table 3.4 shows that visible minorities increased not only across the city but also in some gentrifying areas, Figure 3.4 demonstrates that this growth occurred within gentrified neighbourhoods at rates far below the metropolitan and central city averages. The picture painted by these shifts is that of a relative, and in some cases absolute, “whitening” of the gentrified city. Areas experiencing gentrification all saw their LQs decline over time to about half that of their metropolitan areas. Gentrified areas show the lowest LQs (in 2006) for this variable. Areas of incomplete gentrification reveal a mixed pattern, and once again occupy a middle ground between areas of complete gentrification and the rest of the city.
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FIGURE 3.5
Proportionate change in the Simpson Diversity Index, by neighbourhood type, for all three central cities, 1971-2006
Source: Author’s calculations from Census of Canada, various years, adapted from Walks and Maaranen (2008a), and updated to 2006.
In keeping with these trends, there is also a clear relationship between gentrification and loss of ethnic diversity. The Simpson index of ethnic diversity is employed in this case to test this relationship, shown standardized to 1971 (1971 = 1.00) (Figure 3.5).6 Not only do areas of complete gentrification reveal the lowest levels of ethnic diversity but there are clear stage effects related to the timing of gentrification. Those areas of complete gentrification that began gentrifying in the 1960s show the lowest levels of ethnic diversity in 2006 and suffered the greatest decline in diversity between 2001 and 2006. Gentrified areas that began gentrifying in the 1970s show the second lowest levels of diversity and the second steepest decline in the most recent period. Areas that began to gentrify in the 1980s and 1990s show the third lowest levels of diversity, and the third steepest decline (1980s), or alternatively, stability (1990s), in their levels of diversity. All other areas reveal increasing levels of social and ethnic diversity. These findings suggest that the “whitening” of gentrifying neighbourhoods might, quite literally, just be a matter of time if the process of gentrification is not
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halted. Areas of incomplete gentrification, on the other hand, reveal high levels of ethnic diversity. This presents perhaps the clearest evidence of a relationship between gentrification and social mix in that it was those neighbourhoods that continued gentrifying that witnessed reduced levels of ethnic diversity, while those in which the gentrification process stalled did not, in all three of Canada’s global cities. These results suggest that should gentrification be reined in and halted, rather than promoted as is the case of much contemporary urban policy, the ethnic social mix can be preserved. It recommends a reversal of the mainstream policy ethos in the contemporary global city. Finally, social mix is also often understood in relation to the income mix within neighbourhoods. Much of the focus of public policy is to encourage wealthy homeowners to invest in gentrifying neighbourhoods to reduce the average level of neighbourhood poverty and to attract amenities to innercity neighbourhoods under the perception that a more “balanced” income mix will beget greater levels of tolerance, integration, and class harmony. However, for changes in the income mix to be equitable, they must avoid any polarizing effect. Changes should not, for instance, displace or cause outmigration of the poor, nor encourage the growth of a local social tectonics. Yet the evidence from Canada’s three largest cities suggests that gentrification is instead associated with greater social polarization between incomers and the original residents, rather than balance. Table 3.4 outlines the proportions of households, in each city and type of neighbourhood, with low, medium, and high incomes (i.e., below $30,000, between $30,000 and $89,999, and $90,000 and over, in 2001 constant [inflation-adjusted] dollars). Gentrification is clearly associated with greater affluence and declines in middle-income households. Between 1971 and 2001, in most neighbourhoods experiencing gentrification, there was a general shift toward wealthier households. Then, between 2001 and 2006, in most gentrified and gentrifying neighbourhoods in Toronto and Montreal, lower-income households once again increased. Coupled with the continued decline in middle-income households, the data paint a story of growing income polarization. Those areas in which gentrification remains incomplete have clearly not seen as great a shift toward increasing affluence or declines in middleincome households, as have neighbourhoods that have fully gentrified. The latter, meanwhile, reveal much higher proportions of the most affluent households than neighbourhoods elsewhere in the city. Gentrification clearly is not associated with a shift toward a more balanced neighbour hood income mix, except perhaps in its very earliest stages in the poorest
41.0 39.8 37.9 34.6 37.0 51.8 49.2 52.9 48.7 46.5 7.2 11.0 9.1 16.8 16.5 −4 −5.3 9.3
33.1 34.4 37.2 36.5 38.5 60.6 53.7 54.4 50.0 46.8 6.3 11.9 8.4 13.5 14.7 5.4 −13.8 8.4
20.2 23.8 26.2 28.9 33.2 67.9 57.8 55.9 50.8 49.8 11.9 18.4 17.8 20.2 17.3 13 -18.1 5.4
Potential future gentrification
Mixed trends/ rest of the city
▶
35.9 32.0 29.6 29.5 32.2 56.8 56.9 55.9 49.2 45.7 7.3 11.1 14.5 21.3 22.1 −3.7 −11.1 14.8
48.4 42.8 39.8 38.2 41.0 46.6 44.9 48.2 46.8 42.4 5.0 12.3 12.0 15.0 16.6 −7.4 −4.2 11.6
26.1 26.4 25.7 27.7 30.9 61.6 52.1 54.2 48.5 47.6 12.4 21.5 20.1 23.8 21.5 4.8 −14 9.1 38.3 35.6 27.9 23.4 31.4 50.7 44.4 51.5 43.5 33.4 11.0 20.0 20.6 33.1 35.2 −6.9 −17.3 24.2 38.1 28.5 22.5 22.4 24.2 54.4 49.3 55.3 47.4 44.6 7.5 22.2 22.2 30.2 31.2 −13.9 −9.8 23.7 35.6 31.5 25.9 21.6 23.6 56.1 51.3 51.5 49.3 47.7 8.3 17.2 22.6 29.1 28.7 −12 −8.4 20.4 34.5 29.6 29.0 22.2 31.7 58.6 52.7 54.4 47.3 37.2 7.0 17.7 16.6 30.5 31.1 −2.8 −21.4 24.1
Toronto 1960s gentrification 1970s gentrification 1980s gentrification 1990s gentrification
1970s incomplete gentrification 1980s incomplete gentrification 1990s incomplete gentrification
1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 Low Mid High
% Low income % Middle income % High income Change ($0-29,999) ($30,000-89,999) ($90,000+) 1971-2006
Change in the mix of households with low, middle, and high incomes
TABLE 3.4
53.3 56.2 59.4 57.4 51.3 44.5 41.8 38.2 38.1 42.6 2.2 2.0 2.4 4.6 6.1 −2 −1.9 3.9
46.8 49.9 55.5 54.6 51.7 50.9 47.5 41.0 42.2 43.5 2.3 2.6 3.5 3.2 4.7 4.9 −7.4 2.4
36.1 33.7 39.1 40.2 41.1 51.2 50.3 48.5 46.7 45.2 12.7 16.0 12.4 13.1 13.7
Potential future gentrification
Mixed trends/ rest of the city
4
5 −6
1
62.1 60.4 52.7 50.8 48.1 36.5 36.0 44.2 43.4 43.2 1.4 3.6 3.1 5.8 8.7 −14 6.7 7.3
58.0 52.9 55.5 49.2 54.9 39.4 42.8 400. 44.5 38.5 2.6 4.3 4.5 6.2 6.6 −3.1 −0.9
39.6 36.8 39.9 42.0 41.4 52.9 51.2 48.0 44.9 45.7 7.5 12.0 12.1 12.9 12.9 1.8 −7.2 5.4 39.8 34.1 31.6 21.6 29.9 47.0 45.8 44.9 32.7 40.9 13.1 20.1 24 25.8 29.2 −9.9 −6.1 16.1 57.2 49.3 44.1 36.6 39.8 40.5 42.3 47.7 47.6 43.4 2.3 8.4 8.2 15.8 16.8 −17.4 2.9 14.5 54.8 56.8 41.4 33.6 33.5 43.2 36.5 52.9 51.1 48.7 2.0 6.7 5.7 15.3 17.8 −21.3 5.5 15.8 62.3 65.8 56.1 55.3 38.7 36.9 34.2 42.7 34.9 51.1 0.8 0 1.2 9.9 10.2 −23.6 14.2 9.4
Montreal 1960s gentrification 1970s gentrification 1980s gentrification 1990s gentrification
1970s incomplete gentrification 1980s incomplete gentrification 1990s incomplete gentrification
1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 1971 1981 1991 2001 2006 Low Mid High
% Low income % Middle income % High income Change ($0-29,999) ($30,000-89,999) ($90,000+) 1971-2006
◀ TABLE 3.4
50.7 51.0 64.0 61.6 59.8 47.0 46.3 32.8 33.0 36.5 2.3 2.7 3.2 5.4 3.8 9.1 −10.5 1.5
35.4 32.0 33.2 33.4 34.6 57.6 51.5 50.5 48.9 48.1 7.0 16.5 16.3 17.7 17.3 −0.8 −9.5 10.3
Potential future gentrification
Mixed trends/ rest of the city
Note: Values other than central city totals are from census tract averages. Dollar ranges are in 2001 constant (inflation-adjusted) dollars for each census year. Source: Calculated from custom tabulated census data for the years 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2006 provided by Statistics Canada (Table E982 and Table EO1171).
62.8 47.6 52.2 49.2 47.6 35.5 49.0 44.6 43.9 44.6 1.7 3.4 3.2 6.8 7.9 −15.2 9.1 6.2
8.1 15.8 15.2 18.8 17.9 −4.5 −5.3 9.8 2.6 12.6 12.8 18.8 19.7 −31.7 13.9 17.1 2.9 6.2 12.3 20.0 24.3 −35.5 14.2 21.4 1.3 8.1 7.6 15.1 13.0 −21.1 9.4 11.7
69.9 53.0 53.2 73.9 73.3 28.1 43.0 39.2 23.1 24.4 2.0 3.9 7.6 3.0 2.3 3.4 −3.7 0.3
40.0 34.2 36.4 33.6 35.5 51.9 50.0 48.5 47.6 46.6 61.6 42.9 32.8 30.9 29.9 35.8 44.5 54.4 50.3 49.7 65.3 64.7 51.1 30.1 29.8 31.8 29.1 36.6 49.9 46 59.0 48.4 46.4 34.1 37.9 39.7 43.5 46.0 50.8 49.1
1980s incomplete gentrification 1990s incomplete gentrification
Vancouver 1970s gentrification 1980s gentrification 1990s gentrification
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neighbourhoods. Once begun, however, gentrification cannot easily be managed by public policy. Gentrification processes, if allowed to continue, are thus more associated with social polarization than balanced communities. The Polarizing of Immigrant and Racialized Space: Ethnoburbs and Isoburbs
Gentrification of the inner city is associated with new patterns of immigrant settlement and a reconfiguration of the social geography of the global city. All three of Canada’s global cities exhibit similarities in how polarization is articulated in immigrant settlement patterns. In the interests of keeping this chapter within reasonable length, this last section will focus in on patterns evident in Toronto. Not only is Toronto Canada’s largest metropolitan region and pre-eminent global city, but the diverging patterns of immigrant settlement and racialized neighbourhoods witnessed in Toronto both exemplify, and follow a middle path between, those patterns evident in Montreal and Vancouver – it thus acts as a good case study for probing more deeply into such trends. Gentrification in Toronto has affected roughly 40 percent of the traditional inner city and 58 percent of all the low-income neighbourhoods that traditionally held affordable rental housing and provided an immigrant-reception function. In fact, by 2006, there were only eight innercity census tracts that remained viable primarily as immigrant-reception areas. These are mainly found in the original Chinatown (near Dundas and Spadina in the downtown), areas with inexpensive high-density rental housing (St. Jamestown and part of Parkdale), or neighbourhoods dominated by social housing (Regent Park). With such a small set of inner-city neighbourhoods available to serve as immigrant-reception areas, new immigrants have had to settle in the postwar suburbs. And as gentrifying areas experience “whitening” (in relative and in some cases absolute terms) racialized communities have become more concentrated in suburban areas. Li (1998; 2009) coined the term “ethnoburb” to represent suburban areas where particular ethnic groups were choosing to concentrate. However, not all suburban neighbourhoods that house new immigrants and visible minorities are formed by “locational choice,” and there are many that do not contain the positive characteristics typically ascribed to ethnoburbs. Some of them are in fact very poor neighbourhoods with concentrated poorquality housing and poor access to public transit and other important services. Indeed, it is possible to differentiate between ethnoburbs that have formed through the locational choices of middle-class ethnic communities
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and what I here call “isoburbs” that have emerged not out of choice but mainly because they contain the cheapest and least desirable housing. Such neighbourhoods are often characterized by poor-performing schools and substandard levels of accessibility. In Figure 3.6, I differentiate Toronto’s geography of ethnoburbs, which I define as neighbourhoods with median household incomes above the CMA average, and concentrations of minorities more than 40 percent greater than the CMA average, from those of isoburbs, which have the same level of minority concentration but median incomes well below the CMA average. There is a clear spatial division between the location of ethnoburbs and isoburbs, the differing landscapes of which mirror income and occupational polarization among new immigrants and minorities. Middle-class ethnoburbs tend to be located in newer suburban areas and contain large owner-occupied houses in neighbourhoods with new schools and little rental housing; they are also well-served by the commuter rail service (the GO Train in this case) even though over 80 percent of the residents commute via automobile. Ethnoburb communities are more likely to contain a dominant ethnic minority. Much of the suburban municipality of Markham, for instance, houses greater concentrations of middle-class Chinese, while many areas in Brampton and north Mississauga are home to concentrated communities of wealthy immigrants from India and Pakistan. Isoburbs, on the other hand, are more likely to have mixed ethnic populations, and even when East Asians or South Asians predominate (there were no neighbourhoods in Toronto in which blacks made up the majority in 2006), the number of different minority groups present is significantly higher than in the ethnoburbs. This is because such areas are far more likely to contain high-density but inexpensive rental housing, either in the private sector or social housing, and thus to concentrate the poorer members of each minority group. Members of this group are also much more likely, with only a few exceptions, to be found in those early postwar suburban areas (in this case, of the amalgamated City of Toronto) that are not well-served by public transit, such as northwest North York and much of Scarborough (communities from which it takes more than twice the amount of time to commute to downtown via public transit than from Markham or Brampton, even though the residents of isoburbs have much lower access to automobiles). Many isoburb neighbourhoods have been targets of policy intervention, in the Toronto case on the part of the City of Toronto and local United Way charity organization, as they have higher rates of crime, school
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FIGURE 3.6
Map of ethnoburbs and isoburbs, Toronto CMA, 2006.
Note: Ethnoburbs are here defined as neighbourhoods (census tracts) with visible minorities making up 60 percent or more of their populations (approximately 40 percent higher than the CMA average), and household incomes greater than the CMA median. Isoburbs/poor enclaves have the same concentration of visible minorities but median household incomes less than 85 percent of the CMA median. Source: Data from the 2006 Census of Canada.
dropout, and disproportionately house female lone-parent families (see United Way of Greater Toronto 2010; Smith and Ley 2008). These areas have replaced the old inner-city neighbourhoods that in the past attracted new immigrants. However, these new immigrant-reception areas do not have the same level of advantage as the inner city in regard to access to public transit, employment, or public services, or the ability to walk to school. The spatial patterns are similar in the cases of Montreal and Vancouver, albeit with localized exceptions. Those living in many isoburbs inhabit a different social world than that of ethnoburbs. Residents of such neighbourhoods who might wish to move often cannot because of low incomes. However, it must be pointed out that
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such areas do not constitute “ghettos” like those that exist in the United States or United Kingdom (see Poulsen, Johnston, and Forrest 2001; Johnston, Forrest, and Poulsen 2002; Walks 2010; Walks and Bourne 2006). They are not formed predominantly through institutionalized racial discrimination as in the United States, but through the workings of a housing market skewed by the gentrification of traditional immigrant-reception neighbourhoods in Canada’s global cities. Nonetheless, there are clear dangers associated with these new forms of segmentation. The continuing divergence of middle-class and poorer racialized communities cannot help but influence the direction of urban politics and has implications for democratic pluralism and future urban policy, as other chapters in this volume attest. Conclusion
Gentrification and high levels of immigration are both characteristics of globalizing cities. However, the demand for residential space close to downtown and the headquarters of transnational firms and other global industries downtown comes into conflict with the traditional immigrant-reception function of inner-city neighbourhoods. It is the latter that has been altered, albeit at times slowly and unevenly. As the empirical data in this chapter demonstrate, gentrified neighbourhoods in Canada’s three largest cities have seen a decline in their relative income and ethnic mix since the postwar period; a number of neighbourhoods that began gentrifying early have seen an absolute decline in both immigrants and racialized communities despite rapid rates of immigration and the growth of visible minorities in the metropolises in which they are located. There are clear stage effects at work here, particularly as they relate to changes in racial diversity and the immigrant function of gentrifying neighbourhoods. Typically, the earlier that communities began to gentrify, the less an increase in racial diversity or immigrant concentration they experienced during ensuing middle stages and the more they moved away from housing such communities. This research suggests that under gentrification it is just a matter of time before the areas that traditionally served as immigrant-reception neighbourhoods no longer do so. There is a similar finding concerning the mix of incomes in gentrified neighbourhoods. While the poorest neighbourhoods may have, in the earliest stages, shifted toward a more balanced mix of incomes, after this initial phase they continued on the path toward greater affluence and, after a time, even the proportion of middle-income households began to
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decline. Thus, this chapter sheds light on how the political economy of global cities can lead to new forms of sociospatial polarization: if allowed to march forward according to its own logic, gentrification is associated with exclusionary and racialized displacement rather than social mix and integration. Part of this involves ethnolinguistic polarization, as gentrification reproduces the inner city as the centre for the educated Englishspeaking elite. Meanwhile, those areas in which gentrification has stalled or remained limited largely retained, and in some cases increased, their levels of ethnic and income mix, and witnessed growing levels of racial diversity over the study period. There are clear policy implications for global cities. Instead of promoting gentrification through social housing redevelopment, condominium infill, and the redevelopment and remaking of artist communities and trendy downtown neighbourhoods, public policy interventions at multiple institutional scales should instead seek to limit the spread and extent of gentrification. (Possible institutional and policy reforms for limiting or preventing the spread of gentrification, at both the municipal and upper levels of government, are suggested by Ley and Dobson 2008; Walks and August 2008). This is the best way to preserve both the immigrant-reception function of the inner city where access to public transit, jobs, and amenities help improve the quality of life for new immigrants. It is the best option for preserving the overall social mix and income balance of local communities. The global city is characterized by growing social and spatial polarization, and there is a danger of spurring a politics of segregation, distrust, and discrimination. If the communities in which immigrants reside can be improved and levels of social diversity and integration maintained, then global cities can act as a bulwark against the rise of such a populist politics. Gentrification in the global city has implications for both increased segregation and the establishment of isolated ethnic and racialized communities in the suburbs. Immigrants and visible minorities are beset by declining average incomes as well as wealth and occupational polarization. Those from racialized communities with substantial incomes have locational choice and thus are able to self-select into middle-class ethnoburbs that contain a large proportion of the population from the same community. This represents both a degree of self-segregation as well as a form of integration into the norms and modes of middle-class Canadian citizenship. Poorer segments of immigrant and racialized groups, on the other hand, have traditionally integrated into host societies via inner-city neighbourhoods, which are characterized by significant levels of social mix and access to important
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amenities and services. However, increasing land values and the removal of housing from the rental stock under gentrification precludes these areas from serving this function, pushing poorer new immigrants and members of racialized communities into such isoburbs. While many of these neighbourhoods can and do still thrive and foster social integration, poor neighbourhood quality, isolation, and lack of access to transit, amenities, and services, portend a weakening of social capital and the integrating forces that had previously characterized the diversity of the inner city. Such a spatial reorganization of the global city is one factor that potentially points to a movement away from Adams’s (2007) “unlikely utopia” of tolerant pluralism, and toward Galabuzi’s (2006) racialized economic apartheid. However, Canada is not currently showing signs of ghettoization (Walks 2010; Walks and Bourne 2006), nor should isoburbs be interpreted as such. It remains to be seen how the trends identified in this chapter, and this volume, will play out into the future. Much depends on whether improvements are made in levels of public service and transportation accessibility in these neighbourhoods and whether social housing can be maintained within the inner cities. With an urban form and social geography lying between that of cities in the United States and many cities in Europe, Canada’s global cities serve as instructive case studies regarding the sociospatial processes driving and reconfiguring the segmented city. Notes
Thanks to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for generously supporting the research described in this chapter. 1 While one may debate whether census tracts adequately capture sociogeographic ideas of a neighbourhood, they are employed here as proxies for neighbourhoods out of necessity (as very little data is available at other scales), and in keeping with the statistical literature on gentrification and neighbourhood change. Statistics Canada defines census tracts such that they contain a similar population (typically between two thousand and eight thousand people), and are typically bounded by the major roadways, railways, or waterways that give definition to sociological and geographic images of neighbourhoods. Census tracts remain the best unit available for neighbourhood studies, as the next scale up (the municipality) is too large for neighbourhood-level analysis, and very little current data, and even less historical data, are available for the smaller-scale dissemination areas (DAs). 2 There are four other trajectories of neighbourhood change identified through this method. Apart from gentrification, there is also neighbourhood decline, which is identified as a decline in social status, rents, incomes, and conversion to tenancy. Middle-class and elite upgrading is discernable (indeed, highly pronounced) in a number of tracts that have always maintained above-average social status and high
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incomes, and that did not witness decline. Finally, middle-class recapture is applied to those areas that were solidly middle-class in 1951 (as identified through social status and income), but that subsequently declined for at least one decade before once again attaining above-average indices of home ownership, social status, and income. Indeed, some neighbourhoods associated with gentrification in previous literature (Ley 1996; Meligrana and Skaburskis 2005) are actually instances of recapture. Potential future gentrification is another potential trajectory distinguished by this research. 3 Maps showing the geography of gentrification in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, as identified by this method, are found in Walks and Maaranen (2008b, 27-31, and figures 22-32 in the appendix). 4 There is virtually no data at the neighbourhood level on displacement and outmigration, and it is difficult to trace the movements of those who leave a neighbourhood for reasons related to cost or housing conversion. It is furthermore impossible to know how many immigrants might have been indirectly excluded from gentrified neighbourhoods because of cost or lack of rental housing, and how many deliberately chose to live in more distant suburban locations. There is, however, evidence that those with European (including British and French) ancestry in Toronto are more likely to be able to self-select into the most desirable neighbourhoods, while blacks and South Asians in particular have the least ability to choose their residential neighbourhoods (Myles and Hou 2004). 5 Visible minority status as a variable is not available in the Census of Canada before 1996, so the proportion of the population falling into three broad ethnic groups: (1) Chinese, (2) South Asians, and (3) blacks is used as a proxy. These are the only three ethnic groups that can be consistently traced back in time to 1971. These groups represent approximately 60 percent of the total visible minority population in the three cities. 6 The Simpson index of ethnic diversity is calculated for each neighbourhood over the study period in relation to the proportionate mix of five sets of ethnic groups: blacks, South Asians, East Asians, French, and British, and those with “other” ethnicities (mainly those of European, Filipino, and Arab/West Asian origin). The Simpson index ranges between zero and one. The formula for calculating the Simpson Diversity Index (D) can be written as (D) = 1 − (∑(n/N)2) i = 1 where n is the number of members of an ethnic group, and N is the total population, within a given place, for x number of different ethnic groups. Works Cited
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Peters, Evelyn. 2001. “Geographies of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.” Canadian Geographer 45 (1): 138-44. Poulsen, Mike, Ron Johnston, and Jim Forrest. 2001. “Intraurban Ethnic Enclaves: Introducing a Knowledge-based Classification Method.” Environment and Plan ning A 33 (10): 2071-82. Robson, Garry, and Tim Butler. 2001. “Coming to Terms with London: Middle Class Communities in a Global City.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 25 (1): 75-86. Rose, Damaris. 1984. “Rethinking Gentrification: Beyond the Uneven Development of Marxist Urban Theory.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2 (1): 47-74. –. 1996. “Economic Restructuring and the Diversification of Gentrification in the 1980s: A View from a Marginal Metropolis.” In City Lives and City Forms: Critical Research and Canadian Urbanism, edited by J. Caulfield, and L. Peake, 131-72. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. –. 2004. “Discourses and Experiences of Social Mix in Gentrifying Neighbour hoods: A Montreal Case Study.” Canadian Journal of Urban Research 13 (2): 278-316. Shaw, Kate. 2005a. “Local Limits to Gentrification: Implications for a New Urban Policy.” In Gentrification in a Global Context: The New Urban Colonialism, edited by R. Atkinson and G. Bridge, 168-84. New York: Routledge. –. 2005b. “The Place of Alternative Culture and the Politics of Its Protection in Berlin, Amsterdam and Melbourne.” Planning Theory and Practice 6 (2): 151-70. Slater, Tom. 2004. “Municipally Managed Gentrification in South Parkdale, Toronto.” Canadian Geographer 48 (3): 303-25. –. 2006. “The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30 (4): 737-57. Smith, Heather. 2003. “Planning, Policy, and Polarization in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.” Tidjschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 94 (4): 496-509. Smith, Heather, and David Ley. 2008. “Even in Canada? The Multiscalar Construction and Experience of Concentrated Immigrant Poverty in Gateway Cities.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 98 (3): 656-713. Smith, Neil. 1987. “Gentrification and the Rent Gap.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77 (3): 462-65. –. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London: Routledge. –. 2002. “New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy.” Antipode 34 (3): 452-72. Statistics Canada. 1991. 1991 Census of Canada. Public Use Microsample Files. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. –. 2001. 2001 Census of Canada. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. –. 2006. 2006 Census of Canada. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Taylor, Peter, Gilda Catalano, and David Walker. 2002. “Measurement of the World City Network.” Urban Studies 39 (13): 2367-76.
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United Way of Greater Toronto. 2010. “Building Strong Neighbourhoods.” Toronto: United Way. http://www.uwgt.org/. Van Criekingen, Mathieu, and Jean-Michel Decroly. 2003. “Revisiting the Diversity of Gentrification: Neighbourhood Renewal Processes in Brussels and Montreal.” Urban Studies 40 (12): 2451-68. Walks, Alan. 2001. “The Social Ecology of the Post-Fordist/Global City? Economic Restructuring and Socio-spatial Polarization in the Toronto Urban Region.” Urban Studies 38 (3): 407-47. –. 2010. “New Divisions: Social Polarization and Neighbourhood Inequality in the Canadian City.” In Canadian Cities in Transition, 4th ed., edited by T.E. Bunting and P. Filion, 170-90. Oxford: Oxford University Press. –. 2011. “Economic Restructuring and Trajectories of Socio-spatial Polarization in the Twenty-First-Century Canadian City.” In Canadian Urban Regions: Trajec tories of Growth and Change, edited by L.S. Bourne, T. Hutton, R. Shearmur, and J. Simmons, 125-59. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Walks, Alan, and Martine August. 2008. “The Factors Inhibiting Gentrification in Areas with Little Non-market Housing: Policy Lessons from the Toronto Experi ence.” Urban Studies 45 (12): 2594-625. Walks, Alan, and Larry Bourne. 2006. “Ghettos in Canada’s Cities? Racial Segre gation, Ethnic Enclaves, and Poverty Concentration in Canadian Urban Areas.” Canadian Geographer 50 (3): 273-97. Walks, Alan, and Richard Maaranen. 2008a. “Gentrification, Social Mix, and Social Polarization: Testing the Linkages in Large Canadian Cities.” Urban Geography 29 (4): 293-326. –. 2008b. The Timing, Patterning and Forms of Gentrification and Neighbourhood Upgrading in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, 1961-2001. Toronto: University of Toronto, Centre for Urban and Community Studies. Wyly, Elvin, and Daniel Hammel. 1998. “Modeling the Context and Contingency of Gentrification.” Journal of Urban Affairs 20 (3): 303-26. –. 1999. “Islands of Decay in Seas of Renewal: Housing Policy and the Resurgence of Gentrification.” Housing Policy Debate 10 (4): 711-71. –. 2004. “Gentrification, Segregation, and Discrimination in the American Urban System. Environment and Planning A 36 (7): 1215-41. –. 2005. “Mapping Neo-liberal American Urbanism.” In Gentrification in a Global Context: The New Urban Colonialism, edited by R. Atkinson and G. Bridge, 18-38. London: Routledge.
Globalization, Immigration, and Ethnoburbs Wan Yu and Wei Li
Chapter
4
The United Nations (2011) reports that in 2010, 214 million people worldwide were living and working outside their countries of birth. An overwhelming majority of these migrants had settled in urban areas. For instance, in the mid-2000s, approximately 95 percent of all immigrants to Canada and the United States lived in urban areas including both inner cities and suburbs (Chui, Tran, and Maheux 2007; Singer 2008). In migrant-receiving countries, urban areas are at the forefront of the integration of international migrants. This trend has changed both the face and the structures of urban areas. Moreover, the range of migrant-receiving countries has broadened beyond those traditional “immigrant countries” such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. Rapid economic development has transformed some emigrant countries into immigrant-receiving countries where significant emigration and immigration are occurring simultaneously (Li and Teixeira 2007; Skeldon 2011). Newer forms of immigrant settlements have emerged due to the large scale and broad scope of the global circulation of goods, financial resources, information, and people. As such they have altered urban patterns in both the global North and South with urban segmentation occurring along racial-ethnic, economic, sociocultural, and spatial lines. Globalization and the increasing diversity of immigrants have prompted heated debates in traditional immigrant-receiving countries and newly emerging destination countries alike. One enduring debate revolves around
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the concentration of immigrants in specific neighbourhoods or cities, and whether such concentrations promote and facilitate, or undermine and hinder migrants’ social and economic integration. Such debates are often informed by academic research based on statistical and spatial data analyses. These studies, however, often fail to thoroughly examine the reasons for such concentrations, and therefore are unable to adequately explain the diverse landscape of immigrant settlement forms. Economic globalization has played a role in shaping migration flows, steering the movement of wealthy business immigrants with ample financial resources (Ley 2010), middle- and working-class migrants seeking better opportunities for themselves and their children, and unauthorized international migrants who often take on “3-D” (dirty, dangerous, and demeaning) jobs. Such diverse international migrant profiles are intricately connected to new types of immigrant settlements. Scholars have developed concepts to distinguish the wide range of suburban immigrant settlements. For instance, some settlements, such as ethno burbs, are spatially concentrated and socioeconomically and ethnically diverse (Li 1998); others are places of concentrated poverty in which affordable housing frequently provides the incentive for immigrants to settle (Smith and Ley 2008; also see Walks’s chapter in this volume). However, not all immigrants have settled in a concentrated way. In some places, the distribution patterns are more dispersed geographically but immigrants maintain connections and a common identity via social or cyber networks – what Zelinsky and Lee (1998) call heterolocalism, Skop and Li (2003) call invisiburbs, and Ling (2004) calls cultural communities. In these places, the absence of spatial concentration causes skilled immigrants to be largely invisible, at least along socioeconomic fault lines. Clearly, some immigrant concentrations are outcomes of immigrants’ greater spread of choices and financial and human capital; others are constrained by the availability of low-cost housing. In this chapter, we focus on the ethnoburb as a new form of immigrant concentration. We do so by exploring the terrain of new immigrant settlements in cities in the global South, comparing them with those in the global North. Drawing on the similarities between the examples of Chinese ethnoburbs in Los Angeles and Korean ethnoburbs in Beijing, we argue that the ethnoburb phenomenon is no longer limited to the global North but is also emerging in some world cities in the global South. We also discuss the causes behind the emergence of ethnoburbs, pointing to the importance of globalization and changing political economies, and actions taken by
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individuals and institutions. At the same time, we argue that ethnoburbs in turn reinforce the globalization process, including diversification of ethnolinguistic landscapes. Ethnoburbs as an Emerging Immigrant Urban Settlement Pattern
Ethnoburbs are a type of suburban settlement that emerged in the past several decades. According to Wei Li (1998, 482), who first coined the term, they are “suburban ethnic clusters of residential areas and business districts in large metropolitan areas … in which one ethnic minority group has a significant concentration, but does not necessarily comprise a majority.” In ethnoburbs, upward mobile ethnic minorities and immigrants have established suburban clusters instead of spatially dispersing among predominant group(s), as predicted by the influential spatial assimilation model (Alba et al. 1999; Massey 1985; Park 1926). Ethnoburbs are generated by factors from different geographical scales. At the global level, ethnoburbs emerged in the context of global labour market restructuring, the development of a globalizing economy, and geopolitical power shifts as well as transnational social networks. At the national level, ethnoburbs have been impacted by converging immigration policies across various countries since the 1960s. Examples within the United States include the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act that eliminated racial discrimination, the 1990 Immigration Act, and subsequent legislation that favoured capital investment and skilled professionals while curbing immigrants who are deemed a public burden. These policies have profoundly impacted the diversity of both migration flows and immigrant settlements. At the local level, state policies have provoked changes to local labour markets and to the sociocultural environment. The development of ethnoburbs has also been influenced by the characteristics of new immigrants who have the financial means to decide where they will live within a metropolitan area. The negative consequences for the integration of newcomers who reside in concentrated minority settlements are often emphasized in the public discourse. A closer look at the demographics of ethnoburbs, however, reveals that they are multiethnic and multilingual communities rather than monogroup concentrations. As such they are sources of spatial and social interaction among a variety of groups. In addition to diverse ethnic backgrounds, immigrants living in the same ethnoburb also have various socioeconomic characteristics representing the range from wealthy immigrants and middle-class professionals to working-class labourers. As business hubs,
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ethnoburbs not only provide jobs to new immigrants in traditional small mom-and-pop stores, but their ethnic-based economy is integrated into the mainstream and global economies. Such employment opportunities, however, do not always lead to upward mobility. Moreover, ethnoburbs are spatially and culturally mixed, containing diverse intertwining cultural elements from both origin and receiving countries (Li 2009). In short, somewhat paradoxically, ethnoburbs are the spatial outcome of both ethnic segmentation and integration. They can be distinguished from traditional ethnic settlements (urban ghettos and enclaves) by their spatial patterns as well as their ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural diversities. Ethnoburbs are also more interactive with receiving societies and more interconnected to the broader regional and global contexts. The literature on ethnoburbs in the global North is extensive, involving large cities and major immigrant gateways in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States (e.g., Forrest 2008; Friesen, Murphy, and Kearns 2005; Johnston, Poulsen, and Forrest 2008; Li 2006; Luk 2008; McGrath et al. 2005; Peach 2002). This chapter explores the new empirical terrain of ethnoburbs in the global South by comparing Beijing, China, with one of the United States’ first ethnoburbs in Los Angeles. The United States and China possess vastly different histories, cultures, political systems, and ideological beliefs. Moreover, the United States is a prototypical “immigrant country” whereas China, until recently, was primarily an emigrant country but is now considered an “emerging destination for economic migrants” (Skeldon 2011). This study, then, presents a comparison of ethnoburb formation in very different contexts in order to highlight the structural factors operating in ethnoburbs. The Evolving Chinese Ethnoburbs in San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles
The existing literature on ethnoburbs has documented in detail the spatial transformation of the Chinese community in Los Angeles, which involved a movement from downtown Chinatown to the city’s eastern suburb of San Gabriel Valley, starting at the City of Monterey Park in the valley’s western portion – a transformation that resulted from both Chinese American suburbanization processes and the influx of newer waves of diverse immigrants (Fong 1994; Li 2009; Monterey Park Historical Heritage Commission 1991). Prior to the 1960s, Monterey Park was known as “one of the whitest spots in Southern California” (Fong 1994, 18). It was also perceived as a liberal and minority-welcoming community, despite the fact that threats had been made against minority migrants (Li 2009). From the 1970s to the 2000s,
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Monterey Park witnessed a series of demographic changes, gradually becoming the first city in the mainland United States to have a majority Asian population (Fong 2002). By 2010, 47.7 percent of Monterey Park’s population self-identified as Chinese. The city of Monterey Park acts as both a “port of entry” for new migrants and a Chinese commercial cluster. Its demographic and commercial growth triggered an increase in the number of Chinese residents and businesses in adjacent cities such as Alhambra, Rosemead, and San Gabriel. Monterey Park and these adjacent suburban communities all share somewhat similar histories; taken together they comprise a high-density residential and commercial concentration of Chinese Americans in western San Gabriel Valley. For example, in 2010 there were 30,860 Chinese residents in the City of Alhambra, even more than in Monterey Park (28,759) (US Census Bureau 2010). The large influx of Chinese residents and businesses to western San Gabriel Valley triggered the landscape of these suburban communities to change significantly. Housing gradually transformed from dispersed singlefamily detached houses to compact condominiums and apartments, and housing prices have skyrocketed since the late twentieth century. Due to limited space for further residential and commercial growth in these inner Los Angeles suburbs, population growth in western San Gabriel Valley slowed drastically in the late 1990s in comparison to the eastern section of the valley. Starting in the 1980s, many upper- and middle-class Chinese moved beyond these established ethnoburbs in the western section of the valley to other parts of the valley that had lower population density and better living environments, such as Arcadia, Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, and San Marino. Arcadia and Rowland Heights, for example, are recognized as communities for middle- to upper-class Chinese who have settled more recently. Arcadia had 24,745 Chinese American residents in 2010, accounting for 43.9 percent of the city’s population at that time. Although the percentage of Chinese in Arcadia is similar to some of the western valley communities, its residential patterns are drastically different. Housing structures in Arcadia include many mansion-like single-family detached houses or “monster houses” (Li 1998). A similar spatial pattern exists in Rowland Heights. Located in the east San Gabriel Valley, Rowland Heights was a white-dominant middle-class suburb until the early 1980s when a large influx of Korean and Filipino migrants gradually transformed the community into an emerging ethnoburb. By 1990, one-third of the population was Asian American (Yu 2003). Following the settlement of Koreans and Filipinos, an increasing
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number of upper-middle-class Chinese families began to move into the area in the 1990s (Ho 2009) along with an economic agglomeration of hightech companies and transnational businesses in surrounding areas. Thus, with spacious housing blocks, upscale neighbourhoods with beautiful hilly landscapes, and more importantly, a diverse ethnic environment, Rowland Heights has witnessed a gradual concentration of Chinese residents. In 1990, Chinese residents constituted only 10.9 percent of the population in Rowland Heights but this jumped to 29.0 percent in 2000 and reached 38.0 percent in 2010. Alongside the existing Chinese population hubs of western San Gabriel Valley, the two emerging Chinese ethnoburbs of Arcadia and Rowland Heights have contributed to the prosperity and diversification of the San Gabriel Valley area. Chinese ethnoburbs in San Gabriel Valley function as Chinese communities in suburban Los Angeles and include commercial clusters. Significant differences exist, however, in the demographic characteristics and urban patterns of established and emerging ethnoburbs. For example, Monterey Park and Alhambra featured the highest percentage of Chinese in San Gabriel Valley in 1990, whereas other ethnoburbs in the valley had much lower percentages. However, by 2000 the percentage of Chinese American residents in Arcadia and Rowland Heights was much closer to that in Monterey Park. Ethnic diversity remains a key feature in each: Rowland Heights, housing a large number of Korean residents, functions as a Korean residential hub in the valley. Table 4.1 demonstrates that the four ethnoburban communities still contain diverse population groups. Another east San Gabriel Valley community, Hacienda Heights, is known for the largest Buddhist temple in North America – Coming West Temple, the existence of which reflects the tradition and expansion of Chinese Buddhism. A total of twenty churches are also located in Hacienda Heights, which represents a large Christian religious group. The coexistence of Chinese Buddhism and Christianity in the same suburban landscape demonstrates the cultural and religious diversity of this ethnoburb. Most upper- and middle-class Chinese professionals prefer to reside in newly emerged suburbs, such as Hacienda Heights and Rowland Heights, with their lower residential density and better living environments. However, many working-class and elderly Chinese still live in well-established ethnoburbs, such as Monterey Park and Alhambra, which have lower housing costs, cultural/linguistic familiarity, and more convenient ethnic services. In summary, ethnoburbs in San Gabriel Valley generally emerged and were developed by Chinese immigrants who struggle to achieve social and
Note: In the table, the Chinese category includes Taiwanese. Source: Population data in 1990, 2000, and 2010 comes from US Decennial Census Summary File 1.
0.2 3.5 3.0 0.2 4.2 3.6 0.2 3.6 3.0 0.2 4.3 3.2
31.3 27.3 25.3 36.1 33.3 32.3 10.7 9.8 11.1 29.7 26.6 25.4
Hispanic or Latino
Others
0.1 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.0 0.3 0.3 0.1
Pacific Islander
19.7 20.2 18.6 11.4 13.8 15.3 8.2 11.3 15.0 17.1 21.1 21.5
0.2 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.1
American Indian and Alaska Native
Other Asian
0.5 0.3 0.3 1.8 1.5 1.3 0.7 1.1 1.1 4.8 2.4 1.4
Black
36.2 41.2 47.7 25.9 33.1 37.1 14.9 34.0 43.9 10.9 29.0 38.0
11.7 7.3 5.0 24.3 13.8 10.0 65.0 40.1 25.7 36.7 16.3 10.3
White
Chinese
1990 2000 2010 1990 2000 2010 1990 2000 2010 1990 2000 2010
Rowland Heights CDP
Monterey Park City Alhambra City Arcadia City
Racial composition of four ethnoburbs in the San Gabriel Valley, 1990, 2000, and 2010 (percentages)
TABLE 4.1
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economic integration. Demographic diversity and socioeconomic differences, however, are increasingly reflected in the internal spatial segmentations among Chinese ethnoburbs in the valley, with economically well-off immigrants moving to more dispersed, diverse, and better neighbourhoods, leaving elderly and working-class immigrants in older, more established, and compacted inner suburbs. The Emerging Korean Ethnoburb in Wangjing District, Beijing
With ample literature on ethnoburbs in the global North, the question remains: given that some developing countries have also initiated policies to attract skilled international migrants, should we expect similar settlements in such countries? Our preliminary examination indicates a positive answer. Ethnoburbs have indeed emerged in some developing countries. Here we use Koreans in a Beijing suburb as an example. Although foreignborn residents still comprise a small percentage of China’s population, the UN estimated their raw numbers were more than 685,000 in mid-2010 (UN 2009). Amid the Chinese economic reform, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea in 1992, many South Koreans immigrated to China seeking business and educational opportunities. By 2002, South Korean migrants in China had exceeded 130,000, and, by 2007, that number reportedly reached 700,000 (He 2008). Due to the global economic downturn and devaluation of the South Korean currency, the total number of Korean migrants in China had dropped to 433,000 by 2008, but then experienced a slight increase again in 2009 (Jiang and Chen 2010). Most Korean migrants reside in Chinese urban areas, especially along the east coast. Beijing has hosted the greatest number – housing approximately one-quarter of all Korean residents in China (Jiang and Chen 2010, 80). Within Beijing, a large number of Koreans have settled in Wangjing District. Wangjing (meaning “looking at Beijing”) had been a rural area with farmland and agricultural villages in the city’s northeast suburb. In 1994, the Beijing government implemented a General Plan to transform this area into a residential, industrial, and goods distribution centre. It established a new town with an expected population of between 280,000 and 300,000. A second major government policy was introduced in 2002, as Wangjing faced the need to accommodate more domestic and foreign residents than the 1994 General Plan had projected. The revised plan converted properties designated as transportation use into residential areas to
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accommodate population growth. The large-scale infrastructure construction in Wangjing by the Beijing government in 2004 further promoted residential and commercial concentration (Xu 2004). In 2010, Beijing’s Twelfth Five-Year Plan marked Wangjing as the second Central Business District of the city, significantly attracting more businesses into the area (Sun and Wang 2012). Therefore, local government policies and actions further contributed to the development and population concentration in Wangjing. Since the late 1990s, the Wangjing District has been known in Beijing as “Koreatown” (Kim 2003). Korean migrants first settled in the district in 1999 when, as a result of the 1997 economic crisis, many Koreans who had resided in Beijing’s Central Business District could no longer afford the high housing prices. Although housing prices in Wangjing were relatively low, an important trigger of Korean migration to the suburb was Chinese prime minister Zhu Rongji’s 1999 declaration that Wangjing was a “decent place to live” (Li 1999). Another important factor was its proximity to the Beijing International Airport, the future Olympic Park site, and the commercial cluster of Yansha, as well as the availability of new housing. Migration flow accelerated after 2003 when the district officially welcomed foreign residents and a new commuter light rail service became available in Wangjing District. In 2004, the Association of Koreans in Beijing emerged in this district, an indication of a significant concentration of ethnic Koreans in this suburban area. By 2007, the seventy thousand ethnic Korean residents accounted for approximately 23.3 percent of Wangjing’s population (Zheng and Zhang 2008). Ethnic entrepreneurs, college students, and skilled workers comprise the majority of Wangjing’s Korean residents. Korean entrepreneurs in Wangjing opened mainly small businesses, such as retail stores and restaurants, which agglomerate in the northern and western part of the district. Korean student migrants generally study in higher education institutions in Beijing, such as the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing Language and Culture University, and Beijing Institute of Economic Management. Many Korean skilled workers in Wangjing work for Korean transnational corporations that have regional offices or factories in China, such as LG (He 2008). The three types of Koreans in China – entrepreneurs, students, and skilled workers – are primarily middle- or uppermiddle-class migrants. They have contributed to housing price increases in recent years. In 2006, housing in Wangjing averaged 6,000 RMB (roughly US $750) per square metre. Two years later, in 2008, the average price of a house was 15,000 RMB (almost US $1,900) per square metre (Cai 2005).
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Ethnic Koreans in Wangjing are dispersed throughout the district. Prior to 2002, Koreans were largely concentrated in the neighbourhoods of Huajiadi and Nanhudongyuan. Following the construction of the third and fourth subdistricts of Wangjing Xiyuan, Koreans have gradually moved to these new communities (Zhu 2009). Korean newcomers are now spatially mixed with the majority Han Chinese in Wangjing, demonstrating that Korean migrant settlement accords to that of a multiethnic and spatially integrated ethnoburb. Korean businesses also sprang up in Wangjing District after 2000, primarily in the service sector. By 2007, there were more than five hundred Korean businesses in Wangjing District, according to the Association of Koreans in China (Li 2007). The emergence of Korean businesses in Wang jing was triggered by two forces. First, the Korean population called for Korean entrepreneurs to open businesses to meet market demand. Many Korean businesses post Korean-language-only signs, indicating they mainly serve Korean customers. Although the foreign language signs cause some confusion and public concern on the part of Chinese residents (Ma 2008), these businesses offer work opportunities for Koreans who lack Mandarin Chinese language abilities. The second factor explaining the concentration of Korean businesses in Wangjing is its convenient accessibility for adjacent Korean populations. The approximately thirty thousand Korean students studying at various Beijing universities mostly concentrate in the Wudaokou area, approximately nine miles or a few light rail stops from Wangjing. Because the Wudaokou area is primarily an agglomeration of universities rather than a major commercial area, many Korean students patronize coethnic businesses in surrounding areas such as the Wangjing District. The increasing residential and commercial influx of Korean migrants has drawn the attention of the local government, causing it to recognize this population’s needs and to implement policies to facilitate their migration. For example, the Nanhu Police Station in the Wangjing District has five ethnic Korean police officers with a bilingual background to assist South Korean residents of the area (Ma 2008). Moreover, the Wangjing Subdistrict Office was considering installing trilingual street signs, in Chinese, Korean, and English, throughout Wangjing District to promote a more global and international appeal (Zhao 2004). This migration flow, however, has declined during the 2008-9 global economic downturn. Due to the drastic devaluation of the Korean won, many Korean entrepreneurs and students could not afford to stay in Beijing;
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more than twenty-five thousand Koreans in Wangjing returned to South Korea in 2008 or 2009. Moreover, many Koreans who stayed could not afford the high Wangjing housing prices, which led many families to move to communities farther away (e.g., Tiantongyuan) where housing prices were lower. An increasing number of Korean businesses also moved out of Wangjing to adjacent areas such as Shaoyaoju, Jiuxianqiao, and Laiguang ying (Zheng 2008). These commercial districts are close to Wangjing, which enables these businesses to keep their previous customers while paying much lower rents. Thus, there is an emerging out-migration of South Korean residents and businesses from Wangjing to adjacent communities or back to South Korea. Wangjing District is a Korean ethnoburb in a developing country. First, it is a suburban ethnic settlement that differs from the inner city and is part of the emerging and evolving urban segmentation in Beijing. The initial South Korean residents there experienced a suburbanization process in their movement out of Beijing’s inner city. The Wangjing District was not formed as a result of an unfriendly receiving society; instead, it was established through Korean migrants’ self-preferences and choices – to seek lower housing prices, a convenient geographical location, and a better living environment. Second, Wangjing District is a spatial mosaic of ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural diversity. Wangjing is a multiethnic residential cluster. Although Wangjing is known in Beijing as “Koreatown,” the majority of its population is still Han Chinese (People’s Congress Standing Committee of Chaoyang District 2008). As noted, Korean residents in Wangjing are integrated with rather than segregated from the Chinese. The socioeconomic profile of this area also varies (Department of Statistics of Chaoyang District 2009). Wangjing functions not merely as a residential concentration but also as a business agglomeration, thus qualifying as an ethnoburb. Third, the Wangjing District is not an isolated ethnic area but is highly interconnected and integrated into the global, regional, and local contexts. The global economic downturn that triggered the Korean currency crisis and prompted many residents of the Wangjing District to return to Korea is an example of this interconnectedness. Comparing Ethnoburbs in the Global North and South
Despite different institutional and contextual factors, the San Gabriel Valley and the Wangjing District both saw the emergence of ethnoburbs. The similarities and differences between these two cases, as shown in Table 4.2, may
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TABLE 4.2 Comparison of San Gabriel Valley and Wangjing ethnoburbs Factors
San Gabriel Valley
Wangjing
Characteristics Demography Migrants’ demographical Diverse demographic Simple demographic characteristics characteristics composition Socioeconomic Migrants span across the Relatively high socio status whole socioeconomic economic status spectrum Main migrant types Migrants of various Mainly student migrants, kinds investment migrants, skilled workers, and family members Economy Business types Both public and private Mainly small businesses sectors in private sector, or large transnational corporations Connection to the global economy
Highly connected and subjected to the global economic changes
Spatiality Population density Relatively denser than Similar to other suburban other suburban communities communities Size Largest suburban Chinese One of the largest concentration in the international migrant United States concentrations in Beijing Urban patterns Somewhat segmented Spatially integrated to the mainstream Function Functions in the region
Function as residential, commercial, and cultural centre of co-ethnic group in the region
Ethnoburban functions Matured ethnoburb with Emerging ethnoburb internal diversity ▶
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◀ TABLE 4.2
Factors
San Gabriel Valley
Wangjing
Formation dynamics Global level Global labour market Located in the U.S. where Located in China where restructuring labour market requires economy attracts foreign skilled and wealthy investment migrants Geopolitics Transnational social network
Strong economic and strategic relationship between sending and receiving countries Strong transnational ties with home country
National level Immigration policies Recruiting skilled and Emerging immigration wealthy immigrants, policies favouring invest and emphasizing family ors and skilled migrants reunification with some administrative restrictions Immigration history Long history of immi- Not a traditional gration and settlements immigrant-receiving country Local level Local policies Relatively supportive Used to have high policies toward restrictions on where immigrants migrants could live, but now with more relaxed policies on migrant settlements Local labour market Requires a diverse work- Difficult for international force, from low- to migrants to access high-skilled local labour market, especially in public sector Sociocultural environment
Overall ethnically and socioculturally diverse
Geographical settings Pre-existing urban Long history of suburban Relatively recent minority settlement settlements by minor- suburbanization ities and immigrants
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be shared with other emerging or future ethnoburbs in global North or global South cities. To better understand the underlying dynamics that led to the emergence and the resulting characteristics of those two ethnoburbs, we compare and contrast some key features of each, then revisit the shared contexts among global North and South countries. Characteristics Demographically, both ethnoburbs represent suburban multiethnic settlements. They are a result of initial suburbanization processes – experienced by the Chinese in LA (Fong 1994; Li 2009) and by the Koreans in Beijing – albeit about half a century apart. Both ethnoburbs involve an international migrant group entering into a dominant group settlement area, of white Americans and Han Chinese respectively, and gradually changing local demographic patterns. Both ethnoburbs have the largest concentrations of co-ethnic residents and businesses in their respective metropolitan areas, if not the country. Neither area, however, is dominated by a particular migrant group but is mixed with other population groups. One key difference involves the United States’ position as one of the prime immigrant-receiving countries in the world, whereas China has served as an emerging migrantreceiving country only in the past two decades. As such, the San Gabriel Valley is the home of more diverse ethnic groups (Table 4.2), whereas the Wangjing District primarily houses Han Chinese and ethnic Koreans. In Wangjing, the absence of lower-skilled and working-class Korean migrants is strongly connected to the local labour market: Beijing provides abundant numbers of working-class Chinese workers so that the local job market is not open to low-skilled Korean migrants. Thus, compared with the full socioeconomic spectrum of Chinese immigrants in the San Gabriel Valley, Korean residents in Wangjing are largely middle-or upper-class migrants who do not need to rely on the local low-skill job market to live. Despite differential origins, contexts, and population compositions, both San Gabriel Valley and Wangjing represent voluntarily concentrated suburban migrant settlements highly economically connected to their sending countries as well as to the global economy. Both have a thriving ethnic economy, mirrored by the high concentrations of small businesses in these ethnoburbs. Compared to Wangjing, San Gabriel Valley exhibits a more diverse and vibrant ethnic economy, with small ethnic business alongside chain supermarkets and professional service offices. Diverse Chinese immigrants fill occupations across the spectrum of the job market. The valley
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economy, both mainstream and Chinese ethnic, is an integral part of both the United States and global economies, housing a prominent international trade sector (Li 2009). Due to the overwhelming representation of transnational entrepreneurs, student migrants, and skilled workers, the economic character of Wangjing ethnoburbs is relatively simple, mainly represented by small businesses in the private sector and large transnational corporations. Many small Korean businesses primarily serve co-ethnics, but they also cater to the increasingly diverse demands and tastes of local Beijingers due to Chinese economic development and wealth accumulation (Zhu 2009). Moreover, in both cases, the influx of immigrants has prompted a surge in housing prices, which signifies the wealth possessed by these newcomers. The San Gabriel Valley ethnoburb is the largest concentration of suburban Chinese in the United States (Liu and Lin 2009) in terms of both ethnic population density and size, spanning almost the entire LA east suburb. The Wangjing ethnoburb is much more geographically compact with a higher population density and a much smaller immigrant population than that of San Gabriel Valley. Its recent pace of population growth, however, is unprecedented in China (having multiplied by five times from its initial size over five years). Moreover, by 2007, Korean migrants in the Wangjing ethnoburb comprised more than 10 percent of the total population of foreign-born Koreans in China, which indicates its importance among Korean migrants in China. Both the San Gabriel Valley and Wang jing ethnoburbs are suburban communities with open, welcoming environments for international migrants: the San Gabriel Valley has become one of the most diverse suburban areas in the United States, and Wangjing is geographically close to other ethnic settlements in Beijing, including the Yansha communities (where most German migrants concentrate) and Yayuncun, where many other European migrants live (He 2008). This culturally open and ethnically diverse environment provides a secure and friendly sphere for immigrants to concentrate and for their communities to thrive. In both the American and Chinese examples, the imprints of ethnoburban migrants on local cultural and political landscapes are indisputable. Migrant groups’ political clout has also increased over time through grassroots mobilization and participation. In San Gabriel Valley, for instance, former Monterey Park mayor, Dr. Judy Chu, is currently the first Chinese American woman to be elected to Congress and represents west San Gabriel Valley. Furthermore, San Gabriel Valley epitomizes a mature ethnoburb of
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internal diversity demographically, socioeconomically, and spatially, while intricately interacting with and integrated into the receiving society and communities. It continuously changes over time and spreads across space. Wangjing District showcases the changing nature of urban areas in the global South – emerging economic powerhouses that emigrants migrate out of and international migrants move and settle into. Formation Dynamics At the global level, both ethnoburbs developed in the context of a globalizing world economy and the restructuring of the international labour market. Strong economic and strategic relationships between sending and receiving countries were also important. The 1990s were marked by accelerated economic globalization, including the formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization and an evolving international division of labour. These developments entailed economic restructuring in Western countries in which multinational corporations increasingly set up operations in developing countries to reduce labour costs and capture shares in emerging markets. The United States Commerce Department reports that United States companies added 2.4 million overseas employees and shed 2.9 million domestic workers between 1999 to 2009 (Lee 2011). Such economic trends contributed to the decline of manufacturing jobs in Western countries such as the United States; at the same time, knowledge-based sectors flourished in urban areas that demand both high- and low-skilled workers (Sassen 2002). Such globalization trends also contributed to the tremendous economic growth, increasing wealth, and growing middle-class populations in countries of the global South. The prime examples are “newly industrialized countries/NICs” (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) as well as China and India. Globaliza tion has contributed to further population bifurcation, generating both billionaires and landless peasants, both of whom can be potential emigrants. Geopolitics has played an important role as well. As the world’s two largest economies, and each with important global geopolitical influences, the United States and China have a highly interconnected economic and strategic relationship that facilitates the binational exchange of goods, information, finance, and population as well as transnational immigrant connections. Li (2009) documents the impacts of key geopolitical events in San Gabriel Valley ethnoburban development since the 1970s, including the changing Sino-United States relationship, the return of Hong Kong to the rule of the People’s Republic of China, and the Vietnam War. The 1990s witnessed
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some important events inside China: in 1992, the late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited Southern China’s Special Economic Zones and reiterated the country’s commitment to an open economy in an attempt to break through the economic stagnation and political uncertainty following what is known in the West as the 1989 Tiananmen Square Crackdown. In the same year, China and South Korea established a diplomatic relationship that helped propel bilateral trade between the two countries. South Korean transnational firms established branch companies inside China to manage manufacturing, merchandise flow, and marketing, and sent managerial personnel to staff these operations. Many of them, such as LG and SK, chose Beijing for its political and economic importance. These South Korean intra-company transnationals were followed by other employees and students from South Korea. Once established, their efforts to be united with family resulted in chain migration. A relatively relaxed national, political, and social environment in relation to certain immigrants and their settlement has been imperative in the emergence of ethnoburbs. Despite its status as a country of immigrants, the United States had historically instituted policies that excluded or restricted non-European immigrants until 1965 when it abandoned such racially discriminatory policies. Since 1990, the United States has implemented numerous immigration policies in favour of wealthy and/or skilled international migrants (Park and Park 2005). Chinese migrants have been one of the key beneficiaries of such policies; almost 64 percent of Chinese-born people living in the United States in 2006 had migrated since the 1990s, with almost 29 percent migrating in the 2000s alone (Li and Lo 2012, Table 2). On the other hand, China has only recently transformed itself into an emerging immigrant-receiving country with limited scope (Skeldon 2011). Korean migration to Northeast China that resulted from the Japanese rule of Korea in the earlier twentieth century ended decades ago. Ethnic Koreans became one of the fifty-five officially recognized ethnic minorities in China after 1949. The Chinese Communist Party strongly promotes a Chinese nationalism that claims to include all fifty-six ethnic groups while prohibiting any separation movement by ethnic minorities. Moreover, Chinese mainstream ideology encourages cultural assimilation of ethnic minorities, facilitating ethnic minority assimilation into the Han culture (Kim 2003). As a result, ethnic Koreans in China are bicultural (Chinese and Korean) and bilingual (Korean and Mandarin Chinese). China’s open door policy and economic reform since the late 1970s enabled ethnic Koreans in rural areas to migrate freely to urban areas to seek job opportunities, and more relaxed
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international migration policies allowed foreigners to reside in the nation. These national policies on ethnic minorities and international migration had and continue to have considerable impacts on the emergence and development of the Korean ethnoburb in Wangjing. Municipal policies and local labour markets are also highly influential in determining the socioeconomic profiles of the migrants attracted to populate ethnoburbs. Hence, one needs to recognize the importance of local sociocultural environments in creating ethnoburban settlements. The emergence of the first Chinese American ethnoburb – Monterey Park – is in part due to municipal policies that promote multicultural services (Li 2009) as well as the level of ethnic diversity in LA in general. Similar conditions also exist in Wangjing. The Beijing government’s lifting of restrictions against foreign residents in the late 1990s was one crucial factor for the emergence of the Wangjing ethnoburb. Moreover, the large local market of Beijing not only provides a customer base for Korean ethnic businesses but also provides low-cost labour for Korean transnational businesses. Thus, local contexts formed by municipal policies and local markets have also shaped the dynamics of ethnoburb development in our two cases. Conclusion: Globalization and the Emergence of Ethnoburbs
The relationship between globalization and the development of immigrant settlement forms is not unidirectional. On the one hand, globalization has contributed to the restructuring of the global political economy and geopolitics, which consequently influence immigrant demographics, the local labour market, and governmental policies in global, regional, and local contexts. On the other hand, the development of contemporary immigrant settlements contributes to international migrant flows by accommodating more immigrants from diverse backgrounds and reinforcing changing global labour markets and international power relations. Having emerged in the changing world economy, immigrant settlements and their sustainability are highly influenced by globalization effects. Globalization not only contributes to the formation of these settlements but also influences their ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural elements. Globalization and resulting political economy affect the structure of economic sectors in both migrant sending and receiving countries as well as their labour markets by facilitating free trade among countries and the growth and dominance of transnational corporations. Globalization triggers increasing polarization of populations and income disparities within and across nation-states. Classic
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migration theory contends that the key reasons for international migration are wage disparities between countries and the willingness of individuals to seek better opportunities in receiving countries. By enhancing wage differentiations and reducing the cost of transnational migration, globalization facilitates international migration. The increasing influx of immigrant newcomers to urban areas also prompts well-established ethnic minorities to settle in suburban areas, thus creating ethnoburbs. Globalization makes international migrants and businesses more vulnerable to global change both economically and politically. Wangjing, similar to San Gabriel Valley, is largely connected to the political economic forces at a broader scale. The devaluation of the Korean won due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-9 economic downturn resulted in a decline in the Wangjing ethnoburb’s Korean population, whereas international relations (both political and commercial) between China and Korea helped the emergence and development of Wangjing. Globalization also impacts the ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural dynamics of immigrant settlements. The changing dynamics of the globalizing world economy and geopolitics further influences governmental policies toward immigration as well as local labour markets. Consequently, the demographic compositions of residents who live in those settlements also change, which alters the ethnolinguistic patterns in local areas. Thus, globalization can impact the development of immigrant settlement by affecting their ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural elements. Ethnoburbs, in turn, reinforce globalization processes by constructing transnational ties of economic connection and social-family networks. Because ethnoburbs are socially more integrated with mainstream society and economically more open to the global situation, ethnoburb residents engage in more social and economic activities with receiving societies as well as with their home countries. The social and economic linkages encourage more transnational interactions, stimulating trade between migrant origin and destination countries, inspiring migration flows through social and family networks, and facilitating more cross-cultural communication, altogether accelerating globalization. The development of these settlements also reshapes the global migration landscape. As depicted in literature on transnationalism, prospering immigrant settlements not only accommodate more immigrants in the suburbs but also strengthen immigrant social networks between sending and receiving countries (Allon and Anderson 2010; Friesen, Murphy, and Kearns 2005; Ley and Kobayashi 2005). The
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growth of immigrant social networks further stimulates greater international migration flows. In addition, extensive economic interaction between ethnoburbs and immigrants’ home countries enables the existence of transnational families, such as “astronaut families” in which one family member works in the origin country, shuttling between it and other members who live in the receiving country, and “parachute kids” who live overseas while the parents reside for the most part in the origin country (Li 2005). These new types of migrants introduce new elements to the international migration landscape. The two ethnoburbs explored in this chapter reflect different suburban immigrant experiences; the San Gabriel Valley is a long-established prototypical American suburb in LA, whereas Wangjing has transitioned from an area of rural villages in the 1980s to a Beijing suburb. The emergence of the Wangjing ethnoburb in the global South, in the absence of large-scale pre-existing immigration flows, is the outcome of recent globalization trends and changing political economic forces that favour transnational migration. Finding similar ethnoburban landscapes in both global South and global North signifies the importance of globalization in shaping both global migration dynamics and local landscapes, and in terms of promoting economic interactions and connections across national boundaries. Without these global political and economic contexts, the emergence of ethnoburbs would be unimaginable. While providing newcomers with numerous opportunities, these ethnoburbs face some similar challenges. In both areas, public concerns arise from majority groups. White Americans in the San Gabriel Valley and Han Chinese in Wangjing have complained that the newcomers keep their own respective language and culture, congregate among themselves, and are not fully integrated into mainstream society (Fong 1994; Ma 2008). In both ethnoburbs, these debates and concerns are still unfolding and have much in common with classic debates on immigrant settlements. Do concentrated immigrant communities become towns within towns, cities within cities, and as such hinder migrants’ integration into the receiving society? In the context of the themes in this volume, do such ethnoburbs contribute to urban segmentation or facilitate immigrant integration? On the surface and in the short term, both the San Gabriel Valley and Wangjing ethnoburban experiences appear to result in segmentation. At the same time, however, prominent immigrant or minority neighbourhoods are often marketed by local government and tourist agencies as tourist attractions, especially by those cities attempting to portray themselves as cosmopolitan and
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diverse. In these cases, urban segmentation is utilized to portray a positive image of these cities. In the long run, ethnoburbs can serve as springboards for immigrant integration. Immigrants often live close to each other and bond together through familial or ethnic ties, compensating for lack of familiarity with the new country and its dominant language (Dunn 1998; 2003). Ethnoburbs, as well as urban enclaves, provide opportunities for newcomers to find housing and jobs to support themselves and their families. Once they feel at home through improved language skills and mainstream job opportunities, some choose to move to other neighbourhoods whereas others stay. How well ethnoburbs can maintain the above functions will depend on mutual understanding and mutually beneficial actions by newcomers and old timers alike, as well as proper policy interventions aimed at building a just society that benefits all residents. In this sense, “ethnic harmony” is more of a stated goal, as diversifying ethnolinguistic configuration itself per se neither promotes nor hinders such desired harmony. Given the persistence of global economic disparities and the related intensification of international migration, the forms of migrant settlement discussed in our chapter are likely to endure and proliferate. As we have pointed out, ethnoburbs are increasingly a feature of both established immigration countries and newly emerging economic powerhouses in the world. Yet the existing literature is largely focused on the former and much less so on the latter. It is therefore imperative for social science research on international migration to further explore the dynamics, functions, and meanings of the emergence of concentrated immigrant settlements in suburbs in a broader range of locales – treating international migration and its consequences in a truly global manner. A combination of cross-national and distinctively transnational research on the shifting contours of immigrant settlement patterns will enhance our understanding of contemporary forms of migrant settlements and, in so doing, possibly bring us closer to achieving the United Nations’ goal to make international migration a benefit for migrants and migrant sending and receiving countries alike (United Nations 2009). Works Cited
Alba, Richard D., John R. Logan, Brian Stults, Gilbert Marzan, and Wenquan Zhang. 1999. “Immigrant Groups in the Suburbs: A Reexamination of Suburbanization and Spatial Assimilation.” American Sociological Review 64 (3): 446-60.
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Allon, Fiona, and Kay Anderson. 2010. “Intimate Encounters: The Embodied Transnationalism of Backpackers and Independent Travellers.” Population, Space and Place 16 (1): 11-22. Cai, Xuejing. 2005. “The Reduced Price Housings Are Highly Welcomed in on the Market, Housing Price in Wangjing Will Reach above 10,000 RMB.” Xinhua Daily, 29 December. http://news.xinhuanet.com/house/2005-12/29/content_3984908. htm. Chui, Tina W.L., Kelly Tran, and Helene Maheux. 2007. Immigration in Canada: A Portrait of the Foreign-born Population, 2006 Census: Findings. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Department of Statistics of Chaoyang District. 2009. Annual Domestic Economic and Social Development Statistical Report. Beijing, China. http://www.bjchy.gov.cn/. Dunn, Kevin M. 1998. “Rethinking Ethnic Concentration: The Case of Cabramatta, Sydney.” Urban Studies 35 (3): 503-27. –. 2003. “Using Cultural Geography to Engage Contested Constructions of Ethnicity and Citizenship in Sydney.” Social and Cultural Geography 4 (2): 153-65. Fong, Timothy P. 1994. The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of Monterey Park, California. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. –. 2002. The Contemporary Asian American Experience: Beyond the Model Minority, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Forrest, James. 2008. “Race, Ethnicity and Place in America and Pacific Rim Coun tries.” Australian Geographer 39 (1): 99-105. Friesen, Wardlow, Laurence Murphy, and Robin Kearns. 2005. “Spiced-up Sandring ham: Indian Transnationalism and New Suburban Spaces in Auckland, New Zealand.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 31 (2): 385-401. He, Bo. 2008. “The Characteristics and Integration of Korean Settlements in Beijing: Using Wangjing ‘Korean Town’ as an Example.” Urban Problems (10): 59-64. Ho, Catherine. 2009. “Rowland Heights Tries Again for Cityhood.” Los Angeles Times, 8 January. http://articles.latimes.com/. Jiang, Lei, and Yong Chen. 2010. “Comparative Analysis of Migration Features between North Korean and South Korean.” Journal of Haerbin Institute of Technology 12 (1): 77-83. Johnston, Ron, Michael Poulsen, and James Forrest. 2008. “Asians, Pacific Island ers and Ethnoburbs in Auckland, New Zealand.” Geographical Review 98 (2): 214-41. Kim, Si Joong. 2003. “The Economic Status and Role of Ethnic Koreans in China.” In The Korean Diaspora in the World Economy, edited by C. Fred Bergsten, 101-27. Washington DC: Peterson Institute. Lee, Don. 2011. “U.S. Recovery Leaves Jobs Behind.” Bay Area News Group, June 5. Ley, David. 2010. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley and Sons. Ley, David, and Audrey Kobayashi. 2005. “Back to Hong Kong: Return Migration or Transnational Sojourn?” Global Networks 5 (2): 111-27. Li, Anding. 1999. “Prime Minister Zhu Rongji Observed the Urban Development of Beijing and Its Environmental Administration, Admired the New Face of Beijing,
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and Hopes to Reinforce the Effort on Administrating Environmental Pollution.” People’s Daily, 29 September. http://www.people.com.cn/. Li, Mingzhen. 2007. “Koreans’ ‘Place’: Little Korea in Wangjing, China.” ChosunIlbo. Special Issue for 15th Anniversary of the Foundation of Diplomatic Relation Between South Korea and China, 22 August. http://chn.chosun.com/. Li, Wei. 1998. “Anatomy of a New Ethnic Settlement: The Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles.” Urban Studies 35 (3): 479-501. –. 2005. “Beyond Chinatown, Beyond Enclave: Reconceptualizing Contemporary Chinese Settlements in the United States.” GeoJournal 64 (1): 31-40. –. 2009. Ethnoburb: The New Ethnic Community in Urban America. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Li, Wei, ed. 2006. From Urban Enclave to Ethnic Suburb: New Asian Communities in Pacific Rim Countries. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Li, Wei, and Lucia Lo. 2012. “New geographies of migration? A Canada-US com parison of highly skilled Chinese and Indian migration.” Journal of Asian American Studies 15 (1): 1-34. Li, Wei, and Carlos Teixeira. 2007. “Immigrants and Transnational Experiences in World Cities.” GeoJournal 68 (2-3): 93-102. Ling, Huping. 2004. Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community. Phila delphia, PA: Temple University Press. Liu, Haiming, and Lianlian Lin. 2009. “Food, Culinary Identity, and Transnational Culture: Chinese Restaurant Business in Southern California.” Journal of Asian American Studies 12 (2): 135-62. Lo, Lucia, and Wei Li. 2011. “Economic Experience of Immigrants.” In Immigrant Geographies of North American Cities, edited by Carlos Teixeira, Wei Li, and Audrey Kobayashi, 112-37. Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press. Luk, Wai-ki E. 2008. Chinatown in Britain: Diffusions and Concentrations of the British New Wave Chinese Immigration. London: Cambria Press. Ma, Xiaoyan. 2008. “The Conflicts and Harmony of Multi-culture in Immigrant Community – The Study of Wangjing ‘Korean Town’ of Beijing.” Journal of China Agricultural University 25 (4): 118-26. Massey, Douglas S. 1985. “Ethnic Residential Segregation: A Theoretical Synthesis and Empirical Review.” Sociology and Social Research 69 (3): 315-50. McGrath, Terry, Andrew Butcher, John Pickering, and Hilary Smith. 2005. “Engaging Asian Communities in New Zealand.” Report for the Asia New Zealand Foun dation. Wellington: Asia New Zealand Foundation. Monterey Park Historical Heritage Commission. 1991. Monterey Park Oral History Project, Interview Transcripts with John Yee and Chiling Tong. Bruggemeyer Memorial Library, Monterey Park, California. Park, Robert E. 1926. “The Urban Community as a Spatial Pattern and a Moral Order.” In The Urban Community, edited by Ernest W. Burgess, 3-18. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Park, Edward, and John Park. 2005. Probationary Americans: Contemporary Immi gration Policies and the Shaping of Asian American Communities. New York: Routledge.
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Peach, Ceri. 2002. “Social Geography: New Religions and Ethnoburbs – Contrasts with Cultural Geography.” Progress in Human Geography 26 (2): 252-60. People’s Congress Standing Committee of Chaoyang District. 2008. “Wangjing District Is Exploring Methods to Administrate Foreign Population.” Beijing, China. http://chyrd.bjchy.gov.cn/. Sassen, Saskia, ed. 2002. Global Networks, Linked Cities. New York: Routledge. Singer, Audrey. 2008. “Twenty-first Century Gateways: An Introduction.” In Twentyfirst Century Immigrant Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America, edited by Audrey Singer, Susan W. Hardwick, and Caroline B. Bretell, 3-30. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Skeldon, Ronald. 2011. “China: An Emerging Destination for Economic Migration.” Migration Policy Institute Country Profiles. http://www.migrationinformation. org/. Skop, Emily, and Wei Li. 2003. “From the Ghetto to the Invisiburb: Shifting Patterns of Immigrant Settlement in Contemporary America.” In Multi-Cultural Geog raphies: Persistence and Change in U.S. Racial/Ethnic Geography, edited by John W. Frazier and Florence M. Margai, 113-24. Binghamton, NY: Global Academic Publishing. Smith, Heather, and David Ley. 2008. “Even in Canada? The Multiscalar Construction and Experience of Concentrated Immigrant Poverty in Gateway Cities.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 98 (3): 686-713. Sun, Hongli, and Richen Wang. 2012. Wangjing and Jinmao leads the new era of housing in Beijing. People Daily on the Web, 30 July. United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. 2009. “Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2008 Revision.” http://www. un.org/esa/population/migration/UN_MigStock_2008.pdf. –. 2011. “Trends in International Migrant Stock: Migrants by Age and Sex.” United Nations database, POP/DB/MIG/Stock/Rev.2011. United States Census Bureau. 2010. 2010 Census of Population and Housing. Xu, Man. 2004. “Wangjing Becomes Hot Concentration for Large Firms, Housing Price Will Grow Soon.” Xinhua Daily, December 8. http://news.xinhuanet.com/. Yu, Eui-Young. 2003. “Koreans in the United States.” In The New Face of Asian Pacific America: Numbers, Diversity and Change in the 21st Century, edited by Eric Lai and Dennis Arguelles, 57-66. San Francisco/Los Angeles: Asia Week/ UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center. Zelinsky, Wilbur, and Barrett Lee. 1998. “Heterolocalism: An Alternative Model of the Sociospatial Behaviour of Immigrant Ethnic Communities.” International Journal of Population Geography 4 (4): 281-98. Zhao, Yuan. 2004. “The Street Signs of Wangjing, Beijing Will Be Installed in Chinese, English, and Korean in 2008.” Xinhua Daily, 27 February. http://news. xinhuanet.com/. Zheng, Jiuxi. 2008. “After Devaluation of Won, Koreans in Wangjing Are Looking for Lower Priced Housing.” Fenghuang Daily, 17 December. http://news. ifeng.com/.
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Zheng, Xinzhe, and Lina Zhang, 2008. “Brief Discussion on the Relationship between Koreans and Local Hans in Wangjing District, Beijing.” Urban Problem (10): 55-61. Zhu, Jidong. 2009. “Jianmei Korean Style Spa Club Opened in Wangjing, Beijing, Aiming to Serve the High End Customers in Beijing.” Xinhua Daily, 12 July. http:// news.xinhuanet.com/. Zhu, Pengying. 2009. “The Economic Crisis Strikes Koreans back to Their Country, the Development of Wangjing, Beijing Is Hampered.” Times of China Youths, 20 May. http://www.chinanews.com/.
Part 2
Ethnolinguistic Configurations and Relations in Segmented Cities
Cape Town’s “World-Class” Segregation David A. McDonald
Chapter
5
One of the most remarkable features of Cape Town, South Africa, is how un-African it feels. There are, of course, ubiquitous reminders of “being in Africa” at tourist locations and airports, and there are black faces on the streets and shops of the central city, but unless one spends time in African townships or informal settlements it would be easy to forget that Cape Town is on the African continent.1 This sense of Cape Town’s un-Africanness is, in part, due to the fact that its population is less than one-third African (half the city is “coloured” and about 20 percent is white), whereas the country as a whole is about 80 percent African.2 But there is more to it than that. Cape Town’s unique demography and mountainous geography have long made it a hyper-segregated city, even by South African standards (Western 1996). Johannesburg and Durban share the same racialized histories but these two cities have much larger African populations (and African middle classes) and are not as polarized physically as Cape Town. A related, and increasingly important, factor is Cape Town’s efforts to become a “world city”: a networked place of urban capitalists that looks and feels familiar to a (white) transnational elite. In fact, Cape Town is an “ideal” world city, of sorts, exemplifying the socioeconomic and urban characteristics of other world cities, including an outward-focused service economy, tightly networked business hubs connected to other world cities via high-tech transportation and telecommunication systems, and world-class
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business and entertainment facilities that cater to a transnational elite (see McDonald 2008 for an extended discussion). But at the same time as the city attempts to claim a place in this (largely white) global urban network, it is Africanizing at a rapid pace. Internal migration from rural South Africa and cross-border migration from other African countries are transforming the city’s demographics. Cape Town will likely have are predominantly (poor) African population within a generation. Herein lies a fundamental tension at the heart of Cape Town’s postapartheid development. On the one hand, the city’s neoliberal-oriented political leaders and policy makers want to spend resources on making the city as business-friendly as possible. On the other hand, the vast majority of the city is poor – coloured and African – and the state must be seen to be addressing this poverty. The official policy response to this tension has been that the city can have its cake and eat it too by building infrastructure for transnational capital, thereby creating jobs and alleviating poverty – a trickle-down-theory standard, central to all neoliberal discourse. The reality is very different. Cape Town’s inequality and segregation have worsened rather than improved since 1994, making it arguably the most unequal city in the world (McDonald 2008). The central problems lie in the inherent contradictions in Cape Town’s world city ambitions. The business community wants a reserve army of unemployed (African) labour to help it compete on an international level while the same urban elite that make up this community want to control the population influx, minimizing the number of poor African migrants “committing crimes” and “scaring away” investors and tourists. Capital has also been keen to have cheap labour without wanting to subsidize it. This has been accomplished to some extent through offloading development costs via privatization of and cost recovery on essential services such as water and electricity (McDonald and Pape 2002; Miraftab 2004; Smith 2005). These indirect means of control are sup plemented by the direct involvement of the city’s police forces (public and private), the detention and deportation of “undesirables” by the Depart ment of Home Affairs, and actions of local community organizations that often determine who becomes an active citizen of the city. All of this is supported by a strong – and perhaps growing – current of racism and xenophobia that both justifies and exacerbates the spatially exclusionary outcomes created by apartheid and neoliberalism. The focus of this chapter is the tension that these forces create between the seemingly opposite trends toward “Africanization” and “de-Africanization” of the city. I look first at the trend toward Africanization resulting from
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internal and cross-border migration to the city. I then discuss the (ultimately futile) attempt to de-Africanize the city in an effort to promote its world city status, and the tragic xenophobia that has accompanied this process. This push-pull tension cannot continue forever. In the end, Cape Town will become a much more African city by sheer weight of numbers, making the social, political, and economic fortressing of whiteness increasingly difficult to sustain. Just how this tension will resolve itself is too early to say, but the inequities of neoliberalism coupled with the indignities of racism and xenophobia make for an explosive mix. Africanizing Cape Town
For much of Cape Town’s history, Africans have made up only a small fraction of its population. Bantu-speaking peoples had migrated to other parts of contemporary South Africa from the fourth century AD onward but had not yet settled permanently in the Cape when the Dutch arrived in the 1650s. It was largely local indigenous groups (Khoi/Khoe and San) that the Dutch encountered, and enslaved, at the time, quickly supplementing this local labour force with slaves from their colonies in the East Indies. It is the descendants of these indigenous peoples and imported slaves, plus the offspring of mixed-race relationships, that composed the so-called “coloured” population of Cape Town (a term first introduced by the British in the 1840s and formally codified under apartheid). Although whites made up the majority of the city’s population for the first two centuries, by 1865 whites and coloureds were roughly equal in numbers (Western 2001, 623). Today, coloureds are the largest population group in the city, constituting just under half of the Cape Metropolitan Area population according to the most recent full national census (SSA 2001). Nationally, however, coloureds make up less than 10 percent of the country’s population. The high proportion of coloureds in Cape Town, and in the Western Cape more generally, is due in part to original settlement patterns but was also influenced by laws enacted by the National Party under apartheid. In 1954, the state declared the then-Cape Province to be a “Col oured Labour Preference Area” and set about removing thousands of African workers and their families, resettling them in remote and underserviced rural Bantustans in what is now the Eastern Cape area (Berstein 1978). Efforts to keep the Cape a coloured preference area continued late into the apartheid era, with an estimated seventy thousand African workers and their families forcibly removed from the city by the mid-1980s, alongside the destruction of a number of informal African settlements. But with the end
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of “pass laws” and the growing realization on the part of the neo-apartheid state that cheap labour was required to grease the wheels of urban industry and commerce there came a dramatic increase in the number of Africans in Cape Town from the late 1980s onward. By the mid-2000s, there were more than one million Africans in the city – comprising approximately one-third of the city’s population – and it is estimated that this number is growing by as many as forty-eight thousand people a year (CCT 2004, 78). Most of this annual growth is due to in-migration of low-income individuals and families from the Eastern Cape, though natural birth rates and cross-border migration are important components as well, all of which will likely make Africans the majority population group in the city within a few decades. Equally significant from a demographic point of view is the absolute and relative decline of whites in Cape Town from just under a quarter of the population in 1996 to less than a fifth in 2001, and continuing but small decreases since then. But there are indications that the highly publicized claim of “white flight” from the city (and South Africa as a whole) is not as extensive or as permanent as commonly thought. Some research indicates that most whites are seemingly intent on staying in the country, and there is also evidence that increasing numbers are returning to the country after having left in the 1990s (McDonald and Crush 2002). Cape Town has also attracted white immigrants (permanent and temporary) from Europe and North America, and their numbers appear to be on the increase following the easing of immigration regulations for skilled personnel. Most importantly, white Capetonians occupy the most prominent, central, and attractive parts of the city in residential terms (along the mountain and coastlines) and control business life in the city. There is an increasingly visible coloured middle class and middle management, but whites continue to dominate the physical and economic landscape. Future Demographic Trends
Future demographic trends in Cape Town will depend largely on three factors: natural birth rates and life expectancy, in-migration from other parts of the country, and immigration from outside the country. Natural Growth Rates Coloureds in Cape Town are experiencing the fastest natural population growth rates nationally (over 4 percent annually in some suburbs). Popu lation growth rates of Africans are a close second, but are dampened
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considerably by AIDS-related deaths (SSA 2005). Expectations are that, in the short to medium term, there will be an overall decrease in population in South Africa as a result of HIV/AIDS, from a projected population of 47.7 million in 2006 to 47.4 million in 2012. It is anticipated that there could be as many as 9.31 million AIDS-related deaths by 2020, a large proportion occurring in cities (SACN 2005, 120). Internal Migration In the near future, Cape Town will see its largest increase in African residents through internal migration (from other parts of South Africa). Although not the greatest net recipient city of internal migrants in the country, Cape Town has nonetheless received approximately 258,000 in-migrants (as compared to about 65,000 out-migrants) from 1999 to 2004, the majority of whom are young (18 to 31 years old), unemployed Africans from the Eastern Cape with a relatively low skills base (SACN 2004, 195; SSA 2005). The city’s population is growing considerably, while municipal authorities seem unable, or unwilling, to build and maintain the facilities required to keep people adequately housed and serviced with amenities, healthcare, and education – a “running to stand still” phenomenon that has hampered efforts to provide basic services for the city’s growing population of lowincome migrants. Another key question is the extent to which in-migrants are permanent or temporary. While some analysts have argued that circular migration between rural areas and cities has ended or declined since the end of apartheid, Posel (2003, 62) has argued that “temporary labour migration within the country appears to have increased, driven particularly by the rise in female labour migration.” The driving force behind this temporary migration may be growing levels of urban unemployment. Though lower on average than in South African cities, and vastly lower than in most rural areas, unemployment in Cape Town has nonetheless increased considerably and could act as a serious deterrent to permanent migrant settlement. Between 1996 and 2001 the absolute number of unemployed in the city went up by 87 percent (SACN 2004, 49), with an estimated unemployment rate of 26 percent in 2005 (CCT 2006, 21). Other factors such as access to basic services/amenities and quality of life determine the nature of migration as well, though even the most crude and unreliable services in Cape Town may be better than (nonexistent) services in rural areas. It may be these meagre lifestyle improvements and scarce
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opportunities for employment that act as the continuing draw to South Africa’s cities. As bad as conditions may be in Cape Town for unskilled rural Africans, they can be immeasurably better than the overcrowded, socially repressive, and entirely jobless scenarios people have experienced in the countryside and small towns. Cross-border (Im)migration Much less documented and understood is migration into Cape Town from other countries (both temporary and permanent). A large number of migrants come to Cape Town from other African countries. Specific source nations are not identified in census data, but case study material suggests the presence of a broad spectrum of migrants from southern, central, eastern, western, and even northern Africa (with at least one individual claiming to have walked all the way to Cape Town from Somalia) (Western 2001). Angola and Namibia are probably the two largest source countries of crossborder migrants to Cape Town – significant concentrations of fishers from those two nations are located in the coastal suburb of Hout Bay. Large numbers of Congolese, Zimbabweans, Ghanaians, Malawians, and others are present as well, often clustered in tight geographic pockets within the city. Census data are incomplete due to the large number of undocumented migrants from other parts of Africa, many of whom are understandably reluctant to be interviewed by census personnel or to admit to their migrant status, especially knowing the harsh and summary way in which thousands of migrants from other African countries have been detained and deported by South African authorities since the loosening up of cross-border traffic in the mid-1990s (Crush 1998; Human Rights Watch 1998). There are undocumented migrants from Europe, Asia, and the Americas in the city as well, but likely many fewer than from African countries given the proximity of African states and the fact that most overseas visitors are forced to pass through official immigration channels at air- and seaports. It is impossible, therefore, to know exactly how many foreign migrants are living in Cape Town. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that the actual number is likely significantly higher than official statistics indicate. Equally true, though, is that the numbers are probably much lower than the popular press would have us believe. Hysterical newspaper headlines claiming that “Africa is flooding the Cape” are indicative of a wave of fear mongering and exaggeration that has caught the psyche of journalists and policy makers alike, creating a public impression of a cross-border migratory
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tidal wave that has proven difficult to dislodge, despite growing evidence to the contrary. Estimates from the mid-1990s of as many as nine million “illegal immigrants” in the country (Minaar, Pretorius, and Wentzel 1995) continue to be cited by zealous journalists and politicians, despite having been proven methodologically flawed and wildly off base. Most critical observers now estimate the number of undocumented migrants in the country at somewhere between five hundred thousand and one million – about 1 to 2 percent of the country’s population (Landau 2005, 3). Most of these undocumented migrants appear to be settling in urban areas, which would suggest a larger proportion of foreign-born residents in big cities. If we were to (generously) estimate the figure to be 5 percent of Cape Town’s population, then there may be as many as 150,000 Africans from elsewhere on the continent living in the city. If not “flooding” the city, then, migrants from elsewhere on the continent nevertheless constitute a significant and growing presence in Cape Town, contributing in important ways to its Africanization. More importantly, they contribute to the pan-Africanization of the city and an increasing heterogeneity very different from the domestic African migration that the city experienced in the past. There are several different categories of migrants that add to the complex makeup of cross-border migration. The smallest group, skilled professionals, represents a considerable “brain drain” to their home countries. Most, if not all, of these migrants are legal residents or citizens of South Africa. Semi-skilled migrants – such as the fishers in Hout Bay referred to above – likely form a larger group of foreign-born migrants in Cape Town. Mechanics, tailors, machinists, carpenters, and other tradespeople are in considerable demand in the city, particularly in the booming construction sector. But the largest group of foreign-born Africans in Cape Town is unskilled migrants – people looking for work as labourers (mostly men) and domestic workers (mostly women), or starting up small or microenterprises (men and women) (Rogerson 1999; Peberdy and Dinat 2005). This group sees the highest degree of ghettoization, with migrants of shared ethnic/national identities tending to cluster together, mostly in informal settlements or low-income (African) townships. It is this group of un(der)skilled and undocumented foreign migrants that is most vulnerable to corruption, abuse, theft, arrest, and deportation in South Africa. It is also this group that may
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be most greatly impacting the city of Cape Town, adding cultural diversity and providing cheap labour, as well as putting additional pressures on subsidized housing and other basic municipal services. Regardless of their skill level, the movement of people from other African countries to Cape Town seems set to continue for many years to come. As Landau (2005, 3) notes, “Regional inequalities of wealth and threats to human security, combined with South Africa’s ever more prominent economic profile, auger for increasing numbers of non-nationals coming to and passing through the country.” Neoliberal austerity in other parts of the continent is to blame for part of this migration, forcing people out of rural areas in search of urban wage employment and creating a stepwise cycle of movement from rural to urban that often ends in South African cities. Growing trade links, particularly in the services sector, have given additional impetus to these migratory patterns, creating the transportation and communication corridors required for cross-border migration. Roads, railways, and air- and seaports facilitate the movement of people, while improved banking and communication facilities make both permanent and temporary migration more feasible for transnational migrants with families back home. Indeed, it is exactly this kind of cross-border migration that “world cities” both produce and rely on. World cities from New York to Buenos Aires create infrastructure that both facilitates and depends on international migration, providing as it does some of the cheapest and most submissive labour in the world. From skilled and semi-skilled professionals in the information technology sector to unskilled workers servicing the recreational whims of a transnational elite, urban capital requires a pool of un(der)employed labour that it can tap into and discard as required (Sassen 2001, Chap. 2). Access to labour and resources aside, South Africa has also committed itself to a larger agenda of African integration – socially, culturally, and politically. The formation of the African Union, the introduction of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and a myriad of other bilateral and multilateral agreements with other countries on the continent have tied South Africa to Africa in ways never experienced before. Just how deep these social and cultural links might go remains to be seen but there are growing signs of African influence on the streets and in the policy-making rooms of the country – even in Cape Town. Music, food, clothing, newspaper reportage, holiday travel, and political discourse all
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reflect an Africanization of the Capetonian social scene, and, although still marginalized, this phenomenon would have been inconceivable twenty-five years ago. De-Africanizing Cape Town
And yet Cape Town remains remarkably unchanged from the apartheid era in spatial and cultural terms, remaining for all intents and purposes a very white city. Racial desegregation has been slow throughout South Africa (Christopher 2005) but is particularly so in Cape Town where geographic segregation along racial lines seems to have intensified rather than diminished, with hard lines drawn in the Cape Flat sands between white, coloured, and African residents. Whites are clustered largely in the northern and southern suburbs, along the Table Mountain chain and coastlines – the most attractive and accessible parts of the city. Coloureds are concentrated largely on the Cape Flats in townships south of the N1 highway and separated from white areas by highways, railway tracks, and industrial areas. Africans are concentrated along the N2 highway and in the southeast quadrant of the city in the most remote and sandy parts of the city (see Figure 5.1). There is some racial integration in Cape Town, of course. Suburbs that became “grey areas” during apartheid remain somewhat mixed, though even this is limited largely to professional coloureds and middle-income whites. Moreover, increased gentrification pressures are pushing lowerincome people out of these areas – a trend found in virtually all “world cities” today (Sassen 2001). Upper-income suburbs remain, by and large, lily-white. Although many of these suburbs once housed thousands of coloured and African residents prior to the Group Areas Act, forced removals and gentrification pressures in the 1970s created an overwhelmingly white demographic (Western 1996). A small number of upper-income coloured, Asian, and African residents have moved back into these wealthier areas since 1994, but it is estimated that Africans make up as little as 1 percent of the upper-income (largely English) southern suburbs of the city and only about 10 percent of the northern suburbs, concentrated in a few comfortable enclaves, such as Parklands, that attract young African families (Financial Mail 2004). The most expensive suburbs along the Atlantic coast have changed little since the 1980s, as a cheekily titled Sunday Times article (2004) about these suburbs made clear: “Blacks? We don’t have them here!”
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FIGURE 5.1
Map of Cape Town metropolitan boundaries and key areas within the city
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Very little integration appears to be occurring in the African townships as well. With the exception of some downwardly mobile coloured families, Cape Town’s African townships remain almost entirely African. There is considerably more integration in informal settlements, particularly within and around these African townships, with low-income African, coloured, and even some whites, living in the same areas. But the growth of informal settlements tends to be ghettoized as well, with most comprising one population group, or with racial groups segregated into different geographic clusters within the larger settlement. What are the reasons for this ongoing and even intensified racial segregation in the city? There are at least three causes: the impact of neoliberal policies, racism, and xenophobia. Impact of Neoliberalism The first and arguably most important reason for ongoing racial segregation in Cape Town is the impact of neoliberal policies such as privatization and liberalization, particularly as they relate to the implementation of housing, basic services, and transportation. In a country such as South Africa where class correlates so strongly with race, the introduction of neoliberal reforms since the end of apartheid has served to deepen income-related inequities and entrench spatial segregation along racial lines. As Huchzermeyer notes with respect to housing policy in Cape Town, Low-income housing development in South Africa since 1994 has not contributed to the spatial integration of the apartheid urban form. By and large, massive standardised housing projects have perpetuated segregation by income group, allocating the most disadvantaged urban/peri-urban locations to the poorest sectors of society – those qualifying for a fully subsidised housing unit. In the case of the Cape Metropolitan Region, this appears to have taken extreme dimensions. (Huchzermeyer 2003, 130)
A more recent addition to this housing dilemma has been low-income, black migrants from other African countries for whom there are even fewer social welfare opportunities. Only citizens and permanent residents are eligible for housing subsidies and most welfare grants, leaving non-South Africans “out in the cold” (McDonald 2000). Undocumented migrants have virtually no access to state subsidies and are also barred from banking facilities, leaving them particularly vulnerable to robbery and making it even more difficult to start their own business to generate income (Landau 2005, 13).
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Foreign migrants are able to access basic services such as potable water, electricity, refuse collection, and other municipal services if they own or rent a home (and pay their bills on time). There are also communal water taps in most informal settlements, though some of these have been set up with prepaid metering devices. Access to subsidized services is more difficult. In Cape Town, where the free allotment of “lifeline” supplies of water and electricity is technically available to all households, citizenship should not matter but residents must apply for indigent status to be eligible for additional rates and services rebates: only citizens and permanent residents may apply. As a result, many low-income migrants from other parts of Africa do not receive even the meagre level of subsidy available to South African citizens, making their lives that much more difficult, and ensuring that they live in the most peripheralized and underserviced parts of the city. In Johannesburg, for instance, “many buildings housing [foreign] migrants lack electricity or water, and most contravene local government safety and health by-laws” (Kihato 2004, 7). Not as much is known about the living conditions of foreign migrants in Cape Town, but case study evidence suggests the same general pattern, contributing to the racial polarization of the city (McDonald 2000; Dodson and Oelofse 2002; Sichone 2003). Racism Although official legislation that discriminates on the basis of race has been abolished in South Africa, not even the most optimistic of observers would argue that racism itself has been excised from the country. Racism is remarkably strong in Cape Town – partly because of its history as a “coloured preference” area – creating a “double-whammy” of sorts for the city’s African residents and exacerbating the racially segregated nature of the city. Blatantly racist attitudes and actions can be blamed for much of this, though there is a materiality to this racism as well, as both whites and coloureds use race to justify and protect their relative privileges. The end result is a racial discourse and practice that both serves to entrench negative racial stereotypes and to strengthen the city’s appeal to a (largely white) transnational elite that does not want to know or feel guilty about their racialized existence. I adopt Pulido’s (2000, 15) definition of (white) racism as that defined by “practices and ideologies, carried out by structures, institutions and individuals, that reproduce racial inequality and systematically undermine the well-being of racially subordinated populations.” These practices and ideologies can be carried out at different levels: the personal, the group, the national, etc. “An individual act of racism is just that, an act carried out at
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the level of the individual. Nonetheless, that individual is informed by regional and/or national racial discourses, and his/her act informs and reproduces racial discourses at higher scales” (ibid.). Pulido also highlights the question of intent. Popular notions of racism rest on the concept of purposeful, individual, and malicious behaviour. While this is true of some cases, Pulido (2000, 15) insists we look beyond overt and institutionalized racism to what she calls “white privilege,” the ideologies and practices that reproduce whites’ privileged status. In this scenario, “whites do not necessarily intend to hurt people of color, but because they are unaware of their white skin privilege, and because they accrue social and economic benefits by maintaining the status quo, they inevitably do … It is this ability to sever intent from outcome that allows whites to acknowledge that racism exists, yet seldom identify themselves as racists” (ibid.). This definition of racism helps us bridge the ideological and material gap between race and class. We can see racism not only as a psychologically and individually constructed phenomenon but as part of a larger societal process shaped and reinforced by – at least in part – the material and class interests of those who have the most to gain from its continuance. This definition does not resolve the underlying tension of whether one factor – race or class – dominates behaviour, but it is at least dialectical in nature, underscoring the multiple ways in which racism evolves and manifests itself. This dynamic is complicated somewhat by the long-standing myth that white Capetonians had been more liberal and less racist than whites in other parts of the country before and during apartheid. While it is true that Cape Town had fewer petty apartheid bylaws and/or enforced these laws less vigorously, the city was no less ruthless than other municipalities in implementing major apartheid regulations such as the Group Areas Act – as the brutal forced removals of tens of thousands of people in the 1960s and 1970s from District Six and other locations in the city attests. Nevertheless, the myth continues, and many English-speaking Cape tonians in particular have convinced themselves, it would seem, that they were never racist, that apartheid was the fault of irrational Afrikaners (the original Dutch settlers in Cape Town), and that they have little, if anything, to atone for. As a result, there has been little in the way of public debate over the nature of white racism in the city and virtually none of the collective soul searching expected as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, which was much more palpable in other parts of the country.
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This is a broad generalization, of course. Many white Capetonians gave their lives (quite literally) to fighting racism under apartheid, and many continue to fight racism and other forms of injustice today. Yet it is true that racist behaviour permeates much of the day-to-day discourse and practice of whites living in the city and dominates the tone of racial interaction. Most whites appear to have their heads in the sand. Another complicating factor is racism among coloureds (primarily toward Africans). The roots of this lie in colonial and apartheid government tactics of “divide and conquer,” which were enormously successful in convincing many coloured Capetonians that their real enemy was the African. Swart gevaar – the “Black Peril” – was the rallying cry of the apartheid-era National Party for decades, forming the basis of its election campaign in the Western Cape as recently as the 1994 national and 1996 local elections in the city, with efforts to paint a picture of Africans flooding into the city to steal the homes and rape the daughters of coloured residents should the African National Congress be elected (McDonald 1994). Many coloured Capetonians bought into this racial rhetoric. Western (1996; 2001, 630) documented this dynamic in detail in the 1970s and 1980s. He returned to the city in the late 1990s to discover little change, with comments such as “I’ll work for the wit baas [white boss] but I’ll not work for the African” being commonplace among coloured interviewees. One coloured Capetonian argued strenuously in a letter to the editor of the Cape Times that Coloureds of the Western Cape do not see themselves as being black … They have an aversion to the “black” as an “African.” In fact, my own people are horrified when you try to explain to them that they are also Africans … To compare themselves to Africans is a big no-no because they do not see themselves as equal to the African but superior … The Coloured people are racist as hell – and not only toward Africans but even their own darkcomplexioned people. (as quoted in Western 2001, 622)
This coloured racism is somewhat understandable when one considers what has been at stake. The practice of coloured preference labour laws and the comparatively greater investment of the apartheid state in coloured housing, education, and healthcare meant that coloureds led a slightly more stable and comfortable life than most Africans. They were keen to protect this relative privilege (though the majority of coloureds still lived in poverty
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under apartheid, and social spending in coloured areas was a mere fraction of that for whites). One cannot generalize the phenomenon, as many coloured Capetonians were at the forefront of antiracist and multiracial politics in South Africa in the 1980s and many are still active in these matters today. The widespread and deeply felt nature of racist attitudes in coloured communities is, however, difficult to deny, as is the pervasive acquiescence to white culture. Whatever the reasons, “racism is running amok in Cape Town,” as one observer put it (Dikeni 1996), making many African South Africans “feel like foreigners” in the city (Mniki 2004). Articles in newspapers and magazines with titles such as “Paranoid Racist Bigots Have Turned Cape Town into a City Without Soul” and “Wretched Blacks of Cape Town” (Majavu 2003) capture the mood of many African residents. Nor are these feelings restricted to low-income Africans. As Mniki (2004, 27) argues, “To be a black professional of middle-class status living in Cape Town means living in an extremely white world … I am tired of hidden messages that reinforce that I do not belong here.” This discomfort is reflected in the relatively low number of Africans living in upper-income residential areas of the city, as compared to Johannesburg and Tshwane, which attract the vast majority of African professionals in the country. Though racist attitudes will not result in a complete de-Africanization of the city – the underlying economic forces pushing African urbanization are too strong – they will continue to help justify and conceal the physical separation of racial groups as well as the ongoing racialized division of labour and will serve to perpetuate dominant white cultural practices that have come to be seen as one of Cape Town’s claims to world city status. Xenophobia Complicating matters further is a widespread and stubborn pattern of xenophobia. Although no group of foreign nationals escapes this sentiment entirely, the most venomous and lethal forms of xenophobia have been aimed at black Africans from elsewhere on the continent, particularly unskilled migrants and those from outside traditional southern African source countries (Nyamnjoh 2006). Cape Town is no different from the rest of South Africa in this regard. Xenophobia has been a national phenomenon since the end of apartheid and the gradual opening up of borders to – as well as the avoidance of borders by – visitors, traders, and job seekers from elsewhere in Africa. In fact,
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comparative international studies show South Africa to be one of the most xenophobic countries in the world (Southern African Migration Project 2004; 2008). What are the impacts of xenophobia in Cape Town? Like racism, it manifests in many subtle ways but it has also exploded in quite violent and demeaning patterns. There are many documented, and likely many additional undocumented, cases of African foreigners being beaten, raped, and/or killed simply because they are foreign, with abuses by police and other officials at government-run detention and deportation centres having proven to be some of the worst (Human Rights Watch 1998; Nyamnjoh 2006). Many foreign migrants of African origin feel like constant targets, easily distinguished in many cases by their dress, skin complexion, and language. Sadly, the phenomenon exists across all categories of South Africans: black/ white, rich/poor, urban/rural, men/women, and so on. Much attention has been given to the attitudes of national government officials in this regard, with politicians and senior civil servants implicated in the fanning of xenophobic flames. Less well recognized is xenophobia in local government. Local politicians and bureaucrats are as prone to xenophobic tendencies as any other South African, and they demonstrate increased willingness to express these concerns in public, particularly as they relate to the financial pressures that cross-border migration places on municipalities. Hence the comments by the chairperson of the South African Local Gov ernment Association (SALGA) at its national conference in 2004: “With the ongoing population growth [in our cities] driven, among other things, by immigration into South Africa, we shall never really have the money we require to deliver on all aspects of local government” (SALGA 2004, 22). The South African Cities Network (SACN) has made some efforts to counter these concerns, arguing that sensationalist accounts of “waves” of foreign migrants “flooding” South African cities have been exaggerated, suggesting that the “number of people entering the country legally … and then staying on illegally have stabilised at a few hundred thousand” (SACN 2004, 42). The organization then directly challenges municipal officials’ negative perception of foreign migrants, noting that “the presence of foreign nationals in South Africa is often placed on the liability side of the balance sheet by city leaders,” whereas “cities with diverse, multicultural populations, with significant foreign national minorities well-networked back to home countries, have found that their cosmopolitanism is a major strength in a globalising world” (SACN 2004, 44), a common refrain in much of the pro-world city literature.
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Why is xenophobia occurring at the local and national levels in South Africa? Explanations vary, with no agreement as to what is driving the phenomenon (McDonald, Mashike, and Golden 2000; Crush 2001; Harris 2002). One possibility is that xenophobia, particularly that aimed at other Africans, is another racialized legacy of apartheid. Another possible explanation is that post-apartheid nation building and internal healing have generated a new kind of nationalism, one that puts South African priorities first and in which citizenship defines who belongs (and benefits) and who does not (Nyamnjoh 2006). It is also possible that xenophobia is driven by more basic material needs and wants, and if so we must be careful not to blame the victim. Many low-income South Africans, particularly Africans, complain that foreigners are “stealing jobs” or “taking resources,” clearly making an already extremely difficult life even harder. How might this xenophobia contribute to the de-Africanization of Cape Town? For one, it may deter Africans from elsewhere on the continent from coming to the city, though the growing number of skilled and unskilled foreign African migrants suggests any such effect has been only a dampening one. More significant are the sociospatial patterns to which xenophobia contributes. African migrants to Cape Town tend to move to African townships and informal settlements. Moreover, they tend to live in segregated sections of these townships and informal settlements, often grouped into small national/ethnic clusters of Yoruba, Ghanaians, or Franco-Africans (Morris 1998; McDonald, Mashike, and Golden 2000; Morris and Bouillon 2001; Dodson and Oelofse 2002). Conditions of migrant ghettoization and repression are not unique to South Africa but are particularly violent and widespread and serve to underscore the insular nature of much of South Africa’s urban development. This is the paradox of South Africa’s integration with the rest of the continent: the more it Africanizes the less African it becomes, and nowhere is this more true than in Cape Town where there is little recognition, let alone celebration, of the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of its African residents. Although policy makers in Cape Town think the city needs cheap African labour to build and sustain its world city status, they effectively wash away the cultural diversity this labour pool brings through promotion of a homogenized (white) vision of global urban practices and design. Whitening Cape Town By stark contrast, white foreign migrants are welcomed with open arms in Cape Town. Although economic resources and job skills play a large part in
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European immigrants’ ability to protect themselves from xenophobic behaviour, this group by and large does not face the same kind of discrimination as that of equally well-off African immigrants (e.g., doctors from Ghana and Nigeria) and experiences nowhere near the level of xenophobic behaviour as low-income, unskilled, and undocumented migrants from elsewhere in Africa. Can this difference be explained by racism? Perhaps, though it is also true that European immigrants can adapt much more readily to the white culture of the city and may signal the kind of world city image that Cape Town is striving for. Inherent Tensions
It would appear, then, that Cape Town is being Africanized by domestic and cross-border migration while at the same time shunting these new residents into peripheral, poorly serviced parts of the city where they can take part in the economy (if they can find a job) but will not interfere with the cultural lives of the city’s elite. On the one hand, African migration meets the need of urban capital and upper-income residents for pools of cheap labour in producer and consumer services and manufacturing. Keeping migratory flows open requires transportation and telecommunication facilities and some basic level of essential services, such as water and electricity. It also requires relatively open migration policies, something that the South African Chamber of Mines and other business interests, along with the neoliberal press, have been pushing for since the late 1990s (McDonald and Jacobs 2005). On the other hand, there is a desire to control and contain African migration to the city. This balancing act can be managed, in part, with the introduction of neoliberal housing policies, cost recovery, and privatization. This strategy is particularly true for foreign Africans, to whom the state extends very limited fiscal support and subsidies. The state can also control migrants via direct discipline. The Cape Town police spend a considerable amount of time monitoring, harassing, and arresting street vendors and hawkers, and there are regular raids in areas deemed to house “illegal immigrants.” But these tensions can only be contained for so long. Poverty in rural South Africa and in the rest of the continent will continue to drive urban migration, making it increasingly difficult to maintain and police the racial segregation in Cape Town, adding to the frustrations and tensions of the city’s poor and excluded. How long this strain can last remains to be seen, but there appears to be little interest on the part of the local state to address
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it. Local government is “partially blind” to the issue, “failing to see and understand what it is that it is trying to control” (Kihato 2004, 8). In the end, the structural inequities of (urban) neoliberalism, coupled with the migratory patterns it spawns and the sociospatial demands of a transnational elite, make it impossible to resolve these demographic tensions in a capitalist city. And with the dominant political will of Cape Town being that of continued and intensified neoliberalism and world city status, there is little indication of significant policy shifts on this front in the foreseeable future. Cape Town will become an increasingly African city, but it will not be one that promotes or celebrates its Africanness – at least not in a way that gives equal opportunity to Africans, coloureds, and whites and creates integrated housing and other facilities. Cape Town’s (emerging) African heritage will be celebrated in sterile, prepackaged ways, lending the city its inevitable claim to exotica while never threatening the largely white transnational elite’s social, political, and economic control of the city. How this conflict will be managed, and possible options for a less violent, corrosive future remain to be seen, but the need for an alternative development path for the city is clear. Notes
1 Township is an apartheid-era term referring to urban areas that were segregated by race. The legal basis of these areas ended with the elimination of the Group Areas Act in the late 1980s but the term continues to be used today and townships remain largely unchanged demographically. 2 Although apartheid-era racial classifications are a social construct with no objective significance, the legacies of apartheid and the heavy correlation between race and class in South Africa are such that racial classifications remain an integral part of political analysis in the country. There are, however, different versions of racial terminology and a brief explanation of the use of terms in this chapter is in order. Following the tradition of the anti-apartheid movement, African, coloured, Asian, and white will be used to describe the four major racial categories of apartheid South Africa, with the most common use of upper and lower case letters being adopted. The term “black” is employed to refer to Africans, coloureds, and Asians as a whole, in recognition of their common oppression under apartheid. Works Cited
Berstein, Henry. 1978. For Their Triumphs and for Their Tears: Women in Apartheid South Africa. London: International Defence and Aid Fund. Christopher, A.J. 2005. “The Slow Pace of Desegregation in South African Cities, 1996-2001.” Urban Studies 42 (12): 2305-20.
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City of Cape Town (CCT). 2004. “Integrated Development Plan: For Review and Comment.” Cape Town: CCT, 2004-5. –. 2006. “Integrated Development Plan.” Cape Town: CCT, 2006-7. Crush, Jonathan, ed. 1998. Beyond Control: Immigration and Human Rights in a Democratic South Africa. Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa/ International Development Research Centre. –. 2001. “The Dark Side of Democracy: Migration, Xenophobia and Human Rights in South Africa.” International Migration 38 (6): 103-21. Dikeni, S. 1996. “Paranoid Racist Bigots Have Turned Cape Town into a City Without Soul.” Cape Times, 9 April. Dodson, Belinda, and Cathy Oelofse. 2002. “Shades of Xenophobia: In-Migrants and Immigrants in Mizamoyethu, Cape Town.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 34: 124-48. Financial Mail. 2004. “The New Cosmopolis,” 29 October. Harris, B. 2002. “Xenophobia: A New Pathology for a New South Africa?” In Psycho pathology and Social Prejudice, edited by D. Hook and G. Eagle, 169-84. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Huchzermeyer, M. 2003. “Low Income Housing and Commodified Urban Segre gation in South Africa.” In Ambiguous Restructurings of Post-Apartheid Cape Town: The Spatial Form of Socio-Political Change, edited by C. Haferburg and J. Oßenbrügge, 115-34. Hamburg: Lit Verlag. Human Rights Watch. 1998. Prohibited Person: Abuse of Undocumented Migrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees in South Africa. New York: Human Rights Watch. Kihato, C. 2004. “NEPAD, the City and the Migrant: Implications for Urban Governance.” Migration Policy Series, 12. Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project. Landau, L. 2005. “Migration, Urbanisation and Sustainable Livelihoods in South Africa.” Migration Policy Series, 15. Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project. Majavu, M. 2003. “Wretched Blacks of Cape Town.” ZNet Magazine. http://www. world-crisis.com/. McDonald, David A. 1994. “How the West Was Won: The Coloured Vote in the Western Cape.” Southern Africa Report 9 (5): 10-14. –. 2000. “We Have Contact: Foreign Migration and Civic Participation in Marconi Beam, Cape Town.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 34 (1): 101-24. –. 2008. World City Syndrome: Neoliberalism and Inequality in Cape Town. New York: Routledge. McDonald, David A., and Jonathan Crush, eds. 2002. Destinations Unknown: Perspectives on the Brain Drain in Southern Africa. Johannesburg: Africa Institute. McDonald, David A., and Sean Jacobs. 2005. “(Re)writing Xenophobia: Under standing Press Coverage of Cross-Border Migration in Southern Africa.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 23 (3): 295-325. McDonald, David A., Lephophotho Mashike, and Celia Golden. 2000. “The Lives and Times of International Migrants in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” In On Borders: Perspectives on International Migration in Southern Africa, edited by David A. McDonald, 168-96. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
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McDonald, David A., and John Pape, eds. 2002. Cost Recovery and the Crisis of Service Delivery in South Africa. London: Zed Books. Minaar, A., S. Pretorius, and M. Wentzel. 1995. Who Goes There? “Illegals” in South Africa. Pretoria: HRSC Press. Miraftab, Faranak. 2004. “Making Neo-Liberal Governance: The Disempowering Work of Empowerment.” International Planning Studies 9 (4): 239-59. Mniki, M. 2004. “Black in a White World.” Mail and Guardian, 12-18 November. Morris, A. 1998. “‘Our Fellow Africans Make Our Lives Hell’: The Lives of Congolese and Nigerians Living in Johannesburg.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21: 1116-36. Morris, A., and A. Bouillon, eds. 2001. African Immigration to South Africa: Franco phone Migration of the 1990s. Pretoria: Protea/IFAS. Nyamnjoh, F.B. 2006. Insiders and Outsiders: Citizenship and Xenophobia in Con temporary Southern Africa. London: Zed Books. Peberdy, Sally, and N. Dinat. 2005. “Migration and Domestic Workers: Worlds of Work, Health and Mobility in Johannesburg.” Migration Policy Series, 40. Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project (SAMP). Posel, D. 2003. “The Collection of National Household Survey Data in South Africa: Rendering Labour Migration Invisible.” Development Southern Africa 20 (3): 361-68. Pulido, L. 2000. “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90 (1): 12-40. Rogerson, C.M. 1999. “Building Skills: Cross-Border Migrants and the South African Construction Industry.” Migration Policy Series, 11. Cape Town: Southern African Migration Project. Sassen, Saskia. 2001. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sichone, Owen. 2003. “Together and Apart: African Refugees and Immigrants in Cape Town.” In What Holds Us Together: Social Cohesion in South Africa, edited by D. Chidester, 120-40. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Smith, Laila. 2005. “South Africa: Testing the Waters of Public-Public Partnerships.” In Reclaiming Public Water: Achievements, Struggles and Visions from Around the World, edited by B. Belanyá, B. Brennan, O. Hoederman, S. Kishinoto, and P. Terhorst. Amsterdam: TNI. South African Cities Network (SACN). 2004. “State of the Cities Report.” Johannes burg: SACN. –. 2005. “Patterns of Migration, Settlement and Dynamics of HIV and AIDS in South Africa.” Johannesburg: SACN. South African Local Government Association (SALGA). 2004. “Chairperson’s Report.” National SALGA Conference, Pretoria, 30 September. Southern African Migration Project (SAMP). 2004. “Regionalizing Xenophobia? Citizen Attitudes to Immigration and Refugee Policy in Southern Africa.” SAMP Migration Policy Series 30. Cape Town: SAMP. –. 2008. “The Perfect Storm: The Realities of Xenophobia in Contemporary South Africa.” SAMP Migration Policy Series 50. Cape Town: SAMP.
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Statistics South Africa (SSA). 2001. National Census 2001. Government of South Africa: Pretoria. –. 2005. “Mid-year Population Estimates.” Statistical Release P0302. Government of South Africa: Pretoria. Sunday Times (Johannesburg). 2004. “Blacks? We Don’t Have Them Here!” 24 October. Western, John. 1996. Outcast Cape Town. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. –. 2001. “Africa is Coming to the Cape.” The Geographical Review 71 (4): 617-40.
Segmented Cities Ethnic Conflict, Geographical Scale, and the Politics of Explanation David Ley
Chapter
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The neighbourhoods of Vancouver’s middle- and upper-middle-class West Side were (and are) well-established areas composed of single-family dwellings built between 1900 and 1940 and regarded as the heritage homes of a predominantly Anglo-Canadian population, one of the privileged “charter groups” in older versions of Canadian social stratification. After 1986, this long stable area was profoundly unsettled by property redevelopment and the clear-cutting of mature trees and shrubs to suit the landscape preferences of wealthy immigrants from East Asia. Significant ethnic tension occurred, though in this dominantly middle-class culture it was deferred by neighbourhood organizations to the media and municipal government, rather than informally resolved in the tree-lined streets. The details of this conflict became national, indeed international, news and have been thoroughly documented in a number of studies (Mitchell 1993; 2004; Ley 1995; 2010; Li 1995). My aim here is not to retell the conflict narrative but to examine the role of geographical scale and the conflict’s multiple explanations and to show the deployment of diverse political interests behind both. The chapter begins with a conceptual discussion of scale and causality before moving on to a brief review of the Vancouver land-use conflict. I then consider competing interpretations of the conflict and how they may be resolved through a multiscalar approach.
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The Question of Scale
Throughout the long history of geography as a discipline, the role of differential causes and effects across geographical scales – scalar effects – has always been apparent. Classical Greek and Roman scholars like Strabo in the Geographica described an enveloping context of topographic and climatic effects within which human societies established their own localized ways of life. For centuries, this dualism, the interactions between macroenvironmental contexts like climate and landform and micro-human agency, defined the core relationships of geography, though in different eras their relative importance varied, culminating in the early twentieth century with an excessive environmental determinism, often influenced by social Darwinism. In another version of scalar effects, in early urban geography the origins of urban settlement were often regarded as a joint function of site and situation, the former related to local factors such as a river bridging point (the site of London) and the latter to broader factors like interregional trade routes. The important issue here is that consideration of geographical scale leads to the identification of several causal factors, with different factors frequently operating at different scales. In current research, scale has become an important theme in discussions of globalization, often summarized as the analysis of global-local relationships. The danger of such work is an overstated dichotomy between two opposed poles, filled with different attributes, where, for example, tech nological and economic effects are located in the global while culture and increasingly politics are deferred to the local (Smith 2001). From this perspective, global attributes are dynamic, open, competitive, rational, and forceful while local attributes are viewed as static, closed, communitarian, nostalgic, and defensive (but ultimately defenceless). Some authors even see a gendering of the two terms, where the local is weak and feminized and the global dominant and masculinized (Freeman 2001). Such a dichotomy readily gravitates toward a teleological position on the inevitability of forceful globalization, a position readily exemplified in Prime Minister Thatcher’s famous declaration that “there is no alternative” to the neoliberal authority of the global market (Harvey 2005). Against earlier overstatements that regarded even the nation-state as a spent force in an era apparently defined by globalized capital, labour, and commodity flows, an alternate view has stressed the intersecting play of different scales. The embeddedness of global and local forms and effects is emphasized in the neologism of the “glocal” (Swyngedouw 1997).
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Transnational studies demonstrate the dubious relevance of dichotomous divisions of scale (Ley 2004). Localities, for instance, are no longer necessarily closed and static, for in major cities such as London, New York, or Toronto, neighbourhoods are intimately linked to distant places, as homes, even identities, bifurcate in an era of widespread mobility. Home, the most local of geographical scales, goes global, transported overseas. A neigh bourhood of Turkish immigrants in Berlin, for example, is self-evidently in Germany, but simultaneously through its mosque, through satellite discs and cable television, cheap telephone rates, money senders, ethnic restaurants, and retail stores, an equally palpable Turkish sense of place is also constructed. For residents of such neighbourhoods, local and extra-local bleed into each other, with identity defined by both sentiment and practice and located both here and there. Are such transnational actors local, cosmopolitan, or, as a number of theorists would prefer, a hybrid of these? Such deconstruction also extends to the putative universalism of the global. In a masterful interpretation of an elite ex-urban landscape outside New York City – and one relevant for the Vancouver case study I shall examine – James and Nancy Duncan show how the global capitalists who commute to Manhattan and its airports are extraordinarily parochial when they return home to Westchester County (Duncan and Duncan 2004). There they are preoccupied with the protection of ethnic turf, a patrician sense of place that they skillfully defend against unwanted development. Global and local become role-based practices that are variously undertaken by the same people in different settings. Of course, global and local are merely conventional categories that are deployed with some approximation to depict scale variations. More precisely, Herod (2010) identifies five scalar units from the body, to the urban, the regional, the national, and the global, arguing for distinctive processes and effects at each of these scales. But there is no ontological necessity for identifying five scales in particular, and another version specifies nine categories between the body and the globe, identifying the dwelling, the neighbourhood, the province or state, and the continent as additional entries (Marston, Woodward, and Jones 2009). It is clear from these varied classifications that the identification of scale effects is contingent on and subject to the needs of a concrete empirical study. Scale-based arguments do not necessarily proceed from a disinterested observer nor are they received by an impartial listener; like all knowledge, scalar knowledge exudes human interests. Arguments that impute causes at
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a particular scale may have not only political intentions but also political effects. A celebrated recent example in urban social science has been the subsequent simplification of the complex underclass thesis originally developed in W.J. Wilson’s account of concentrated poverty in the AfroAmerican inner city of Chicago, and by extension within other American cities. Wilson’s (1987) analysis of deep poverty incorporated both the role of de-industrialization and job loss at the city (and national) scales as well as neighbourhood effects emanating from intergenerational transmission of poverty traits, including welfare dependency and the prevalence of singleparent families. But neoconservative political interests adulterated this interpretation, omitting urban and national economic effects to highlight a “deficient” social and cultural life at the neighbourhood and family scale. This partisan scale selection led to a policy conclusion characterized by blaming of the victim in the 1990s and, more recently, to a continuing policy of breaking up poverty concentrations through urban redevelopment that mixes different social/housing classes – but without addressing the employment failure that was so much a part of Wilson’s original interpretation of the underclass. It was an ideological prejudice that led to the elevation of interpersonal factors at the neighbourhood scale and amnesia concerning the role of economic restructuring and job loss at the urban and national levels. Incorporating multiple scales is not the only solution to moving beyond an interpretation that overspecifies the causal power of a single variable. Particularly in such fields as intergroup relations or identity politics, researchers have challenged the single factor explanation that specifies class or race or gender, or some other personal or group attribute, as the potent cause of attitudes or actions. Anderson (1998) is critical of the “tidy totalities” of such accounts that alter reality into a projection of a particular interpreter’s preferred conceptual category. A broader statement that advances the importance of intersecting subject positions includes the critical observation that “since researchers continue to employ singular categories such as gender, race, ability or sexual orientation to analyse questions of inequality, experiences, and identity, our current ways of conceptualizing inequality, experience and identity are significantly limited” (Dua 2007, 192). Attention to such intersectionality as well as to the play of different scales will aid us in a fuller interpretation of ethnic conflict in Vancouver, a conflict for which a number of authors have deployed race/racism as an all-encompassing explanation.
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The Issue
The correctives of scalar analysis and intersectionality will be important guides in this study of ethnic conflict in Vancouver’s elite areas from 1986 to 1993. The problem may be stated fairly simply. For several generations, elites in Vancouver’s West Side neighbourhoods had preserved their privileged way of life through elaborate zoning controls. Nowhere was this truer than in Shaughnessy, the wealthiest district in the metropolitan area. Named after Sir Thomas (later Lord) Shaughnessy, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the neighbourhood was developed by the corporation and was part of a vast land grant to entice the westward creep of the transcontinental railway to a terminus in the village of Vancouver in 1886. With subsequent very rapid growth in Vancouver, the district of Shaughnessy sought to secede and incorporate as a separate municipality in the early twentieth century in order to gain monopoly control of its zoning and land use. In a classic Canadian compromise, this request for municipal autonomy by Vancouver’s corporate and political elite was denied but countered with an offer of ward status and significant local empowerment (Duncan 1994). In 1922, the province passed the Shaughnessy Heights Building Restriction Act, which provided extraordinary development controls, restrictive covenants, and potential injunctions against violators. The fact that the developer of Shaughnessy was the Canadian Pacific Railway was not incidental in these unusual arrangements to ensure the preservation of an elite district. The 1922 Building Restriction Act expired in 1969, a moment when, as James Duncan (1994) puts it, “Shaughnessy reluctantly rejoin[ed] the City.” The district’s thirty-year-old neighbourhood organization, the Shaugh nessy Heights Property Owners’ Association (SHPOA), vigorously maintained its vigilance against division of its large estates and their substantial mansions – at that time the average frontage was 156 feet, and the average lot size 42,500 square feet. The landscape idiom that the property owners’ association sought was that of the English country house. To ensure legal control of an elite landscape, the association engineered a planning study that was passed by City Council as the First Shaughnessy Plan in 1982. Its clear intent was to preserve the anglophile landscape: Tudor and other neocolonial mansions wrapped in mature trees and shrubs and set on substantial grounds. Having battened down the hatches against unwanted incursions in First Shaughnessy (the oldest part of an expansive neighbourhood), in the early 1980s the association sought to extend its preservationist ideology to South
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Shaughnessy, a slightly newer district of more modest single-family properties interspersed with clusters of mansions. A large district that extended sixteen blocks southwards and eight to fourteen blocks east to west, South Shaughnessy had enjoyed similar protection to First Shaughnessy in the past. But, by 1985, when SHPOA published its first design studies, changes to the built environment were beginning. The association’s consultant referred to new “oversize” houses in South Shaughnessy, incompatible with the existing landscape, and wrote critically of the “squandering” of heritage and the “unravelling” of Shaughnessy’s design coherence (French 1985). What lay behind the changes, at least at the first level of explanation, was the influx of a new cohort of immigrants wealthy enough to afford the high prices of Vancouver’s expensive West Side neighbourhoods. They owed their immigrant status to neoliberal turns in Canadian immigration policy that had not only inflated the significance of economic migrants but had also created several streams for business immigration for which the admission criteria were financial wealth and entrepreneurial experience. These new arrivals came overwhelmingly from East Asia, notably Hong Kong and Taiwan, with liquid assets that qualified them as “millionaire migrants” (Ley 2003; 2010). Landing in Canada from East Asia, they brought with them an economistic view of property; indeed, many had been able to qualify for landing status in Canada on the basis of wealth generated from property booms in Hong Kong and Taipei. Consequently, their richer members looked to the blue chip neighbourhoods of Vancouver’s West Side as a place of residence and investment, and they preferred new houses because the property lore of East Asia favoured new-build over heritage to propel real estate appreciation. In Hong Kong it is not even possible to acquire a mortgage for a property that is more than thirty years old (Smart and Lee 2003). Indeed, the former colony exemplifies a property-based regime of accumulation, “a society organized around real estate development” (Tang 2008). So the demolition of the Shaughnessy landscape proceeded house by house and block by block. Aging Anglo-Canadians sold their substantial homes, which were subsequently demolished and replaced with new houses of a style that emphasized modernity rather than heritage, maximized the footprint on existing lots, and were purchased by East Asian immigrants. This cultural disposition was certain to unsettle the deeply rooted anglophilia of an established elite district. By the late 1980s, long-established residents were voicing their displeasure with these changes through letters and telephone calls to City Hall. The Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners’ Association (SHPOA) lobbied
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intensely for the City to stop the “creative destruction” of houses and trees. Between 1986 and 1990, the City made three efforts through design modifications to influence the appearance of new houses to try to make them harmonize more effectively with the existing built environment, but to no avail. Inflammatory newspaper headlines added fuel to an escalating conflict, and, in 1992, in the face of relentless pressure from residents of its elite districts, the City grasped the nettle and called a public hearing to address the issue of redevelopment in Shaughnessy. The hearing did nothing to dampen the rising tensions. Television cameras added to the sense of theatre. So many speakers registered to present briefs that the public hearing was extended over six nights, apparently the longest hearing in the city’s history. The most surprising development was the appearance of a new political actor, an organization of new immigrants claiming their democratic right to be heard. Many of their presentations were choreographed. Their message, often spoken in Cantonese and repeated through an interpreter, revolved around recurring themes; once the presentation was complete, a compact group of supporters cheered and waved identical small signs. Anticipating (correctly) a prior agreement between the city and SHPOA to introduce severe downzoning to make redevelopment less profitable and thereby impede the demolition of existing houses, they presented briefs that cleverly evoked democracy, property rights, and family values as a coherent counternarrative – precisely, of course, the narrative of contemporary neoconservatism. One speaker declared, I oppose the changes. Is it right to deny the rights of these people? Is it right for government to force rights? Canada is a free country. We decided to build our own dream house for our own family needs. It was a family project. Everyone was excited by [plans for] our new house. Now [with downzoning] the children will have to sleep in the basement. (Ley 2010, 189)
This presentation evokes the North American dream of freedom, property rights, and a detached roof sheltering the nuclear family. It also infers that all of these values are to be derailed by the spoiling hand of government should downzoning proscribe these larger homes. Beneath these libertarian values floated another, entirely harmonious with them: the economistic arguments of the private market, which occurred commonly in the statements of interveners who argued against downzoning. Another homeowner protested to the assembled councillors:
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We have large lots and nice houses can be built on these lots. Land value is dropping and there is a reduction of deals. There is evidence investors are scared away. We have to attract more investors. We should do our best to maintain land values and all parts of the community will profit and the country will grow prosperous. (Ley 2010, 189)
This coherent ideology of growth, progress, and unconstrained property rights was countered by an ethos of preservation championed by SHPOA and their supporters. Like the anglophile elite of Westchester County (Duncan and Duncan 2004), the global jet-setters of Shaughnessy became much more protectionist on their home turf, providing another example of the changing nature of global and local roles depending on geographic context. SHPOA’s brief at the public hearing efficiently presented the preservationist case: “We need guidelines. The unique characteristics of the neighbourhood require limits. Are we talking about each man living on an island? Properties, our homes, are not commodities or poker chips. We cannot develop without consideration of others.” In opposition to the individual pursuit of the rights of the family household, SHPOA advocated neighbourhood communitarianism, in which individuals accept limits to their freedom through guidelines prescribed by government. The intent of such limits is to protect the use-value of residential property and to reject the exchange-value view of property as commodity. The irony of such a position among elites who extol the private market in their professional lives should not be missed. While neither hypocritical nor deceitful, it does highlight the scale dependency of motives and practices. Interpretations
Should these competing positions be taken at face value? There has been little interrogation of the immigrant viewpoint, which seems to be a transparent articulation of a global neoliberal position – though the synchronization of their briefs suggested prior strategic organization and nuancing for local purposes. In contrast the ideology of SHPOA and its supporters, in fact the basis of a broader resistance to rapid neighbourhood change in Vancouver’s West Side districts, came under critical scrutiny from a number of sources. As we shall see, some of these interpretations were not politically innocent. To anyone at the public hearings, visual inspection of interveners announced the most self-evident segmentation. Almost all of the advocates
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of protection were Anglo-Canadians; most of the protagonists of the unconstrained market were of Chinese origin, typically recent immigrants from Hong Kong or Taiwan. An immediate conclusion suggested itself; at stake was the pursuit of racial privilege and denial of the claims of newcomers who were racially different. Such an interpretation gained traction in light of the sullied history of Canada and especially British Columbia in race politics up to 1945 and perhaps later (Anderson 1991; Ley 2010). Airing this interpretation publicly would also place those residents who resisted neighbourhood change in the worst possible light, and thereby disqualify the force of their argument. This opportunity was first mobilized by real estate interests, those with the most to gain through unrestricted redevelopment and by politically dethroning their opponents. Almost all of the new houses had been constructed by small contractors running several jobs simultaneously. With limited financial reserves, and holding loans for lot purchases in advance of sales, these builders were vulnerable to any downturn in the market and apprehensive that downzoning would slow their business appreciably. An alliance of small contractors formed the West Side Builders’ Association and discharged the race card at the 1992 public hearing as a means to discredit opponents. At the public hearing they declared, “[Downzoning is] discriminatory, racist and unfair … If these new building bylaws are brought into effect, it will be akin to returning to the early 1900s where some of our land titles specifically excluded people of certain origins from owning land.” This was not the first time such rhetoric had been used. In 1986, in response to early neighbourhood resistance to the destruction of traditional Shaughnessy landscape, builders had submitted a brief to the City entitled, Racism and the Dilemma of Changing Neighbourhoods. These types of racism inferences also had precedent in other development battles. In Monterey Park, an Asian American ethnoburb in Los Angeles, “coalitions between American city bosses, big developers and Asian investors wielded racism as a weapon to push through pro-growth policies” (Ong 1999, 100). In Vancouver, the racism accusations of the West Side Builders’ Association and others in the development industry were widely reported. Additional business interests joined the charge in an effort to dislodge their opponents. Equity, a British Columbia pro-business magazine, had earlier asked the rhetorical question on the front cover of a special issue: “Racism: Will It Kill Investment Billions?” Stories in this special issue with such titles as “Prosperity in the Balance” and “Racism Is an Ugly Word”
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stoked inflammatory accusations (Equity 1989). Other media picked up the thread and ran with it. The racism card was a simple catch-all explanation for conflict – particularly for news outlets far removed from the fray – that needed no detailed research and played to the media’s need for sensational content. A documentary called The Hong Kong Connection, which aired in Hong Kong, portrayed Vancouver “as a thoroughly racist society” (Moore 1989), and the conflict in Shaughnessy kept this storyline alive. Even the South China Morning Post, normally the more restrained voice of the expatriate community in Hong Kong, covered the Shaughnessy public hearing under the title “Vancouver Planning Law Fuels Racist Fire” (SCMP 1992). Though this politically expedient explanation may be understandable on the part of real estate, business, and media interests, there exists a more complex equation to be unravelled through the interpretation of social scientists. A number of critical authors have interpreted the resistance of property owners in Shaughnessy and elsewhere to be an uncomplicated racist response to social and cultural difference (Li 1995; Cavell 1997). Even Mitchell (2004, 71), who provides a sophisticated analysis of the impact of Asian property investment in Vancouver, sees both structural and attitudinal “citywide racism” at work in the responses of West Side interveners and their allies. Such a conclusion raises an awkward and unacknowledged conceptual problem for critical social scientists themselves. They view the resistance of home-owning elites as tarnished by racism, even though as progressive authors they too hold a critical view of global neoliberalism and its impacts in the property market. Clearly, they can see possibility for a nonracist critical response to unfettered development, but they are unwilling to allow that homeowners might share this possibility with them. However, many of the homeowners were also well-educated and sophisticated participants, and they too claimed their political interventions to be untarnished by racism. A letter written to the local newspaper during the 1992 public hearing denied the accusations of the building industry and articulated a response often expressed by West Side protestors: “I am not racist. I tell myself this over and over again to loosen the creeping fingers of intimidation that Mr. H. and his developer friends are attempting to tighten around my voice box” (Anon. 1992). It is clearly possible that long-term homeowners’ responses were based on factors other than racism, but one should not move to a position that denies the presence of racism as a motive for some of the people some of the time. A balanced interpretation would replace assumptions regarding citywide racism with an understanding of racism as contingent upon other attributes and changing circumstances.
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Opinion polls have shown both a steady decline in racist attitudes in Canada since the 1980s and also a second trend of cyclically increased antiimmigration nativism during economic downturns (Wilkes, Guppy, and Farris 2007). Large-scale surveys in Australia have associated racist attitudes with about one in eight respondents, but with few consistent predictive variables (Forrest and Dunn 2006). An equivalent Canadian study that used the desire to exclude nonwhites in immigration policy as a measure of racist attitudes found only 9 percent of Canadians qualified in a series of polls from 1989 to 1996, with numbers dropping through the period, and lowest in Vancouver (Palmer 1998). A strategy of intersectionality that recognizes the play of other factors in addition to, and for some respondents in place of, xenophobic attitudes can replace the singular variable of racism in interpreting resistance to neighbourhood change. Satzewich (2007) regarded the anglophilia of Shaugh nessy residents as ethnic- and class-based rather than as reducible to a more primitive racist response. Differences between class fractions, including envy at the greater wealth of the immigrants, were identified in these propertybased conflicts by Wong and Netting (1992): “Most of the apparent racism is in fact class antagonism wrapped in a racial envelope.” The response to loss that Fried (1963), in a different context of urban change and conflict, called “grieving for a lost home,” provides a third interpretation. Metaphors of loss and grief over neighbourhood change occurred frequently in the briefs and letters authored by West Side residents (Ley 2010). More than use-value, the traditional landscape held symbolic value as it supported an identity of privilege and well-being for its residents that was not readily substitutable elsewhere. The Hong Kong–born lieutenant-governor of British Columbia, David Lam (1989), may have had something like this in mind when he commented in relation to property conflicts that “when a Canadian is concerned about his own way of living this concern is not racism.” An intersubjective fusion of place and identity certainly underlay the communitarian defence of an elite neighbourhood by SHPOA and other interveners at the public hearing. Finally, the proponents of racism as the primary or even only motive for neighbourhood resistance typically consider an abridged time horizon: the immediate conflict in Shaughnessy over a short period in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Such historical foreshortening misses significant events both before and after this period. Resistance to neighbourhood change was not a response engineered by SHPOA with the arrival of offshore capital and immigrants in the mid-1980s, but had been a persistent goal for decades, most
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recently apparent in the 1970s lobbying for the First Shaughnessy Plan (achieved in 1982) as an instrument for preserving a heritage landscape. There was also a renewed quiescence in Shaughnessy after the conflictending 1993 planning and design revisions, which followed the public hearing. The new guidelines permitted demolition of old houses to continue but provided a floor space bonus for builders if they followed a finite design menu of traditional building styles. A separate tree bylaw offered greater protection to the leafy canopy of West Side neighbourhoods. The replication of a traditional landscape guaranteed by these planning innovations settled the conflict, and despite higher immigration levels for several years after 1993 and a robust immigrant housing market in blue chip districts, political mobilization abruptly ended. If racism lay behind the conflict, it was a highly contingent racism, and effectively terminated by other factors. Scale Jumping
But intersectionality alone does not exhaust the tiering of factors that conditioned the Shaughnessy conflict. Intersectionality helpfully emphasizes the diversity of subject positions – class, ethnicity, gender, age, etc. – that shape identity and experience. But in analyzing the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of people individually or as a group, there is a tendency to disregard factors that are operating at other geographic scales. In this final section of the chapter, I wish to jump scales and point to further sets of factors operating at several geographies that need to be part of any causal argument about ethnic conflict in Vancouver’s privileged West Side neighbourhoods on each side of 1990. First, conflict over neighbourhood change in these districts was part of a much broader regional antigrowth response to rapid population growth and its associated pressures. A vigorous neighbourhood movement influenced municipal and regional politics during the sustained population growth period of 1968 to 1976 that was achieved mainly through internal migration from other parts of Canada (Ley 1980). This political response was reawakened as rapid growth returned in the mid-1980s – population in Greater Vancouver increased by 16 percent from 1986 to 1991 and by another 14 percent in the following five years. Neighbourhood and municipal hatches were battened down, especially as pro-growth elites advocated rapid development; in one much-publicized intervention, Arthur Erickson, Canada’s most celebrated architect, provocatively urged that all preservationist thought be abandoned and that planners should work to accommodate a
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regional population of ten million in metropolitan Vancouver, more than a five-fold increase in the population at the time (Bramham 1989). Pro- and antigrowth factions vigorously contested the 1990 municipal elections in Vancouver and its suburban municipalities. In Vancouver, the two leading mayoralty candidates incorporated these two positions. In cumbent Gordon Campbell represented the pro-growth party on Council. Articulate, cosmopolitan, and business-oriented, he epitomized the neo liberal ascendancy of the 1980s. His opponent on the left, Jim Green, had directed a neighbourhood NGO in the Downtown Eastside, the city’s poorest district. His agenda was redistributive and protective of neighbourhood defences. His election slogan, “The Neighbourhood Green,” cleverly fused local preservation and communitarianism with the environmental agenda that had always been prominent on Canada’s West Coast. Clearly, the defence of neighbourhood in Shaughnessy was not unique but part of a cyclical citywide, indeed regional, antigrowth political movement, and needs to be interpreted at least in part against this broader context. Second, there was a still larger terrain of contested relationships in which the urban and regional scales were themselves nested. The turn to global neoliberalism in the 1980s resulted in movements to reduce, even remove, political barriers to the flow of trade, capital, and labour at national as well as municipal scales. Canada saw the much-contested free trade agreements of 1989 and 1993 establish closer economic ties first with the United States, and then Mexico, added to the agreement four years later. Free trade and the creation of “a level North American playing field” were, however, vigorously resisted by large groups in Canada troubled by its implications for Canadian culture, social programs, and political autonomy (Sparke 2005). The 1988 general election was fought over free trade, and although the pro-treaty Conservative Party won a majority of seats in the House of Commons, a majority of Canadians voted against them, with anti–free trade parties winning over 60 percent of British Columbia’s federal seats. The vigorous debate over free trade between 1988 and 1993 was a debate over the power of the free market and the strength of protective political institutions. The two sparring ideologies inherent in the Shaughnessy land development debate – one prescribing the sovereignty of the market and the lowering of political defences, the other arguing for a communitarian future in a regulated property market – were taking place nationally and locally at precisely the same time. Indeed, events in Shaughnessy provided an object lesson of the implications of losing local control over key resources for everyday life in a globalizing era.
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In certain respects, the dispute in Shaughnessy was a story for the times, with much more at play than the race card. At the municipal and regional scales, the Shaughnessy conflict needs to be interpreted against widespread antigrowth movements during another upturn in population growth that resembled the earlier mobilization of a neighbourhood movement in the first half of the 1970s. A new context, however, was provided by national and continental political economy. The neoliberal move to free markets exemplified by the 1989 and 1993 free trade agreements provoked a visceral response against the loss of local control to continental and global economic powers. Within Canada, opposition to free trade was the most keenly felt in British Columbia. This all-consuming national debate coincided with the unfolding of “the battle for Shaughnessy,” and in each case deregulation and the opening of borders in a “flat world” threatened the same outcome of communal dispossession. The reinforcement of similar tendencies across scales accentuated social learning and the necessity of resistance. Conclusion
In arguing for a scalar analysis, this chapter has sought to develop an interpretation that integrates a globalizing political economy with national and municipal state interventions and segmented local ethnic responses to changes in the urban landscape. It was the mobilization of the new elite of wealthy East Asian immigrants arguing an astute conjunction of selfinterested property relations with a larger call to democratic rights that created the conflict and made more transparent a political process that in the past had typically and unproblematically involved a gentleman’s agreement between City Council and the anglophile elite of Shaughnessy Heights. But now competing agendas between two elites related to opposing views of neighbourhood development were out in the open. The visibility of diverse skin colours led easily to an interpretation that elite conflict was triggered primarily, in some accounts entirely, by the prejudices of racial difference. I have argued in this chapter that this provides a significantly incomplete interpretation. The reduction of complex identities to a single dimension is misleading. A more careful reading advances additional factors such as class and ethnicity that intersect with and condition the raw deployment of race for some respondents, while for others they completely override race as a major contributor. But intersectionality does not complete the task of interpretation because a scalar argument recognizes the simultaneous presence of processes at other geographical scales. Neighbourhood mobilization in
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Shaughnessy was a local expression of broader municipal and regional antigrowth politics, a politics that was not necessarily directed at any specific residential group but at growth pressures that destabilized the familiarities of everyday life. Moreover, antigrowth movements were themselves nested in a larger debate about the changing place of the free market and political regulation in the organization of national societies. Not simply a unique and highly localized interracial episode, land-use conflicts in Shaughnessy and Vancouver’s other West Side neighbourhoods around 1990 were conditioned by and helped shape broader debates about whether the market or the state should shape civil society. Of course, this was (and is) an intensely political debate, so it is scarcely surprising that protagonists favoured specific explanations of the conflicts that aided their own ideological interests. An appeal to race kept affairs personal and removed from view a broader political economy that was at issue. For in the personalized politics of j’accuse it became possible to disqualify as unworthy those who would oppose neighbourhood change and, in so doing, to conceal the economic calculus at a range of spatial scales that lay behind redevelopment. Works Cited
Anderson, Kay. 1991. Vancouver’s Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 18751980. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. –. 1998. “Sites of Difference: Beyond a Cultural Politics of Race Polarity.” In Cities of Difference, edited by Ruth Fincher and Jane M. Jacobs, 201-25. New York: Guilford Press. Anon. 1992. “Good Taste Not Racist.” Vancouver Courier, 11 October. Bramham, Daphne. 1989. “Erickson Tells City to Plan for 10 Million.” Vancouver Sun, 11 October. Cavell, Richard. 1997. “The Race of Space.” New Formations 31 (1): 39-50. Dua, E. 2007. “Exploring Articulations of ‘Race’ and Gender: Going Beyond Singular Categories.” In Race and Racism in 21st Century Canada, edited by Sean Hier and B. Singh Bolaria, 175-96. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. Duncan, James 1994. “Shaughnessy Heights: The Protection of Privilege.” In Neighbourhood Organizations and the Welfare State, edited by Shlomo Hasson and David Ley, 58-82. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Duncan, James, and Nancy Duncan. 2004. Landscapes of Privilege. New York: Routledge. Equity. 1989. “Racism: Will It Kill Investment Billions?” 7 (4). Forrest, James, and Kevin Dunn. 2006. “Racism and Intolerance in Eastern Australia.” Australian Geographer 37 (2): 167-86.
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Freeman, Carla. 2001. “Is Local:Global as Feminine:Masculine?” Signs 26 (4): 1007-37. French, Patricia Ltd. 1985. Second Shaughnessy Zoning Study for SHPOA. Vancouver. Fried, Marc. 1963. “Grieving for a Lost Home.” In The Urban Condition, edited by L. Duhl, 151-71. New York: Basic Books. Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Herod, Andrew. 2010. Scale. New York: Routledge. Lam, David. 1989. “Lam Advises Hong Kong on Canada.” Vancouver Sun, 13 December. Ley, David. 1980. “Liberal Ideology and the Post-industrial City.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70 (2): 238-58. –. 1995. “Between Europe and Asia: The Case of the Missing Sequoias.” Ecumene 2 (2): 187-212. –. 2003. “Seeking Homo Economicus: The Canadian State and the Strange Story of the Business Immigration Program.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 93 (2): 426-41. –. 2004. “Transnational Spaces and Everyday Lives.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 29 (2): 151-64. –. 2010. Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific Life Lines. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Li, Peter. 1995. “Unneighborly Houses or Unwelcome Chinese: The Social Con struction of Race in the Battle over ‘Monster Homes’ in Vancouver, Canada.” International Journal of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies 1 (1): 14-33. Marston, Sally, Keith Woodward, and John Paul Jones. 2009. “Scale.” In The Dictionary of Human Geography, 5th ed., edited by Derek Gregory Ron Johnston, Geraldine Pratt, and Michael Watts, 664-66. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Mitchell, Katharyne. 1993. “Multiculturalism or the United Colours of Capitalism.” Antipode 25 (2): 263-94. –. 2004. Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Moore, J. 1989. “Vancouver Tagged Racist.” Vancouver Courier, 19 November. Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Palmer, Douglas 1998. A Detailed Regional Analysis of Perceptions of Immigration in Canada. Ottawa: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Strategic Policy, Planning and Research. Satzewich, Vic. 2007. “Whiteness Studies: Race, Diversity and the New Essentialism.” In Race and Racism in 21st Century Canada, edited by Sean Hier and B. Singh Bolaria, 67-84. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press. Smart, Alan, and James Lee. 2003. “Financialization and the Role of Real Estate in Hong Kong’s Regime of Accumulation.” Economic Geography 79 (2): 153-71. Smith, Michael Peter. 2001. Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Malden, MA: Blackwell. South China Morning Post (SCMP). 1992. “Vancouver Planning Law Fuels Racist Fire,” 4 October.
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Sparke, Matthew. 2005. In the Space of Theory. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Swyngedouw, Eric. 1997. “Neither Global nor Local: ‘Glocalization’ and the Politics of Scale.” In Spaces of Globalization, edited by Kevin R. Cox, 137-66. New York: Guilford Press. Tang, W.S. 2008. “Hong Kong Under Chinese Sovereignty: Social Development and a Land (Re)development Regime.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 49 (3): 341-61. Wilkes, Rima, Neil Guppy, and Lily Farris. 2007. “Canadian Attitudes Towards Immigration: Individual and Contextual Influences.” Metropolis BC, Working Paper Series 07-08. Vancouver. Wilson, William Julius 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Urban Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wong, Lloyd, and N. Netting. 1992. “Business Immigration to Canada: Social Impact and Racism.” In Deconstructing a Nation: Immigration, Multiculturalism and Racism in ’90s Canada, edited by Vic Satzewich, 93-121. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing.
Immigrant Inclusion and Linguistic Struggle in the Brussels-Capital Region Yoann Veny and Dirk Jacobs
Chapter
7
Belgium, as a political institution, has had a rough run in the beginning of the new millennium. When the Francophone public broadcasting corporation, Radio-Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF), announced the independence of Flanders and the end of Belgium in a fake 2006 newscast, it was still tongue-in-cheek political fiction. Ever since, however, the end of the Belgian nation-state has become a possibility that is seriously debated all across the country. It cannot be denied that Belgium is politically a rather complicated country (see Fitzmaurice 1996; Jacobs and Swyngedouw 2003). Its unique federal system based simultaneously on a territorial logic (regions) and a nonterritorial logic (communities distinguished on language), its crosscutting political cleavages, and its fragmented party landscape generate a considerable degree of complexity. This complexity is partly the result of decades of institutional patchwork to contain the linguistic struggle between the main ethnic majority groups (Flemish and Francophones). If we consider the absence of violence and terrorism in the country as a criterion, this institutional complexity has nevertheless paid off. It is probably safe to claim that Mr. Herman Van Rompuy was chosen as the first president of the European Union precisely because he is a compromise-seeking Belgian. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we have reached a phase in which the art of Belgian compromise seems to be endangered. Moreover, the country’s institutional complexity seems to be overstretched. It would
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be wrong to assume that Belgium will inevitably disappear. The Belgian federation certainly needs to reinvent itself, but the crucial importance of the main urban area, the Brussels-Capital Region, the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of Europe, makes it very unlikely that the country will split up soon. The main reason why Belgium still exists – and why it will continue to do so – is indeed Brussels. The Belgian capital has about 1.1 million inhabitants and hosts an additional 350,000 (mainly Flemish) commuters on a daily basis. With 10 percent of the Belgian population, it produces 20 percent of the Belgian gross domestic product.1 For cultural, socioeconomic, political, symbolic, and historic reasons, Brussels is of such importance for all regions of Belgium that none of the country’s linguistic communities can afford to lose its degree of control on the federal capital. The growing presence of immigrants in Brussels – more than half of the inhabitants are of foreign origin – both accentuates and attenuates the long-entrenched linguistic conflicts. In addition, within day-to-day social, economic, and political life in Brussels, English is becoming increasingly important due to its international role. This renders the classic bilingual institutional logic, according to which one is either Francophone or Dutchspeaking, less relevant. No wonder that several politicians – albeit mainly on the Flemish side – have started to suggest English could become the third official language of the Brussels-Capital Region. In addition, tens of thousands of inhabitants of Brussels speak German, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Turkish, or Portuguese. However, the increasing presence of immigrants (and hence the increasing potential electoral power of these groups) also revitalizes the entrenched linguistic conflicts. Indeed, both dominant language groups have their own vision of how immigrants, especially those from outside the European Union, should be treated and integrated. Both dominant language groups also have an interest in connecting these immigrants to their own institutions and spheres of influence and, ultimately, to mobilize them as voters. In this chapter, we will look at the ways in which the issue of immigrant inclusion is tied to the issue of linguistic struggle in the Brussels-Capital Region. Our central argument is that the issue of immigrant inclusion both accentuates and attenuates the linguistic struggle in Brussels. The general political structure of the federal Belgian state should be understood primarily as an institutional attempt to alleviate the tensions between the two main linguistic groups in the country (the Flemish and the
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Francophones). Brussels is the centre of the power struggle between the Flemish and the Francophones and is a bilingual region partially independent and partially administrated by both the Flemish and the Francophone communities. Moreover, Brussels is also the city in which the majority of immigrants are settled. It is a city in which two visions of immigrant integration coexist: the more multicultural Flemish model, and the assimilationist Francophone model. The growing presence of immigrants in Brussels accentuates the linguistic struggle because both communities try to integrate immigrants on their side in order to increase their control over Brussels. However, immigrants tend to attenuate the linguistic struggle because they develop identities independent of the Flemish-Francophone division. A Multination State in Crisis
Belgium is a clear example of what Canadian political philosopher Will Kymlicka (1995) calls a “multination state.” The new Belgian constitution (1993) recognizes that the constitutive nation is not a homogeneous entity. The process of state reform and devolution has caused recognition of cultural-linguistic diversity to be the guiding principle of Belgian political life. The constitution now recognizes the rights of (partial) self-determination of those groups that are seen to be the constitutive elements of the Belgian nation (Martiniello 1997), stating that the Flemish, Francophone, and Germanophone groups are the fundamental cultural communities of Belgium. This postulate serves as the basis for the organization of the entire Belgian political field. The Flemish-Francophone divide, however, clearly constitutes the central political axis. Belgium is not only officially composed of three communities – Dutchspeaking (Flemish), French-speaking, and German-speaking – but also officially the sum of three territorial entities (the regions): Flanders, Wallonia, and the Brussels-Capital Region. The regions and communities have specific political competencies. Regions have jurisdiction over so-called “spacebounded” matters such as the regional economy, agriculture, environment, infrastructure, and traffic. Communities have jurisdiction over so-called “person-related matters” such as healthcare, social policy, culture, education, and language use. Every region and every community has its own representative body (parliament) and government. In theory, this leads to the existence of six subnational parliaments and governments in Belgium. The governments (and administrations) of the Flemish community and the Flemish Region have, however, been merged into one executive body such that there are only five distinct subnational parliaments and governments.
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Clearly, Belgium has a fairly unusual and complicated federal system, combining both a territorial and nonterritorial logic (Jacobs and Swyngedouw 2003). In addition, there is a national parliament and national government in Belgium, responsible for issues such as defence, justice, policing, foreign policy, finance, and social security. Up until the new millennium, this complicated system functioned fairly well. Since the federal elections of June 2007, however, elites from both sides of the (main) language frontier have had difficulty in agreeing on almost anything. This deadlock situation is due to electoral brinkmanship by the main political contenders. The possible break-up of the country is for the first time seriously being contemplated and discussed. It is, however, fairly unlikely that the federal state will effectively fall apart at short notice – if ever (Jacobs 2007). Brussels is of crucial economic, historic, and political importance for all linguistic groups in the country. No side can afford to lose its degree of control on the bilingual capital. Brussels is a central hub in the Belgian economy; housing, for instance, the seats of almost all major companies, it is the most internationally oriented city of Belgium and is of crucial importance for both the north and the south of the country. Brussels, therefore, functions as the glue of the kingdom. The political crisis is, however, of such a nature that the shared capital city will not be able to keep the country together indefinitely. Belgian citizens have to reassess their identity and figure out what they want as a common project for the future. To facilitate communication between the political elites and the different electorates, academics have proposed one federal electoral district for a segment of the seats in parliament.2 Political negotiations regarding the institutional framework of the federation have been tremendously difficult, though everyone agrees the current deadlock situation cannot continue indefinitely. The two winners of the federal elections of June 2010, the Flemish nationalist party NV-A (which has an explicit separatist agenda and won the elections with a landslide victory on the Flemish side) and the Francophone socialist party PS, continuously clashed on institutional reform. As a result, Belgium broke the world record for the duration of negotiation over government formation. In the end a government, led by Francophone socialist Elio Di Rupo and not including the Flemish nationalist party NV-A, had to be formed in December 2011, at a moment when Belgium’s international credit rating was under pressure. This coalition government of Christian democrats, socialists, and right-liberals from both linguistic groups was able to agree on an institutional reform package that remains highly disputed by the Flemish nationalists.
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The Brussels-Capital Region and Its Periphery
The Brussels-Capital Region, a territorial enclave within the Flemish Region, is officially bilingual (Dutch- and French-speaking). Both the Flem ish and the French community have jurisdiction in the Brussels-Capital Region, which contains nineteen autonomous municipalities, often referred to as “the city of Brussels.” It is estimated that 15 percent of Belgian citizens in Brussels are Dutch-speaking and 85 percent are French-speaking. It is impossible to know the exact proportions because, in order to avoid political tensions, it has been forbidden since 1961 to conduct a language census.3 Although the Flemish are clearly in a minority position, in principle, Dutch as one of the full-fledged official languages is used most frequently next to French. All tenured administrators working in any of the nineteen municipalities have to be “perfectly” bilingual (i.e., having passed tough language exams), which results in very strong protection of the Dutch language at the municipal administrative level. There are, however, no guarantees that Flemish people will be part of the local council unless they are directly elected. In addition, there is no guarantee that those Flemish politicians elected to council will have representation on the mayor and aldermen’s committee. Yet indirect stimuli ensure a Dutch-speaking presence in local government; if there is at least one Flemish member in local government, then the municipality is allowed to appoint one additional alderman and it gets an additional budget line (Jacobs and Swyngedouw 2003). If no Dutch-speaking person is part of the local council for social welfare,4 which is appointed by the city council, the first ranked non-elected Flemish politician will de jure be added to it. Unlike at the municipal level, individual regional administrators and other personnel are not required to be bilingual. The administration and services should, however, be able to ensure that clients can be helped in either official language. To ensure this, there are quotas for personnel employment. These often boil down to a 30:70 Flemish:Francophone ratio. On the political level, the parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region consists of eighty-nine members. The members of parliament are elected from linguistically divided lists in order to be able to differentiate Flemish and Francophones who decide their own community’s matters. There are seventeen seats reserved for the Flemish and seventy-two seats for the Franco phones. The government of the Brussels-Capital Region consists of one prime minister, four ministers, and three secretaries of state. They are ideally chosen by a majority in the entire parliament and also a majority in every
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language group. If this turns out to be impossible, the prime minister is chosen by the entire parliament, while every language group appoints their own ministers. In any event, the Flemish are entitled to two ministers and one secretary of state and thus enjoy guaranteed representation in government. Since the government has to reach decisions by consensus, this means substantial political power for the Flemish. In addition, there is an “alarm bell” system that can delay any decision that the Flemish minority considers unacceptable. The parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region can legislate on regional matters. So-called person-related matters (i.e., care, cultural, and language matters), however, are dealt with by one of the two Commissions for Com munity Matters. There is a Flemish and a French one and each has its own executive body (but ministers are the same as those of the regional government for each language group). These “mini-parliaments” and “minigovernments” have the role of “translating” the policy frameworks of their overarching community level (Flemish or French) to Brussels. In a number of cases, institutions or policies regarding person-related matters do not belong exclusively to one of the two linguistic communities. In those cases the members of the two linguistic groups form the United Assembly of the Joint Commission for Community Matters (i.e., all members of parliament). This Joint Commission can make decisions only with a majority vote in each linguistic group. In practice, however, the commission is of little importance as it has a very small budget and most politicians try to avoid resorting to it. Adjacent to the Brussels-Capital Region there are six communes à facilités (municipalities with language allowances). Although these municipalities are officially Flemish (and hence in principle unilingual Dutchspeaking), Francophone inhabitants of a commune à facilité, of which there are a growing number, must be able to address the municipal government in French. This was legislated in the 1960s when the language border was fixed. Although this stipulation is entrenched in the constitution, the Flemish have a tendency to see these language provisions as a transitory measure and expect Francophone inhabitants to reaffirm annually their wish to use French in their government contacts. This despite the fact that due to processes of suburbanization in these municipalities de facto 70 to 90 percent of the population is French-speaking.5 No wonder there is a political movement of Francophones demanding the transfer of these communes à facilités to the Brussels-Capital Region. However, the Flemish political elite judge this to be an unacceptable territorial claim. They are, furthermore, trying to implement a number of measures to reconquer these municipalities by
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giving priority to local inhabitants when real estate is being sold, for instance, and by limiting access to social housing to people who can prove they have mastered Dutch. Outside the six municipalities with language allowances, there is a sizeable Francophone minority (an estimated one hundred thousand people) located on the periphery of the Brussels-Capital Region. Living within Flanders (a unilingual Dutch-speaking area), this Francophone minority does not have the right to use French in contacts with government. Up until July 2013, they were, however, able to vote in federal elections for Francophone politicians, as there was an electoral district, Bruxelles-HalleVilvoorde, that covers the territory of the Brussels-Capital Region and includes the periphery of Brussels in Flanders in which they live. This electoral district was deemed an anachronism by the Flemish political elite, who called for division of the single electoral district to concur with the language border. Francophone politicians wanted to keep the current electoral district. They pleaded for an enlargement of the Brussels-Capital Region (with all municipalities in which there is a large group of Francophones) and wanted minority rights for Francophones living on Flemish territory. Some Francophones also wanted to downgrade Flemish rights in the BrusselsCapital Region. The Flemish viewed these Francophones’ claims as unacceptable nonsense. They referred to the deal negotiated in the 1960s in which every language group was granted its own territory alongside the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. The protection that the Flemish people and the Dutch language enjoy in the capital of the federation was furthermore seen by the Flemish as part of the deal that also granted Francophones a number of guarantees on the federal level. Despite their majority in the Belgian federation (60 percent), the Flemish cannot rule the country without Franco phone support. There are a number of power-sharing factors built into the system, such as an equal number of ministers in the federal government, overrepresentation of Francophones in the Senate, double majority rule for constitutional changes, and all kinds of “alarm bell” procedures through which a linguistic group can block a majority decision of the other linguistic group. After decades of difficult debate, which culminated in the government formation crisis of 2010-11, this electoral district was finally split in July 2013 in an attempt to counter further escalation and more radical demands for Flemish separatism. It remains to be seen whether this decision will really succeed in appeasing both linguistic groups.
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An Immigrant Society
In 2007, 15.5 percent of the entire population did not have Belgian citizenship at birth (Perrin 2007). About half of these people born as foreigners acquired Belgian citizenship since birth. In 2010, there were just over eleven million inhabitants in Belgium, approximately 10.5 percent of whom did (still) not hold Belgian citizenship. A majority of these (68 percent) are European citizens (holding the nationality of one of the other member states of the European Union). Naturalization rates are fairly high among third country nationals (often over 70 percent) and very low among EU citizens, so people of non-European origin are overrepresented among the “new Belgians.” Approximately half of the 1.1 million inhabitants of the Brussels-Capital Region do not have Belgian state citizenship or are of foreign origin (i.e., they have parents who were not Belgians). The striking proportion of the foreign-origin population in the total population of Brussels has to be understood in light of social and economic developments since the 1980s. From the 1950s through the 1970s, the Brussels-Capital Region experienced strong economic growth, which disrupted the demand-supply balance in both the labour and housing markets. Demand for cheap low-skilled labourers increased dramatically and the newly enriched middle classes moved to better, more modern neighbourhoods that had been built on the periphery of the city in the 1950s. Due to mortality and emigration out of the city centre, houses in the nineteenthcentury inner-city neighbourhoods of Brussels became vacant. The demands on the labour and housing markets were filled by immigrants. Brussels increasingly attracted relatively large numbers of foreigners at the same time as the original Belgian inhabitants started moving out of the city. This group of newcomers came predominantly from Italy and Spain, and later from Morocco and Turkey. Highly educated foreigners working for international organizations (and associated organizations) such as the European Communities and NATO also arrived (Van der Haegen, Greet, and Kesteloot 1995, 4). The large numbers of Belgian inhabitants who had moved from Brussels to the suburban areas in the 1970s were, in ensuing decades, joined by these more well-to-do foreign residents. As a result, the Flemish periphery around Brussels has become less Flemish and more Francophone, and the official language frontier, fixed in the 1960s, no longer corresponds to reality. Although it has taken quite some time, Belgian political elites have come to grips with the idea that Belgium has become an immigration society and
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consequently have made Belgian nationality legislation less rigid. Access to citizenship had, up until recently, firmly remained a federal prerogative. It has also been a topic that Flemish and Francophone elites look at from quite different angles. As in most European countries, jus sanguinis, the intergenerational transmission of citizenship, constitutes the basic principle of access to Belgian state-citizenship. Children born to Belgian nationals are automatically granted Belgian nationality at birth. However, progressively (in 1984, 1991, and 1999), jus soli, the acquisition of nationality due to place of birth, has been introduced in Belgian citizenship law. Hidden behind the seemingly uniform vision at the federal level are important Flemish and Francophone divergences in visions of citizenship. These differences came to the fore during the 1990s parliamentary debates on the liberalization of nationality legislation. Paradoxically, there is no language requirement to obtain citizenship in a country that is obsessed by the issue of language. The reason is simple, albeit somewhat peculiar: although most politicians agree that language knowledge is a normal condition for obtaining citizenship, no agreement could be found on the precise criteria of this language requirement and other requirements of nationality acquisition. A majority of Flemish politicians wanted to maintain a number of more subjective criteria (such as the degree of cultural integration or loyalty to the receiving society) and language-related criteria (such as knowledge of Dutch when living on Flemish territory) for the acquisition of citizenship. A majority of Francophone politicians, on the other hand, preferred to retain only objective criteria such as the length of legal stay on a territory. Furthermore, if a language requirement were to be upheld, they deemed knowledge of one of the national languages sufficient, no matter where in the country one lives.6 Since the Flemish and Francophones could not reach an agreement on modalities, no language condition was put in place for obtaining Belgian nationality. One Federal State But Two Visions on Ethnic Minorities
The nationality legislation debate exemplifies the two competing Flemish and Francophone visions on the issue of immigrant integration. Due to the complex institutional framework of the Belgian federal political system (see Jacobs and Swyngedouw 2003), each community has jurisdiction with regard to policies concerning “their” immigrants or ethnic minorities. There are a number of striking differences that have crystallized in discourses and policy making with regard to ethnic minorities. In the Francophone community, an integration discourse clearly inspired by French republicanism
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dominates and tends to deny the relevance of the cultural specificities and ethnic origin of immigrants and their offspring. In Flanders, by contrast, recognition of ethnocultural diversity is welcomed and the existence of ethnic minorities affirmed. The Flemish policy framework is based on recognition of ethnocultural groups, a notion modeled on, and even directly copied from, the Nether lands’ approach and partly in line with Anglo-Saxon ideas of group-based multicultural policies. Notably, entire sections of policy documents pertaining to recent immigrants are copied from Dutch documents. Although the Flemish government strives for an “inclusive policy,” according to which diversity should be automatically taken into account in the relevant policy field (this is called “mainstreaming”), there is still ample room for “categorical policy,” which is specially (and exclusively) oriented toward foreign-origin groups. Support for immigrant organizations testifies to the belief, imported from the Netherlands, that preservation and development of cultural identity can stimulate immigrants’ emancipation within the host society. Along the same line of reasoning, room has been made for first-language education within the Flemish education system. An important difference in the Dutch system is that there is no explicit recognition of particular ethnic communities (for example, Moroccans or Turks) as “official” ethnocultural minorities that should be distinguished from each other – although this is often done in practice through creation of specific statistical material on these groups. At the same time, however, the Flemish government has taken policy measures that are said to be aimed at the assimilation of newcomers. Since the end of the 1990s, the Flemish have been preparing and experimenting with inburgeringstrajecten (citizenship trajectories) in which Dutch language courses and courses introducing Flemish/Belgian society are to be taken by certain categories of recent immigrants. The aim is to actively promote a certain degree of language and cultural assimilation. This scheme, once again copied from the Netherlands, became compulsory in April 2004 for (most) non-EU newcomers in Flanders but is optional in Brussels (Jacobs and Rea 2007). Non-compliance leads to an administrative fine in Flanders. On the Francophone side, the discourse with regard to people of foreign origin is identical in Wallonia and Brussels, but completely different from Flanders. Ethnic minorities are not recognized in policy or in discourse. Categorical policy is marginal. Integration policy is embedded within indirectly targeted policy schemes (priority action zones, zones of positive discrimination, etc.) that use social criteria (percentage of unemployed, percentage of renters, etc.) and demographic criteria (percentage of foreigners)
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to pinpoint areas of attention. Although clearly imprecise, the most commonly used denominator for foreign-origin inhabitants in political discourse and media discourse is “immigrant” and sometimes “person of foreign origin.” Overall, among the Belgian Francophones the dominant frame of reference with regard to integration of immigrants has been imported from France – although Belgium as a state is neither Jacobin nor laïc (freethinking). Although the imported discourse is not always straightforwardly translated into real policy in day-to-day life, it does exercise a strong pressure on ethnic minorities to conform to the Francophone model. Ethnic minorities tend to seek social inclusion through existing pillarized structures, and ethnic background is downplayed. The main differences between Flemish and Francophone policies concerning immigrants and ethnic minorities are schematically represented in Table 7.1. Although each community’s policies can be characterized according to the typology of Table 7.1, different dimensions may be emphasized in specific policy subfields and government agencies, depending, for example, on the ideology of the minister responsible (given the fact that Belgium always has coalition governments). Furthermore, while there is a clear divergence at the level of the official rhetoric and policy statements of the two communities, differences sometimes tend to be a lot less clear “in the field.” Whether these divergent policy choices have different effects on immigrant integration cannot be assessed in the absence of appropriate data that would allow a genuine Flemish-Francophone comparison. This impossibility of comparison is itself a direct consequence of the divergence of these discourses and policies: there is no data on Belgians of foreign origin that could be sensibly compared because there is no consensus on the legitimacy of tracking state citizens on the basis of their ethnic background (Jacobs and Rea 2005). The power struggle between the two linguistic communities within the Belgian framework, although mitigated by other ideological cleavages, helps to explain their discourses and positions on developing substate policies of immigrant integration (Martiniello and Rea 2004). Apart from the self-evident linguistic affinity and cultural links between Flanders and the Netherlands (which played an important role in Flanders’ adaptation of the citizenship trajectory model), the position of the Flemish within Belgian history influenced their decision to adopt the Dutch multicultural policy model. The Flemish, the demographic majority, have for over a century endured Francophone cultural domination, articulated through social practices and incorporated in state institutions, when Belgium was still a unitary
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TABLE 7.1 Policy approaches of Flemish and Francophones toward people of immigrant origin
Flemish approach
Francophone approach
Policy emphasis for Recognition of the Individualistic approach integration of settled existence of ethnic- General policies using immigrants cultural minority socioeconomic indicators groups Only indirect targeting of General and categorical immigrant groups (for policies instance, in certain Cooperation with, and neighbourhoods) support of, immigrant self-organizations Policy for recent Citizenship trajectories No specific policy (but newcomers (includes language punctual projects are courses) being financed) Policy inspiration Former Dutch (and Former French from abroad Anglo-Saxon) ideas assimilationist of group-based republican model multiculturalism Former Dutch model of inburgering
state. For the Flemish, acknowledgment and recognition of ethnic identity are viewed as legitimate endeavours. Not denying cultural identity and fostering and defending a minority culture (in the sociological and political sense) are principles at the cradle of Flemish political identity (and have led to the creation of the federal state). One could say that, through structural homology, the current Flemish elite do not want to impose on their ethnic minorities what they lived themselves as a former minority group. The Flemish stance can, however, be qualified as being one of “inegalitarian multiculturalism” (Martiniello 1997); the Flemish culture always has to take precedence. A strong emphasis is furthermore put on the necessity to learn and utilize Dutch while living in Flanders. A number of rights, access to public housing, for instance, are even directly linked to language knowledge. The Francophone elites’ discursive preference for the French assimilationist position, in spite of their occasional lip service to the idea of cultural
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diversity, has strategic significance. Ethnic difference is applauded only in the case of individual success: support for ethnic diversity is thus limited to individualized “meritocratic multiculturalism” (Martiniello and Rea 2004). As a general principle, conformity and adaptation to the BelgianFrancophone culture are expected. In a federal state in which they now hold the minority position and are heavily dependent on Flemish (financial) solidarity, the Francophone establishment is faced with an assertive Flanders region that is pleading for more and more autonomy and questions its responsibility to maintain solidarity with its Francophone compatriots. While defending national identity and national unity, Francophone strategy is to attempt to transform the new Belgians into Francophones (and not into subminorities). “Belgicizing” and “Frenchizing” the newcomers helps to take a stand against the increasingly powerful Flemish. Interestingly, this currently takes place purely on an informal basis. There is no formal obligation for newcomers to learn French. Even though the concept of obligatory language courses could fit an assimilationist philosophy and strategy, many Francophone policy makers think citizenship trajectories and obligatory language courses are to be avoided. “Indeed, it must be a bad idea, since the Flemish have it,” seems to be the reasoning. In light of the European-wide trend toward citizenship trajectories (Jacobs and Rea 2007), it remains to be seen whether this will change in the near future. As stated, both the Flemish and Francophone communities have jurisdiction over policies concerning ethnic minority groups in the BrusselsCapital Region. Consequently, two contradictory policy approaches coexist within the same territory. Brussels has, for example, two parallel educational systems with different approaches toward migrants, and Brussels incorporates two different policies toward immigrant associations. Although this can create tensions and difficulties, as Favell and Martiniello (1998) have pointed out, the peculiar multilevel governance situation in Brussels also allows and encourages new types of immigrant opportunities and political voice. Immigrant associations can now go “shopping” for funding and influence in either the Flemish or Francophone community and can strategically opt for different forms of collective mobilization – stressing either ethnic identity or neutral forms of special insertion (Jacobs and Swyngedouw 2002). Flemish schools, to give another example, have furthermore become highly attractive for immigrants – even to a point that some Flemish politicians wonder whether the schools will be sustainable with such increases
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in enrolment. Indeed, demographic provisions predict an important growth of the school-going population through to 2025. Neither the Flemish community nor the Francophone community sufficiently anticipate this growth as they are refraining from building new schools for budgetary reasons. Some Flemish politicians also fear that creating new Flemish schools would reduce the proportion of pupils who speak Dutch at home, thus hindering instruction in Dutch. The differing Flemish and Francophone approaches to managing ethnic diversity are also used in instrumental ways to protect and reinforce respective positions in the multinational political arena of Brussels (Jacobs 2000). The Flemish, for instance, undertook special efforts to ensure strong contacts with immigrant associations in Brussels. It is definitely not too farfetched to denounce this – at least partially – as a strategic attempt by the Flemish government in Brussels to incorporate immigrant (often Franco phone) self-organizations into its policy networks, hoping to thereby strengthen the Flemish sphere of influence within the Region of BrusselsCapital. Immigrant associations, of course, welcome the Flemish efforts as interesting new possibilities for funding and lobbying. This recent financial support by the Flemish government has caused a boom in immigrant associational life. It should, however, be noted that there is increasing debate whether the “return on investment” is high enough to continue this policy. Ethnic Minority Groups and the Linguistic Conflict
Creating alliances with immigrant groups is thus seen as an important political strategy in the power struggle between the two national language groups in Brussels. It will be interesting to see whether it will trigger changes in either group’s overall policy approaches toward ethnic minorities. In the competition for the immigrant (origin) vote, will the Francophone establishment, for instance, be tempted to embrace a more multicultural framework in which additional ethnocultural identities are publicly accepted? In any event, politicians from both the Flemish and the Francophone establishment hope immigrants in Brussels will in the end become respectively Flemish or Francophone. Both see their (parallel) educational systems in the Brussels-Capital Region as an important instrument to attain this goal.7 Nevertheless, all research, both quantitative (Swyngedouw, Phalet, and Deschouwer 1999) and qualitative (Jacobs 2004), indicates that, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, most of the “new Belgians” do not
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want to choose. It is problematic to assume that the immigrant to Brussels will gladly step into the dual Flemish-Francophone structure of the Brussels-Capital Region political field. It is not self-evidently beneficial for immigrant minority groups to choose between the Flemish or the French community. Research examining the attitudes of Moroccan, Turkish, and Kurdish community leaders (Jacobs 2004) shows the majority of the allochthonous elite stress their Belgian or Brussels residency, rather than a Flemish or Francophone identity. The following representative quotations from leaders of immigrant organizations illustrate this preference for a Brussels or Belgian identity. Even though most immigrants are de facto Francophone (rather than Dutch-speaking), this is not necessarily viewed as a political identity. “As far as I am concerned, I define myself as being an inhabitant of Brussels. I don’t say I am Flemish or Francophone. I’m rather from Brussels.” “Me, I do not feel Francophone, I feel like an inhabitant of Brussels and Belgian above all.” “But it is true that the new Belgians do not always join sides of the one or of the other. They do not say: ‘Me, I’m of Francophone side’ or ‘I’m of Dutch speaking side.’ I may talk French, but I prefer to say I am Belgian rather than anything else. Belgian from Brussels.” (Interviews quoted in Jacobs 2004)
The echoes from this qualitative research correspond neatly with the findings of quantitative research (Janssens 2001) that shows persons of immigrant origin in Brussels rarely identify with the Flemish or the Francophones, but can identify with a local Brussels or an overarching Belgian identity. They loathe the idea of being forced to make an exclusive choice between the two communities. The worst-case scenario would be a choice of sub nationality enforced upon the inhabitants of Brussels. Most allochthonous elite members interviewed by Jacobs (2004) view a forced choice between the Flemish or Francophone community to be very problematic. One of the interviewees compares the thought with the traumatic experience likely to be experienced by a child forced to choose exclusively between father and mother: “But I think, on a strategic level, it would be a fundamental mistake to say you have to be Dutch speaking or you have to be French speaking. That would be like demanding of a child: ‘do you want to go with
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your mom or with your dad, if you go with the one you will never again see the other?’” (Interview qtd. in Jacobs 2004). Most leaders of non-EU immigrant groups stress the importance of co operation between foreigners, Flemish, and Francophones in the BrusselsCapital Region. Brussels is more than an officially bilingual city; it is a multicultural metropolis in which different groups coexist and different languages are used on a day-to-day basis. The overall majority of immigrant leaders explicitly stress the importance of taking this diversity into account when thinking about the future of Brussels. As one immigrant, a prominent community member, remarked: You do notice that people are looked at from a communitarian perspective. This is not a bad thing in itself but I do think one has to absolutely make sure, be it in associational life or on official level, more contacts are installed, more communication is undertaken between the different communities living in Brussels. For us, the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Brussels is essential. Already from the start Brussels was a bilingual city, or even a Flemish city in the beginning, but we should really respect the history and the composition of this city. To the bilingual character of this city, along the years several other languages have been added, and even beyond the European languages. Among us over forty languages are spoken and we should respect this. Management of such a heterogeneous population is surely difficult. But it is also a great treasure for this city to manage this heterogeneity well. Self-evidently, our goal is multiculturality. So as well the Flemish as the Francophone community. That there would be a harmony, but at the political level this is not always evident. (Interview quoted in Jacobs 2004)
We might be tempted to predict that if it came to a showdown in which the new Belgians had to make a linguistic choice, the Francophone side may not automatically be the most attractive. Over the years, the electoral importance of the immigrant-origin population has steadily increased in Brussels. Interestingly, the co-option of immigrant-origin politicians and targeting of immigrant voters by Franco phone parties took place in a discursive context that continued to condemn communautarism and to depict ethnic bloc voting as phenomena to be avoided (Bousetta, Gsir, and Jacobs 2007). Flemish parties, given their multicultural approach to ethnic relations, had the luxury of speaking
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much more openly about the issue. The bulk of immigrant voters support Francophone parties. This, however, has not (yet) disrupted the power balance. The system of guaranteed representation on the regional level has protected the Flemish from the political effects of demographic developments. Flemish parties have also been able to hold ground at the local level and Flemish politicians have continued to try to create alliances with the immigrant-origin population. Figure 7.1 depicts the steady increase in the percentage of non-EU-origin politicians elected to local and regional assemblies in the Brussels-Capital Region since 1994. As Figure 7.1 shows, there has been a steady increase of the number of non-EU-origin politicians in Brussels since the 1999 elections (Jacobs, Martiniello, and Rea 2002). The growing electoral success of politicians of immigrant origin has translated into executive power. Following the 2000 local elections, twelve politicians of immigrant (Moroccan, Turkish, and Congolese) origin became aldermen. In 2004, a Francophone politician of Turkish origin (Mr. Emir Kir) was appointed secretary of state in the Brussels government. At the same time, a Brussels citizen of Moroccan origin (Mrs. Fadila Laanan) was appointed minister of French culture, youth, and public broadcasting in the government of the French community of Bel gium, while a Brussels politician of Congolese origin (Mrs. Gisèle Mandaila) was appointed secretary of state for family affairs at the federal level. In the October 2006 municipal elections, the remarkable success of politicians of immigrant (mainly Moroccan) origin was confirmed in Brussels. Of the 663 local councillors, 138 (20 percent) were of foreign origin. Most of these were of Moroccan descent (Jacobs and Rea 2007), followed by politicians of Turkish and of Congolese origin. In the 2006 elections, nonBelgians of non-EU origin could for the first time cast their vote (although they could not stand as candidates). We can, however, assume that the enfranchisement of non-Belgians in the 2006 elections is not the main explanatory factor for this ongoing success of immigrant-origin politicians. Of the 42,298 potential voters among the so-called “third country nationals” (foreigners who are not EU citizens), only 6,622 registered as voters, thus constituting only 1.12 percent of the total electorate. We can, therefore, readily assume that the success of Belgian politicians of foreign origin is still predominantly related to the fact that Belgian voters of foreign origin – but probably also Belgian voters not having a link to the history of immigration – have cast a preferential vote for immigrant-origin candidates. In October 2006, EU citizens had the right to vote and to stand as candidates for a second time (having also been able to participate in the 2000
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FIGURE 7.1
Percentage of non-EU-origin elected politicians in the local and regional elections of the Brussels-Capital Region
local elections). As in 2000, their participation rate was rather low. Of the 136,482 potential voters among the non-Belgian EU citizens, only 18,682 (or 13.7 percent) registered as voters. While they could have a potential impact of 18.31 percent in the electorate if they all registered (and voted), non-Belgian EU citizens accounted for only 3.16 percent of those who voted (Jacobs, Delwit, and Delmotte 2009). Even though 3 percent is not negligible, very few non-Belgian EU citizens were elected and few Belgians with foreign EU-origin participated, or scored well, as candidates. In other words, EU citizens are politically invisible on the local level in the European capital. The overall majority apparently feel it unimportant that their European citizenship entitles them to participate in the Belgian local elections. In the absence of political participation by EU nationals and the growing importance of non-EU-origin voters within the electorate, the Flemish have been able to hold their ground for the time being. In our opinion, this would quickly change if they were to stop creating alliances with a wide variety of immigrant-origin groups (through cultural initiatives and through the openness of the Flemish school system). Members of these groups might then decide to fundamentally put into question the political architecture of the Brussels-Capital Region. Conclusion
The growing presence of immigrants in Brussels – approximately half of the inhabitants are of foreign origin – both accentuates and attenuates the
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long-entrenched linguistic conflicts. In day-to-day social, economic, and political life in Brussels, the classic bilingual institutional logic according to which one is either Francophone or Dutch-speaking is becoming increasingly irrelevant. At the same time, the increasing electoral importance of immigrant-origin groups revitalizes the entrenched linguistic conflicts. Both dominant language groups have their own vision of how immigrants, especially those from outside the European Union, should be treated and integrated. Both dominant language groups also have an interest in connecting these immigrants to their “own” institutions and spheres of influence and, ultimately, in mobilizing them as voters. Foreign-origin citizens, however, cannot easily fit into the bilingual logic of the Belgian institutional infrastructure. EU citizens simply do not show an interest in Belgian politics. Non-EU citizens are much more politically involved but prefer to stay outside of the linguistic struggle between Dutch-speaking people and Francophones in Brussels. Some would even claim that they are the only “real” Belgians remaining. The ultimate effect of immigrant political voices on the Flemish-Francophone power balance in Brussels remains to be seen. For the time being, immigrant inclusion has not dramatically changed the parameters of linguistic struggle in and around Brussels. Notes
1 In 2007, the Belgian GDP was about 334,948 million euro, and Brussel’s GDP was about 62,579 MI EUR (Eurostat http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_ PUBLIC/1-18022010-AP/EN/1-18022010-AP-EN.PDF) 2 See the Pavia group website, http://www.paviagroup.be. Seats are now assigned on a regional basis. In practice, this means that most Flemish voters cannot vote for Francophone politicians and most Francophone voters cannot vote for Flemish politicians. 3 Detailed survey data on language use in Brussels has been collected by Janssens (2001). 4 The local councils for social welfare – Centre Public d’Action Sociale – depend on the local municipal level of government. Because Brussels counts nineteen municipalities, there are nineteen different local councils for social welfare in Brussels, each one elected by its corresponding city council. The local councils for social welfare count nine members for the smallest municipalities and fifteen members for the largest municipalities. The mission of a local council for social welfare is to provide basic material, medical, or psychological assistance to those who are the most in need. 5 Once again, these are estimates because a language census is forbidden. 6 In taking this position they wanted to reaffirm their commitment to defend the interests of Francophone inhabitants of Flanders. The Flemish think this is unacceptable
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since the language border was the result of a negotiated compromise in the 1960s: Flanders would have Dutch as its only official language, Wallonia would have French, and Brussels would be officially bilingual. 7 Even though both sides hesitate, in light of the financial and economic crisis, to build new schools to counter capacity problems. Works Cited
Bousetta, Hassan, Sonia Gsir, and Dirk Jacobs. 2007. “Belgium.” In European Immigration: A Sourcebook, edited by Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas, 33-44. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Favell, Adrian, and Marco Martiniello. 1998. “Multinational, Multicultural and Multi leveled: Post-national Politics in Brussels, Capital of Europe.” Paper presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions, Warwick, Warwickshire, March. Fitzmaurice, John. 1996. The Politics of Belgium: A Unique Federalism. London: Hurst. Jacobs, Dirk. 2000. “Multinational and Polyethnic Politics Entwined: Minority Representation in the Region of Brussels-Capital.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 26 (2): 289-304. –. 2004. “Pacifying National Majorities in the Brussels Capital Region: What About the Immigrant Minority Groups?” In European Yearbook of Minority Issues, Vol. 2, 2002/3, edited by E. Lantschner and A. Morawa, 309-29. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. –. 2007. “‘Brussels, Do You Speak-a My Language?’ Enige toekomstscenario’s gewikt en gewogen.” In Waar België voor staat. Een toekomstvisie, edited by Geert Buelens, Jan Goossens, and David Van Reybrouck, 223-38. Antwerpen-Amsterdam: Meulenhoff-Manteau. Jacobs, Dirk, Pascal Delwit, and Florence Delmotte. 2009. “Political Participation and Electoral Impact of EU-citizens in the Brussels Capital Region: The October 2006 Local Elections.” In Brussels and Europe: The Position of Brussels in the World City Network – Interactions between the European Institutional Presence and the Brussels Capital Region, edited by Roel De Groof, 303-32. Brussels: Academic and Scientific Publishers. Jacobs, Dirk, Marco Martiniello, and Andrea Rea. 2002. “Changing Patterns of Political Participation of Citizens of Immigrant Origin in the Brussels Capital Region: The October 2000 Elections.” Journal of International Migration and Integration 3 (2): 201-21. Jacobs, Dirk, and Andrea Rea. 2005. “Construction et importation des classements ethniques. Allochtones et immigrés aux Pays-Bas et en Belgique.” Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 21 (2): 35-59. –. 2007. “The End of National Models? Integration Courses and Citizenship Trajectories in Europe.” IJMS: International Journal on Multicultural Societies 9 (2): 264-83. Jacobs, Dirk, and Marc Swyngedouw. 2002. “The Extreme-Right and Enfranchisement of Immigrants: Main Issues in the Public Debate on Integration in Belgium.” Journal of International Migration and Integration 3 (3-4): 329-44.
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–. 2003. “Territorial and Non-territorial Federalism: Reform of the Brussels Capital Region, 2001.” Regional and Federal Studies 13 (2): 127-39. Janssens, Rudy. 2001. Taalgebruik in Brussel: Taalverhoudingen, taalverschuivingen en taalidentiteit in een meertalige stad. Brussels: VUB Press. Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Martiniello, Marco. 1997. Sortir des ghettos culturels. Paris: Preses de Sciences Po. Martiniello Marco, and Andrea Rea. 2004. “Piliers, minorités ethniques et pluralisme en Belgique.” In Affirmative Action: Des discours, des politiques et des pratiques, edited by Marco Martiniello and Andrea Rea, 253-81. Louvain-La-Neuve: Academia. Perrin, Nicolas 2007. Rapport statistique et démographique 2007: Migration et populations issues de l’immigration en Belgique. Bruxelles: Centre pour l’Egalité des Chances et la Lutte contre le Racisme. Swyngedouw, Marc, Karen Phalet, and Kris Deschouwer. 1999. Minderheden in Brussel. Sociopolitieke houdingen en gedragingen. Brussels: VUB Press. Van Der Haegen, Herman, Greet Juchtmans, and Christian Kesteloot. 1995. Multi cultureel Brussel. Brussels: Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest.
Part 3
Managing Diversity through Local Institutions and Processes of Urban Governance
Jerusalem Conflict in the City of Peace David Cameron
Chapter
8
This chapter looks at one of the most radically divided cities on the face of the globe: Jerusalem. The question of its status is perhaps the most intractable element in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Inside the Old City’s walls, with places sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam everywhere, you find the conflict’s molten core. I will start the chapter with some comments on Jerusalem’s history and contemporary situation, followed by an examination of the nature of the conflict. Then, after a brief critical review of several proposals for resolution of that conflict, I will detail the development of the Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI) and its new approach to the governance of a deeply divided part of a deeply divided city. Why Is Jerusalem Important and in What Sense Is It Unique?
Jerusalem holds a unique place on the global stage and in the world’s imagination. While other segmented cities have important affective and symbolic standing for the communities that are struggling over them, there is none but Jerusalem that represents God’s earthly place for each of the world’s three monotheistic religions. Jerusalem enjoys a unique position in all three faiths. As Karen Armstrong (1997, xvi) writes in her book Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, “Jerusalem has – for different reasons – become central to the sacred geography of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. That makes it very difficult for them to see the city objectively, because it has become bound up with their conception of themselves and the ultimate
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reality – sometimes called ‘God’ or the sacred – that gives our mundane life meaning and value.” Since time immemorial Jerusalem has been the temporal focal point of Judaism, and the place where the presence of God makes itself felt more powerfully than anywhere else. The destruction of the Temple by Roman soldiers in August 70 AD was a traumatic shock for Jews, but it did nothing to reduce their passionate attachment to Jerusalem. “Next Year in Jeru salem,” the prayer that ends the Passover Seder, speaks to the longing of Jews all over the world for their city; it is a centuries-old aspiration that has continued to the present day. The Jewish graves in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, many of them the last resting place for Jews from all over the world who have made their way to Jerusalem to die, attest to that. Muslims view Jerusalem, the place from which the Prophet Mohammed was believed to have ascended to heaven, as the third most holy site of Islam, after Mecca and Medina. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed in 691 or 692, is the oldest surviving Muslim religious building outside Arabia (Lewis 2004, 43). Clearly meant at the time of its construction to be a riposte to Judaism and Christianity, it figures today in the imagination even of Islam’s less devout believers; in the grand reception hall of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad, there are two colossal murals at each end of the chamber: one shows a missile in flight, the other, the golden Dome of the Rock on the Haram al-Sharif in the Old City. This convergence of faiths on one small patch of territory is the volcanic core, not simply of the Jerusalem conflict, but of the Middle Eastern conflict itself. For Christians, the life of Jesus began just down the road from the Old City, in Bethlehem, and his death and resurrection in Jerusalem mark the most powerful and distinctive part of the Christian story. Historically, Christian ity played a central role in the faith-based strife that has shaped Jerusalem over the centuries; one has only to think of the Crusaders in 1099, wading through rivers of blood to capture the Old City, to see that this is so. Chris tian sites and institutions are legion in Jerusalem and throughout the Holy Land, but the part that Christian believers play today in the city’s conflict is vastly diminished. Christianity has a deep place in the general historical context of the conflict, but its churches and religious institutions, while very present in the life of the Old City, as well as in Bethlehem, the Galilee, and elsewhere, are not normally major factors in the current unfolding of events.1 Today, the conflict is between Muslims and Jews, but also between Israelis and Palestinians, and between the Arab countries of the region and Israel. Indeed, this multilayering is one of the characteristics of the Jerusalem
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conflict; it radiates out from its core in the Old City to metropolitan Jerusalem, to the Israel-Palestine struggle, to the embattled relationships between Israel and many Arab countries, and ultimately to the world itself, where it has achieved at the United Nations, and in international law, its unhappy global status as one of the longest-standing and most intractable conflicts in international relations. In a sense, it seems strange that such a paltry stretch of territory and such a small population could attract as much attention as they do on the world stage. Greater Jerusalem has a population of about 760,000, around the size of Edmonton, Columbus, Ohio, or Amsterdam; the Old City covers less than one square kilometre, with about thirty thousand to forty thousand residents crammed within its walls. It is not size, however, that makes for urban conflict, but the clash of entrenched identities and interests. In Jerusalem the very stones of the city, pulverized by generations of conquerors, speak to the centuries of violence, conflict, and suffering that the city of peace has endured. Amos Elon (1996, 28-29) wrote in his book Jerusalem, “In the imagination of believers, Jerusalem became more than a city. She became a metaphor. Her name stood for holiness and peace – and at the same time, strangely enough, for their opposites. Faith and superstition frequently alternated and belief often degenerated into war, zealous fury, sectarian prejudice, and persecution.” It is a world city – if not for its culture, its economy, or its global creative class – at least in this sense: that the idea, the image, of Jerusalem lives in the minds of half the population of the world, and the contested question of its ownership and status has been a matter of international concern for centuries (Klein 2007, 99-100). It is prime real estate for the world’s three monotheistic religions, an entity that engages the interest and attention of surrounding regional actors, central in the ongoing regional conflict. It is currently at the centre of the aspirations of two peoples, one of which inhabits a state and the other of which aspires to: claimed as the national capital by both (Dumper 2002). Jerusalem has known significant displacement of its citizens over the centuries. Currently, both the growth of its Jewish population and the constraints on the growth of its Arab population have been in the service of the national ideal of one of the parties to the conflict. Menachem Klein (2007, 85) characterizes the city’s division in the following way: It slowly became clear to the Israeli public that Jerusalem was not the multicultural and multiconfessional city they thought it had become in 1967. It was, rather, a divided city. In a multicultural city, the orientation of the
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various groups is toward creating a collective “we.” With Jerusalem today polarized more than ever, the orientation is toward division. Only in rare cases will an Arab from East Jerusalem and a Jew from West Jerusalem call themselves a “we” or describe Jerusalem as “ours,” with both referring to the same collective.
Jerusalem’s modern story is part of the larger narrative of the Jewish repossession of what they view as their homeland in the Middle East – a process that began with Theodore Herzl and the Zionist Movement in the latter part of the nineteenth century and picked up steam after both the First and Second World Wars. Under the Ottoman Empire, Jerusalem had been something of a backwater, existing in relative obscurity. However, with the empire’s collapse in the course of the First World War, Palestine – and Jerusalem specifically – rose into greater prominence. With the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that promised Jews a homeland in Palestine, the hopes of Jews all over the world soared, and an active period of land purchase, immigration, and settlement began under the uneasy watch of British Mandatory authorities in Palestine (Schneer 2010). After the horror of the Second World War, Jewish immigration to Palestine greatly increased, as Jews who had survived the Holocaust made their way to the Holy Land. As the British withdrew, a battle raged between Arabs and Jews and the State of Israel was declared by David Ben Gurion in 1948. The eastern border of the new state was defined by the Green Line dividing Israel from Jordan and the West Bank. In Jerusalem, the Green Line ran just west of the wall surrounding the Old City, and the two sides were separated by a no man’s land. Israeli control and development of the western part of greater Jerusalem began at that time, while Jordan controlled the Old City and the West Bank (the territory between the Green Line and the River Jordan) (Dumper 1997, 20-22, 33-38). Michael Romann and Alex Weingrod (1991, 11) describe the situation between 1949 and 1967: The political issues of control and sovereignty were seemingly resolved. There were two Jerusalems, each developing under its own state system. The area to the east of the dividing line, including all of the Old City, became Arab and was under Jordanian rule; not a single Jewish family remained there. The area to the west was Jewish and part of Israel, and there too the remaining Arabs and other non-Jews constituted no more than one percent of the total population.
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West Jerusalem became the capital of Israel, and, as Romann and Weingrod (1991, 11) say, while the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan asserted its control over important Muslim sites in the eastern part of Jerusalem, the Palestin ians, many of them now citizens of Jordan, felt little loyalty to that country. Israel began as an embattled state, its very existence threatened by its Arab neighbours. The Arab-Israeli war of 1967 led to the expulsion of Jordan from Jerusalem and the assumption of control by Israel. At the time, this was experienced as something of a miracle for the new political community, as was the conclusive victory itself, and legends have grown up about the first Israeli soldiers fighting their way to the Western Wall (Klein 2007, 81-82). The Israeli government lost no time in declaring Jerusalem the eternal capital of the Jewish state. With this declaration, Israel assumed de facto control over the whole of Jerusalem, although its authority has never been recognized under international law. This created an acute sense of injustice among Palestinians as well as subjection to power unregulated by international law. Since that time, through its regulatory actions and settlement policies, Israel has sought to establish facts on the ground that would make the unravelling of Israeli dominance very difficult to achieve (Dumper 1997, 38-46; Safdie 2002). Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries were extended through a series of acts of Israel’s legislative branch, the Knesset, and a ring of Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem was established to demonstrate Israeli ownership of the territory and to justify a security umbrella covering the whole region. Palestinian development was significantly constrained, and Palestinian rights radically undermined through the denial of building permits, punitive residency requirements, housing demolitions, and the like. This pressure on the indigenous Palestinian population of Jerusalem has continued into the new millennium. Treated as permanent residents rather than citizens, those who cannot establish that their “centre of life” is Jerusalem – who live outside Jerusalem, or who go abroad for business or education – run the risk of losing their property and right of residence in the city (Klein 2007, 83-84). As Daniel Seidemann (2012) writes in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israel has expropriated one-third of the privately owned Palestinian land there [East Jerusalem] to build 50,000 residential units for Israelis; none for Palestinians. The expropriations are always made for “public purposes,” but the “public” involved is, invariably, Israelis only. Much of the remaining Palestinian property in East Jerusalem is under threat of confiscation as
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“absentee property” – based on an Israeli law that nullifies Palestinian ownership if the current or previous owners reside even a few miles away in the West Bank or anywhere in the Arab world. And the burden of proof is on Palestinian property owners, who are presumed to be guilty of being “absentees” unless they can prove otherwise.
Ironically, the Israeli effort to “de-Palestinianize” Jerusalem appears to have had the opposite effect. The risk of losing ownership and residence rights in Jerusalem encouraged many Palestinian Jerusalemites living elsewhere to move back home. This has been one of the factors producing acute overcrowding in the Old City, particularly among the Palestinian population. As Klein (2007, 83; 2001, 4-18) points out, the city’s demographic balance at the time of Israel’s 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem – 74.2 percent Jews and 25.8 percent Arabs – has shifted in favour of the Arabs, despite the strenuous efforts of the Israeli establishment to achieve the opposite outcome; by 2000, the ratio had become 68 percent Jews and 32 percent Arabs (Dumper 1997, 53-85). Furthermore, the 1967 Israeli conception of Jerusalem as a united and open city, the eternal capital of the State of Israel, has proven chimerical. Despite the best efforts of Teddy Kollek, the charismatic mayor of Jerusalem from 1965 to 1993, to establish an organic urban community under Jewish control that would be open to many cultures and religions, it was not to be. Bernard Wasserstein (2008, 265, see also 216) writes, “[Kollek’s] administration of the city must be judged a failure by the central criterion that he set himself at the moment of victory in June 1967: unification. At the end of his term Jerusalem was more, not less, divided than it had been in those heady days just after the Six Day War.” Jerusalem is in fact today two cities. As Klein (2007, 88-89) writes, Since 1967, Jerusalem has developed as two central cities with their backs to each other. Israeli-Jewish Jerusalem faces west, toward its natural hinterland in the state of Israel. Palestinian Jerusalem faces the West Bank. The segregation of these two cities is profound, and the only people who spend significant time in both are an ever-diminishing stream of Palestinian laborers who cross the ethnic boundary for a few hours each day … The Jewish-Israeli city in the west rules some 200,000 Palestinian Arabs who live their lives separately in the east. Each of the two ethnic communities has developed, within the bounds of its city, a complex composed of an urban, political and religious focal point.
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What Is the Nature of the Issue?
It is clear, then, that Jerusalem is a segmented city, riven by deep, longstanding conflict. But does the conflict fit the working assumption of this volume, namely, a conflict characterized by ethnic and nationalist identitybased divisions? Broadly speaking, it does. The conflict is grounded in divergent and contested collective identities rooted in religion, language, ethnocultural diversity, and historical experience. Additionally, there is a clear nationalist dimension. One of the identity communities holds political power and controls the state, which was conceived and established in its own image as Jewish – despite the fact that approximately one-fifth of Israel’s citizens are not Jewish, but Arab. Israel’s establishment entailed the displacement of large numbers of Palestinian Arabs, many of whom now reside in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The experience of dispossession nurtures the desire of Palestinians for return, and for a state of their own. Israel’s acute socioeconomic inequality is not the cause of the conflict, but one of its consequences. Israeli policy has placed Palestinian Jerusalem ites at a radical disadvantage, challenging their tenure and rights in the city, obstructing their commercial and economic development, and in general exacerbating the social and economic inequality of the Palestinian population (Klein 2001, 18-41; 2007, 85).2 The significant and growing population of ultra-orthodox Jews, concentrated in the overcrowded streets of Mea Shearim, one of the oldest areas of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, brings its own distinctive version of urban poverty, although this is the product of the community’s religious conviction and sense of its own distinctive identity rather than a product of ethnoreligious conflict. There is considerable diversity within both Israeli and Palestinian communities. One of the main lines of differentiation on both sides is the degree to which the members are secular, or religious and observant, in their orientation. Despite this respective internal diversity, the conflict is at bottom binary, without multiple lines of tension or social fractures. The ultrareligious on both sides have no grounds on which to coalesce, any more than do the secular Israelis and Palestinians, each of whom express their citizenship within the framework of different governance and social structures. Klein (2007, 85) details some of the elements of differentiation: “nationality, history, mentality, religion, ethnicity, culture, language, political alignment, and representation in organs of government.” He goes on to note that the two populations “live in separate neighborhoods, have separate hinterlands, transportation systems, media, urban centers, industrial areas, educational systems from preschool through higher education, community institutions,
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health-care systems, and communal leaders.” “Jerusalem,” Klein says (2007, 85), “is not simply a unit of territory. It is a unit of identity.” Moshe Hirsch, Deborah Housen-Couriel, and Ruth Lapidoth (1995, 138) are among the many students of the region who point to sovereignty – that ultimate manifestation of collective identity – as lying at the core of the dispute: “The most controversial subject in a future settlement of the Jerusalem question is that of national aspirations. The crucial issue is sovereignty over the city.” By its nature, sovereignty is virtually impermeable to compromise – a classic zero-sum claim, which, if possessed de facto by one party, is denied to the other. Sovereignty is a means of declaring possession, control, and the exclusion of the other. When Jews talk of Jerusalem as the eternal and undivided capital of Israel – despite the brute reality that it is in fact shared and profoundly divided – they are making a controversial point in the symbolic realm: this is mine and will always be mine; it is not yours, and will never be yours; Jerusalem is at the heart of Jewish identity and we will not give it up. Many Israelis who are not fond of Jerusalem and rarely go there nevertheless subscribe to this categorical position. Sovereignty is equally central to the self-image and aspirations of Pales tinians. They cite a succession of United Nations Security Council resolutions – for example, 242, 252, 267, and 298 – that make their title to Jerusalem clear, and point out that the Israelis do not hold a legitimate claim to the city under international law (PASSIA 2007). They note that other states and international actors do not acknowledge Israeli claims over the city. Palestinians typically want this acknowledged at the beginning of any negotiations about Jerusalem – the very thing that no Israeli government can concede. These conflicting claims, and the historical narratives that support them, are the prelude to most significant Palestinian-Israeli discussions of the status of Jerusalem – most recently, in my experience, at a 5 May 2010 meeting sponsored by the Middle East Institute in Washington, which had been convened to discuss the Jerusalem Old City Initiative. One of the panelists, a distinguished Israeli lawyer who played a leading role in the Camp David peace talks, chose to assert the view that the Jewish claim to Jerusalem was deeper, of longer duration, and more central than that of the other party to the conflict. Unsurprisingly, this attracted the vociferous rejection of the Palestinian panelists. Who got there first is a recurrent debate in the lexicon of identity conflict (Hulme 2006, 154). Sovereignty, then, is emblematic of the identity and aspirations of the two parties to the conflict and the toughest nut to crack in negotiations over the status of the city. The dispute over Jerusalem is not grounded in rational
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calculation or material interest, but in the national, religious, and spiritual aspirations of the two parties, which are themselves the product of historical experience, religious belief, and directly contradictory claims over what one might call “spirit places.” It is, then, a conflict over territory laden with symbolic significance. Indeed, it is in its essence a symbolic conflict, despite its obvious material, political, economic, and social dimensions. It is because it is at bottom a symbolic conflict that it is so hard to resolve; the identities, dignity, and self-image of Palestinians and Israelis, both collectively and individually, are intimately engaged in the conflict. Both sides tend to frame the issue as a matter of survival for their respective national community; it is difficult to talk compromise and middle ground if both sides are inclined to see the issue as a matter of national life and death. People on both sides of the conflict have shown themselves willing to die and kill for their ideals. So deep and enduring is the fracture that there is a clear tendency on each side to dehumanize the other, treating the other as a stereotypical manifestation of a set of threatening and malignant forces, and denying to the other the humanity it sees in itself. One might state the nub of the issue in the following way: How does one satisfy two mutually exclusive sets of existential requirements rooted in the national aspirations, religious beliefs, and spiritual longings of the Israeli and Palestinian communities? On what basis might the two sides find mutually acceptable lines of accommodation, agreeing to set aside or moderate their respective absolute positions, for the sake of establishing a compromise arrangement that would benefit both? Given the abyss that exists between the two communities, if they were able somehow to accommodate their differences and find a way of settling the conflict, that achievement would serve as a powerful symbol of what is possible for other divided urban communities around the world. This, however, is the goal that has eluded the two parties for decades. Seeking a Way Forward: The Jerusalem Old City Initiative
There have in fact been many rounds of peacekeeping negotiations in the Middle East. A few, such as the peace agreements between Israel and Egypt (1979) and Israel and Jordan (1994) were successful; most were not. There have been many proposals designed to address the specific matter of Jerusalem’s status and how it might fit into a more comprehensive peace agreement. Hirsch, Housen-Couriel, and Lapidoth (1995, 138) outline various ideas and proposals for Jerusalem advanced over the years:
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• Continuation of the British Mandate. Jerusalem would have stayed under a British Mandate subject to the supervision of the League of Nations or the United Nations. • Israeli sovereignty. The current situation in Jerusalem would be endorsed and Israeli sovereignty over the entire city would be recognized. • Federal or confederal model. There would be a federation or confederation between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians, with Jerusalem as the seat of joint institutions. • A divided city. Jerusalem would be divided between Israel and an Arab state, presumably Palestine. • Shared sovereignty. The borders of Jerusalem would be expanded and sovereignty shared. • Internationalization. An international regime would be established to govern the city. What exists in Jerusalem in the second decade of the twenty-first century is, in fact, none of these things. It is rather a situation of contested sovereignty, an Israeli claim of sovereignty not recognized by the Palestinians or by the international community. It is a long-standing, deeply unresolved case of contested claims and mutually exclusive assertions of rights and prerogatives. In the balance of this chapter, I offer an account of the most recently developed substantial proposal for tackling the Jerusalem question, the Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI).3 Conceived by three former Canadian diplomats in the wake of the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000, this initiative got off the ground in 2003 and effectively completed its work in 2010. I was intensively involved in the project as a part of the team from 2006 to 2010.4 Two of the three project architects – Michael Bell and Michael Molloy5 – had retired from the Canadian diplomatic service, but were long-standing Middle East hands interested in continuing to do some work in the region. They invited a third member, John Bell,6 who had recently left the Canadian diplomatic corps. All were deeply engaged in the Middle East and wanted, on both personal and professional grounds, to see whether they could make a contribution to the resolution of the conflict there. At a December 2003 meeting in Ottawa, the three settled fairly quickly on Jerusalem as the project focus. Jerusalem was obviously a critical issue in the Middle East conflict, manageable in scope, and not technical in character; there appeared to be an opportunity for some useful work to be done.
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The three former public servants had been surprised and upset that there had been very little serious preparatory work on Jerusalem on the part of parties to the then most recent Middle East negotiations, the 2000 Camp David Summit involving United States President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. When the former diplomats – the troika – met in Ottawa, Israel and Palestine were still in the grip of the Second Intifada; the topic of Jeru salem was too hot for Israeli or even United States foreign service people to work on seriously, and, although the Palestinians had Jerusalem experts in their Negotiation Support Unit, they focused not on creating solutions but on building up the Palestinian case. The former diplomats defined certain core elements of the project: it would address the Old City and the holy sites; it would attend to the symbolic and spiritual dimensions of the conflict; and it would emphasize what they termed a “needs-based” approach. Everyone knew what each side to the conflict wanted; less known and little studied – at least in the eyes of the troika – were the respective parties’ needs. The principals were acutely aware of the element of risk in three outsiders – even if experienced – choosing to tackle one of the hard-core issues in one of the world’s most enduring and unmanageable conflicts. The initial idea was to examine issues and policy possibilities both within the walled city and in the holy sites beyond; the enterprise was at first called the Holy Basin Project. However, as the troika reflected further on the matter, they realized that there were notable advantages in restricting the project to the Old City. It had walls and thus an unequivocal definition of borders and territory; most of the holy sites – and the most important of them – were concentrated within the walls of the Old City, and it was a space within which Palestinians and Israelis were living in close and intense proximity. Indeed, given that the Temple Mount and Haram al-Sharif are one and the same structure and cannot be physically separated, the challenge of governance in the midst of systemic mistrust was at its peak. With the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif at its core, the walled city was at the very centre of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Founded on the belief that Jerusalem cannot be settled independently of the larger conflict, the JOCI approach assumes that arrangements for the city will be a part of a comprehensive peace agreement, broadly based on a two-state solution. While JOCI’s focus is on the walled Old City of Jerusalem, not the metropolitan area that surrounds it, there is, I think, the implicit assumption that an Israel-Palestine peace agreement will almost certainly
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divide metropolitan Jerusalem – that is, the urban community outside the walls of the Old City – between the two states, and that each country will have its capital in its own sector of greater Jerusalem. This would mean that an international border would run through the centre of greater Jerusalem. While putting this border into effect poses considerable operational challenges, it is at least imaginable. Much more difficult, and probably unsustainable in the view of the JOCI team, is the notion of instituting a division within the Old City itself, of running the international border right through the middle of that small patch of sacred earth. Contemporary solutions for the Old City have been restricted to zerosum options (i.e., either Israeli or Palestinian sovereignty over the entire area), or unwieldy plans to divide sovereignty (e.g., the Clinton parameters, the Geneva Accord). Historically, thought has been given from time to time to internationalizing the Old City (i.e., relocating sovereignty and responsibility for the Old City to an international body of some sort). The JOCI project took the position that none of these alternatives is likely to work, or to produce the realistic, practical, and sustainable arrangements necessary in the circumstances. The zero-sum options imply an outright winner and a loser and cannot contribute to the achievement of a negotiated peace settlement. Divided sovereignty in the Old City would probably incite rather than end conflict, and would risk undermining a stable peace by multiplying the points of friction and opportunities for mischief between the two parties. And internationalization entails a transferral of sovereignty highly unlikely to be acceptable to either party. JOCI’s proposed Special Regime does not represent any of these alternatives. The existence of conflicting Palestinian and Israeli claims to sovereignty over the Old City is acknowledged, but the parties under such a special regime would mutually agree to set these claims to one side in favour of practical arrangements for the management and governance of the Old City, which they would jointly put in place and would ultimately jointly control. The Special Regime would be rooted in the freely negotiated agreement of the two parties, and would continue until they were able to negotiate an alternative. The parties would be agreeing to put in place a structure that would do the job they cannot do for themselves: provide stable, effective governance of a unified Old City. The Old City would be treated as a distinct unit with a distinct legal system under the executive authority of a single chief administrator accountable to a governance board. The governance board would have oversight authority over the Special Regime. It would consist of senior representatives
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of the Israeli and Palestinian governments and select other countries and institutions as agreed to by parties. The chief administrator – a distinguished international figure, not an Israeli or a Palestinian – would be appointed for a fixed but renewable term by the board. The Special Regime would be responsible for specific aspects of governance – particularly those most likely to bring members of the two communities into direct conflict, including policing, heritage, archaeological oversight, access, planning, zoning, property registration and transfer, and ensuring equal status for all residents and visitors. All powers not specifically allocated to the Special Regime would remain with the parties. An Old City police service, with a chief of police, heading a unified command structure accountable to the chief administrator, would be created. Members of the service would be recruited individually from a list of countries agreed to by the parties. Israelis and Palestinians would participate in the police service as “community liaison officers.” The police service would be responsible for the maintenance of public order, counterterrorism, entry and exit control to and from the Old City, enforcement of criminal and specific civil laws, security and intelligence responsibilities, and community policing. JOCI parts company from the best known model, the 2003 Geneva Initiative, which developed a proposal to divide the Old City itself, assigning one part of it to the sovereign authority of Palestine and the other to the sovereign authority of Israel, with a complex set of management mechanisms to make the system work (Lapidoth 2005). As there were to be no physical barriers within the Old City, the Geneva approach even went so far as to propose painting curb stones different colours to indicate which part of the sidewalk was Palestine, and which Israel (Article 6 (7) (vii) of the Geneva Accord). Unlike Geneva, the JOCI strategy aims to secure the end of conflict, not the end of all claims; indeed, the working assumption of JOCI is that the attempt to achieve an end to claims will not produce an end of conflict. The virtue of the Geneva approach is that it attempts to settle the sovereignty question once and for all; its weakness is that in the atmosphere of radical mistrust and suspicion that prevails between the two parties the proposed system, with its multiple friction points, would almost certainly break down and foster renewed violence. The virtue of the JOCI proposal is that there are good grounds for believing that it would be workable – far more workable, at least, than the alternatives; the disadvantage is that it leaves the resolution of the question of sovereignty over the Old City in abeyance, probably for a very long time.
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The Jerusalem Old City Initiative elaborated its thinking over several years of intensive consultation and discussion with key Palestinian and Israeli actors in the region. Through trial and error, the troika had settled on a working method. As one of the project architects said, “test, test, test: consult, consult, consult.” A triangle of tools was developed and used throughout the project: first, continual consultation and discussion with actors in the region, sometimes without a precise agenda, sometimes with a draft document in hand, and usually in one-on-one meetings or in small groups of just two or three; second, the commissioning of research studies, undertaken chiefly by regional actors; and third, occasional larger meetings, bringing together Palestinians, Israelis, and foreign actors. This triangle of devices accomplished two things: it improved and refined the quality of the work and it engaged regional actors in the life and thinking of the project, helping them to think through the issues in a non-threatening environment, and giving them something of a stake in its process and output. JOCI produced four main documents in its own right, each based on the input received from repeated trips to the region. The first, released in December 2005, was a discussion document, New Directions for Deliberation and Dialogue, which explained why the focus was on the Old City and outlined the needs-based, practical approach the initiative intended to take in further policy development. The second product arose in response to the repeated concerns of regional interlocutors about security; the argument was made by many that, if a proposal did not include iron-clad security arrangements strong enough to cope with the inevitable outbreaks of violence and disorder, it would not stand a chance of persuading policy makers in Israel especially, but also in Palestine, of the virtues of the general approach. Thus, a working group composed of military and policing experts was set up and eventually produced the Jerusalem Old City Initiative Security Assessment in February 2008. The authors of this study – Roy Berlinquette, John De Chastelain, and Arthur Hughes7 – worked with Palestinian and Israeli security experts in the preparation of this report. The fifty-page Security Assessment provides a detailed account of the ways in which an Old City Police Service might be organized to maintain peace and order within the walls of the Old City. Since the gates to the Old City from both the Palestinian and the Israeli side would be international border crossings, an extensive architectural study of one – the Jaffa Gate – was commissioned to demonstrate how there could be a secure crossing system, while at the same time allowing for the
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rapid and easy movement of citizens of the two states, as well as pilgrims and tourists, into and out of the Old City. While the security team was under way, the troika assembled a governance working group to put the next piece in place. Following the same procedure of extensive and repeated regional consultation and discussion, the half-dozen members of the working group,8 along with the project leaders, produced the governance discussion document, A Special Regime for the Old City of Jerusalem, released in November 2008. Its almost fifty pages detail the proposed structure and operation of the Special Regime: the principles and core features of the system; the governance structure (the oversight board; the role and authority of the chief administrator; the functions of the Special Regime); security and law enforcement; protection of holy sites; responsibility for heritage and archaeology; planning, property, and infrastructure; and financial and economic matters. The final JOCI document, Mandate Elements for the Old City Special Regime, was released in February 2010. Based on all previous work of the initiative, it is designed as a set of instructions to the drafters who would be preparing the section of the comprehensive Peace Treaty that would deal with Jerusalem. Just fifteen pages, Mandate Elements provides succinct guidance with respect to the key elements and central components of the Special Regime as reflected in the governance and security documents. Arthur Hughes and I took responsibility for drafting this piece, with the active participation of the project leaders. Throughout the life of the initiative, JOCI sought to make its work known to decision makers and political leaders in the region and in Washington, London, and Ottawa. While doing this, the project tried to maintain a profile low enough that no politicians would be pressed publicly to express an opinion on it prematurely, and to ensure that the project’s critical regional interlocutors would have the political and policy space to continue to contribute to it. In these ambitions, it was, I think, largely successful. With very few exceptions, those who began to work with JOCI maintained their association right to the end, and senior government officials and politicians were briefed regularly on its work throughout the process, but did not find themselves having to take up a public position on it. JOCI, then, is lodged in the consciousness of many of the senior people who will be directly involved in any peace negotiations; its substantial corpus of materials will be available as a resource – as an option or as a toolbox of possibilities – if and when Jerusalem and its Old City again become the focus of bilateral negotiations.
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Assessment and Conclusion
What kind of a project was this? Clearly, the Jerusalem Old City Initiative falls into the general category of Track Two undertakings (Jones 2009).9 No one asked the troika to do this; it was an unofficial, nongovernmental enterprise, initiated by knowledgeable persons neither a part of nor direct participants in the conflict. Most of the work was done off the radar screen, employing the Chatham House Rule.10 Its central purpose was to generate ideas and an approach to the resolution of the Jerusalem component of the general Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Highly informal, the process brought key actors from both sides together in utterly unofficial settings to explore the issues, understand the views of the other side, and, if possible, come to some informal understandings about how the Jerusalem component of the general conflict might be addressed. The Jerusalem Old City Initiative aspired to offer some ideas and support to political actors in two ways. First, working with key Palestinians, Israelis, and foreigners, it sought to shape the ideas and attitudes of some of the people who might very well be directly involved in the peace negotiations when and if they occurred. Second, the JOCI initiative attempted to provide a well-defined set of ideas, distinct from the Geneva Initiative, which might be used as a model or a guide for future negotiators of a Jerusalem peace process. The JOCI process continued for several years, with extensive opportunity to explore issues, test ideas, and adjust views in the light of later discussion – all of it with the aim of moving as far as possible in the direction of consensus. Its accomplishments need to be understood both in terms of the process it employed and the policy proposals it generated. To what extent did the principals in the JOCI process self-consciously locate themselves and their work within the larger rhythms of the Middle East conflict? As experienced Middle East hands, the team leaders had long since assimilated the context and rhythms of the conflict into their thinking, as well as the unfolding political realties with which it was associated. In addition, they developed their proposal on the hypothesis of a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and a new state of Palestine; in that sense, the JOCI model is not time bound or dependent on the particular circumstances of the day, except insofar as the idea of a two-state solution is itself time bound. Let me conclude this chapter with a few words about the overall achievements of the initiative. As I have suggested above, there are currently two main alternative approaches to the question of Jerusalem. The Geneva Initiative deals with Jerusalem as part of a larger, comprehensive Track Two
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peacemaking exercise; JOCI deals with it alone. The project leaders were very conscious of the Geneva Initiative and had a clear sense of the strengths and weaknesses of its approach to the Jerusalem question as compared to the JOCI approach. Geneva’s principal virtue is that it settles the sovereignty question; its weakness is that its sovereignty solution, which entails the presence of two sovereign states rubbing shoulders within the walled Old City, suffers in not meeting the criteria of stability and workability very well. That, at least, is the view of the JOCI team. Indeed, the JOCI working hypothesis is that it is highly unlikely that the two sides will be able to agree on sovereignty and that this might prove to be a significant impediment to reaching a peace settlement. The JOCI model calls for the two parties to hold that matter in suspension, and in the interim agree on practical arrangements for the governance of the Old City of Jerusalem, namely a special regime in which a powerful chief administrator governs on their behalf. This model fails to settle the sovereignty question but scores high on the stability and workability index. It is, then, useful to have a clear and carefully articulated alternative to Geneva for political leaders and negotiators to draw on either in whole or in part, if necessary. That the Jerusalem Old City Initiative was able to travel as far down the road as it has done, is in part owing to: • The fact that it was a critical, but relatively neglected issue – in many ways too hot to handle by people in the region themselves, acting on their own. • The fact that its focus was clear and simple – the walled Old City of Jerusalem; it did not try to do a lot of things, but one thing well. • The fact that the project was led by disinterested outsiders – Canadians, who have traditionally been regarded as minor, neutral players in the region. • The fact that the Canadians leading the project had detailed knowledge of the region and its people. • The fact that those participants had no personal or political stake in the outcome. • The fact that the project was carried out in continuing consultation with key people in the region. The Jerusalem Old City Initiative is an instance of what one might term policy development by the powerless. The principals held no power and had no place in the political or governmental structures of Israel and Palestine.
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They were not old Middle East hands from Washington. They were not officials from other interested third countries. They were former Canadian diplomats with a love of the region and a desire to make a contribution, but possessed of no leverage, control, or privileged connection to powerful policy makers. Yet in a self-initiated project of about six years, they engaged key Palestinian and Israeli actors in the region, and others, in sustained discussion about the future of Jerusalem, and with their assistance, developed a policy alternative to the Geneva proposal. This alternative has widened the policy space within which a solution might be found and has given future negotiators of Middle East peace a wider range of tested ideas from which to draw. It must be admitted that, for the moment, it is all about potential and possibility; whether the policy proposals embedded in the Jerusalem Old City Initiative will actually be utilized in some practical way is anyone’s guess. But, given that we are talking about the Middle East peace process, pretty much the same point can be made about most of the policy proposals on offer. The JOCI participants will be pleased indeed if their work makes a contribution to a resolution of some of the Old City’s problems; if it does not, JOCI veterans will simply join the ranks of a long and honourable procession of scholars, diplomats, and politicians who have broken their lances on the Jerusalem Question. Notes
1 Although, it is fair to say that the Christian Zionist movement has performed an active role on occasions in recent years. Adherents of Christian Zionism believe that the return of Jews to the Holy Land and the creation of the state of Israel are pre conditions for the second coming of Christ. This creed leads their members to strongly support the State of Israel and Israelis and the expansion and strengthening of the presence of Jews in the Holy Land in order to accelerate the return of the Messiah. Right-wing American Christians have been behind some of the recent controversial purchases by Jews of property in the Old City. 2 Considered permanent residents of Israel, however, they do enjoy access to social services, as well as travel and work privileges within the country. 3 Much of the material associated with this project can be found at the following website: http://www1.uwindsor.ca/joci. 4 Several paragraphs in this part of the article are drawn from an account of JOCI in a collection of papers on the project that will be published by the University of Windsor Press. 5 Michael Bell is the Paul Martin Senior Scholar for International Diplomacy at the University of Windsor. Formerly the chair of the Donor Committee of the Inter national Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq, he spent thirty-six years in the
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Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, serving as ambassador to Jordan (1987-90), Egypt (1994-98), and Israel (1990-92 and 1999-2003). He has also been director of the Department’s Middle East Relations Division (1983-87) and director general for Central and Eastern Europe (1992-94). He retired from the public service in 2003. Michael J. Molloy is a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and a former senior official at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. His involvement in Middle East affairs includes his roles as Canada’s ambassador to Jordan (1996-2000), special coordinator for the peace process (2000-3), and senior advisor to the Canadian delegation to the Refugee Working Group in the peace process (1993-96). Molloy has also served as director general for Refugee Affairs at Immigration Canada (1989-92) and director general, Citizenship and Immigration Operations in Ontario (1994-96). He also retired from the public service in 2003. 6 John Bell is the director of the Middle East and Mediterranean Program at the Toledo International Centre for Peace (CITpax). He is the former Middle East director for Search for Common Ground, a global conflict-resolution NGO. He is also a former Canadian and United Nations diplomat who served as a political officer at Canada’s embassy in Cairo (1993-96), a member of Canada’s delegation to the Refugee Working Group in the peace process (1992-93), and political advisor to the personal representative of the secretary-general of the United Nations for southern Lebanon (2000-1). 7 Roy Berlinquette is a former deputy commissioner of the RCMP. John De Chastelain is former chief of the Canadian Defence staff, Canadian ambassador to the United States, and chief arms de-commissioner for Northern Ireland. Arthur Hughes is a retired ambassador, formerly director general of the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai, and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. 8 Michael Breger, professor of law at Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America; David Cameron, professor and chair of the Political Science Department at the University of Toronto; Michael Dumper, professor of Middle East politics at the University of Exeter, who left the JOCI project part way through; Lara Friedman, government relations director for Americans for Peace Now; Arthur Hughes; and Jodi White, president of the Public Policy Forum and former chief of staff to the Right Honourable Joe Clark. 9 Peter Jones (2009) describes Track Two processes in the following way: “‘Track Two Diplomacy’ usually refers to informal processes, often aimed at helping to develop ideas that might assist in resolving conflicts. These processes are frequently carried out by academics or others who have some sort of tie to their respective government, or national/ethnic leadership. Beyond this, Track Two defies easy categorisation. At some level of abstraction, virtually any process involving private citizens talking about international problems could be considered ‘Track Two.’ Moreover, many Track Two processes take place in confidence. It is a difficult topic to nail down, much less to subject to critical scrutiny.”
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10 The rule was devised at Chatham House in England in 1927 as a means of encouraging frank discussion. It provides that, when a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. Works Cited
Armstrong, Karen. 1997. Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. New York: Ballantine Books. Dumper, Michael. 1997. The Politics of Jerusalem since 1967. New York: Columbia University Press. –. 2002. The Politics of Sacred Space: The Old City of Jerusalem in the Middle East Conflict. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Elon, Amos. 1996. Jerusalem: City of Mirrors. London: HarperCollins/Flamingo. Hirsch, Moshe, Deborah Housen-Couriel, and Ruth Lapidoth, eds. 1995. Whither Jerusalem? Proposals and Positions Concerning the Future of Jerusalem. The Hague: M. Nijhoff. Hulme, David. 2006. Identity, Ideology, and the Future of Jerusalem. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. JOCI. 2005. New Directions for Deliberation and Dialogue. Munk Centre. Univer sity of Toronto. Jerusalem Old City Initiative. –. 2008. Jerusalem Old City Initiative Security Assessment. University of Windsor. Jerusalem Old City Initiative. –. 2010. Mandate Elements for the Old City Special Regime. University of Windsor. Jerusalem Old City Initiative. Jones, Peter. 2009. “Track Two Diplomacy: A Theoretical Approach.” Unpublished paper. Klein, Menachem. 2001. Jerusalem: The Contested City. London: Hurst and Company. –. 2007. A Possible Peace between Israel and Palestine: An Insider’s Account of the Geneva Initiative. New York: Columbia University Press. Lapidoth, Ruth. 2005. “Jerusalem in the Beilin-Rabbo Understanding.” In Divided Cities in Transition: Challenges Facing Jerusalem and Berlin, edited by Michele Auga, Shlomo Hassan, Rami Nasrallah, and Stephan Stetter, 169-84. Jerusalem: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, International Peace and Cooperation Center, and Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Lewis, Bernard. 2004. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. New York: Random House. PASSIA. 2007. Documents on Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs. Romann, Michael, and Alex Weingrod. 1991. Living Together Separately: Arabs and Jews in Contemporary Jerusalem. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Safdie, Moshe. 2002. “Jerusalem: United City, Two Sovereignties.” In The Next Jerusalem: Sharing the Divided City, edited by Michael Sorkin, 268-91. New York: Monacelli Press.
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Schneer. 2010. The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Toronto: Random House/Bond Street Books. Seidemann, Daniel. 2012. “A Barely Tolerated Minority.” Haaretz, 30 July. Wasserstein, Bernard. 2008. Divided Jerusalem: The Struggle for the Holy City. 3rd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Managing Multicultural Cities in Divided Countries Scott A. Bollens
Chapter
9
This chapter provides a comparative analysis of different political and institutional approaches to managing multicultural cities in divided societies. It analyzes six urban areas: Brussels, Johannesburg, Belfast, Beirut, Sarajevo, and Jerusalem. It identifies cases in which ethnically shared governance has worked relatively well to ameliorate overt group conflict and appears politically sustainable. It also describes cases where locally shared governance has had more limited effect and is politically fragile and even inflammatory. I distinguish factors facilitative of effective local governance and those that constrain the capacity of locally shared governance. These case studies demonstrate that power sharing has worked successfully in some cities but not others, that such efforts are frequently fragile, and that there is an evolutionary nature to governance reform even in the “best case” examples. The use of metropolitan processes and structures appears beneficial in governing multicultural urban areas in several of the case studies and may be useful in a more general sense. In addition, the capacity of local governance to contribute to intergroup tolerance can be hamstrung by national political settlements. Finally, I argue the true test of locally shared governance does not rest solely in the quality of its institutional design, but in its ability to execute urban policies that facilitate on-the-ground mutual tolerance and coexistence. The six case study cities are in unsettled societies susceptible to in tense intercommunal conflict and violence reflecting ethnic or nationalist
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fractures. In these cities and societies, ethnic identity and nationalism combine to create pressures for group rights, autonomy, or even territorial separation. Political control of multinational cities can become contested as nationalists push to create a political system that expresses and protects their distinctive group characteristics. Governance amid severe and unresolved multicultural differences can be viewed by at least one identifiable group in the city as artificial, imposed, or illegitimate. Two or more ethnically conscious groups – divided by religion, language and/or culture, and perceived history – coexist in a situation in which neither group is willing to concede supremacy to the other (Hepburn 2004). The fundamental problem in such polarized cities is that it is difficult to reconcile majoritarian concepts of democracy with the reality of these large, multiethnic cities in which group identity is a primary driver. Majoritarian democracy may breed frustration and alienation and intensify conflict and the potential for violence. An alternative to majoritarian democracy seeks to promote sharing urban political power across identity groups. This model treats the city as a mosaic of groups living essentially apart and provides local ethnic groups autonomy in their own affairs and in representation at the municipal level. Mechanisms utilized to protect group autonomy and minority rights include the decentralization of city authority to neighbourhoods, minority veto rights on issues of particular importance to a group, proportionality requirements in areas such as budgeting and civil service appointments, and the use of power-sharing coalitions to govern the city (International IDEA 2001). National-level models of conflict management aimed at diffusing or moderating intergroup conflict have important implications for urban governance. These national models have tended to treat smaller scale forms of conflict management prevalent in urban areas – such as those dealing with discrimination and segregation, demographic policies, or community relations – as subordinate and as a reflection of broader imbalances of power (O’Leary and McGarry 1995). This de-emphasis on city-based dynamics notwithstanding, national models of conflict management are useful in considering urban possibilities. O’Leary and McGarry (1995) outline four main methods for managing ethnic differences.1 With hegemonic control, one group dominates the state apparatus and channels decision-making outcomes toward the favoured ethnic group (Lustick 1979; Smooha 1980). Third party intervention relies on an arbiter whose claim of neutrality must be broadly accepted by contending ethnic groups. Cantonization and federalization involve, in the
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first case, devolution of some government authority to homogeneous ethnonational territories, and, in the second, separate domains of formal authority between levels of government. Urban applications of the cantonization/federalization method include the creation of community or neighbourhood-based groups that would advise or decide on local issues and the creation of a metropolitan government and subordinate municipal governments. The last model of ethnic management is consociation or power sharing. At the national level, this has been the most closely scrutinized option for deeply divided societies (see Lijphart 1968; 1977; Nordlinger 1972; Horowitz 1985). Primary characteristics of power-sharing approaches applicable to municipal settings include inclusive government (municipal legislative councils, and especially leadership positions that mirror the ethnic configuration of society), group self-government (neighbourhood self-government concerning particular issues), and proportionality in the distribution of resources (especially regarding the appointment of civil service positions and budgetary allocations) (Roeder and Rothchild 2005). In selecting cities to investigate, I wanted to study cases of severe groupbased urban polarization across a diversity of regional locations – including European, Middle Eastern, and African (see Table 9.1). I studied in depth the cities of Johannesburg, Belfast, Beirut, Sarajevo, and Jerusalem because each is a key focal point in a contested national setting. Research findings on these five cities come from my multiyear study, which consists of more than 150 interviews, of the role of urbanism in contested cities (Bollens 1999; 2000; 2007; 2012). For the Brussels case, findings are based on secondary published sources rather than primary interview data. Many other examples of polarized cities across the world exist (some referred to in footnotes in this chapter); nevertheless, the choice of six case studies offers both a representative and feasible sample. Brussels, Belgium: Complex Institutional Accommodation
Brussels is at the fault line between northern Dutch-speaking and southern Francophone areas, a frontier contested by the strong Francophone majority in the city and the historic claims of its Flemish (Dutch-speaking) past. In dealing with the strongly binational nature of the urban region (and country as a whole), there has been for more than thirty years a commitment to representation and autonomy along linguistic lines. This is an example of the group building-block approach, seeking to accommodate in the Brussels urban region both the 85 percent Francophone majority and the Dutch-speaking minority. Belgium as a country has a Dutch-speaking
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TABLE 9.1 Six cases of local governance and their influences on ethnic relations Influence of local governance
Cities
Stabilizing
Brussels (Belgium), Johannesburg (South Africa)
Precarious
Belfast (Northern Ireland), Beirut (Lebanon), Sarajevo
(Bosnia-Herzegovina) Destabilizing
Jerusalem (Israel/Palestine)
majority and this has encouraged a type of power-sharing “trade-off ” in which some parity is provided for minority Dutch speakers in the Brussels region in exchange for parity for minority French speakers in Belgium countrywide. An officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region was created to provide institutional space between the monolingual Dutch-speaking Flanders region to the north and the Francophone Wallonia region to the south. The capital region has powers related to town planning, environment, housing, employment and economic policy, and other territorial issues. The directly elected regional parliament for the Brussels-Capital Region is chosen from candidates put forth by each of two main linguistic communities and parliamentary decisions require a majority in each language group. The political rights of the Dutch linguistic minority group in Brussels are constitutionally protected through equal power sharing in the executive branch of the city-region government. The regional government preserves two of its minister positions and a secretary of state position for a Dutch speaker. Additional institutions in the Brussels-Capital Region include a bi-communitarian public authority called the Common Community Com mission, which is responsible for implementing cultural policies of common interest, and two linguistic community-specific public authorities – the Flemish Community Commission and the French Community Commission – which implement policies of the respective communities in the BrusselsCapital Region, including cultural issues, health and social assistance, education, and the use of language in administrative and workplace relations. In contrast to the three territorial regions in Belgium, communities are nonterritorial and exercise their legislative authority over cultural, educational, and health matters within linguistically determined geographic areas within the Brussels urban region.
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A long series of compromises between Flemish and French politicians seeking to increase and maintain their power within the Brussels urban region has created a complex layering of local governance (Terhorst and van de Ven 1997). State reform in Belgium proceeded in four stages: • • • •
the creation of regions in 1970; the creation of communities in 1980; the creation of the Brussels-Capital Region in 1989; and the creation of Belgium as a federal state in 1993.
Some have criticized this local governance system as disjointed and dis articulated, describing the urban area as existing within a “provincial and parochial institutional straightjacket” (Swyngedouw and Moyersoen 2006, 172). Nevertheless, the messy institutional structure means that tensions that inevitably occur often become dispersed between these various forms and scales of governance, thus making improbable the establishment of stable urban hegemonic coalitions that might further inflame ethnic passions (Hooghe 1995). Since Brussels is officially bilingual while the other two regions are monolingual, the boundaries of the Brussels district become contestable “language borders.” Dutch speakers worry that if Brussels region expands territorially the “oil stain” of bilingualism will expand into Flanders. Franco phones, meanwhile, criticize “iron collar” constraints on Brussels’ regional expansion as unfairly stopping the bilingual region from spreading (Hepburn 2004). There are six peripheral boroughs outside Brussels, and spatially in the Flanders region, where there is a significant and growing Francophone minority. In these cases, a compromise has been worked out whereby there are permanent guarantees for “language facilities” for the French, but these areas remain part of Flanders. This is yet another example of the continued adaptation and evolution of the Brussels governance system to meet emerging concerns. Johannesburg, South Africa: Transitional Power Sharing, Boundary Drawing, Metropolitan Restructuring
Johannesburg and South Africa provide a positive lesson on the use of power sharing as a transitional device on the path to eventual majoritarian democracy (Sisk and Stefes 2005). At the local level, drawing new political boundaries and metropolitan negotiations and governance have also been important in pursuing social justice.2
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On-again, off-again multiparty national negotiations from 1991 to 1993 reached agreement on a transitional constitution and executive council and on the procedures for the country’s first democratic elections in 1994 for both the national and provincial legislatures. At the local government level, it was apparent with the end of apartheid that municipal governance had to be transformed to overcome the virtual concurrence of race, residential area, and local government in South Africa. Apartheid policies had categorized cities and towns into “group areas” with exclusive occupation by single racial groups and administratively separated and subordinated black areas (Beavon 1992). In Johannesburg, mass displacement of black populations took place from western ghettos to black townships (most notably to Soweto, constituting anywhere from 30 percent to over 50 percent of the total population of the Johannesburg urban region). These townships were remote and disconnected from the “white city.” Their political and financial detachment from white areas undermined their fiscal base and made selfgovernment fiscally unviable (Hart, interview). While white local governments of Johannesburg city, Sandton, Randburg, and Roodepoort, had substantial commercial and industrial tax bases that enabled good municipal services at moderate tax rates, black local authorities and other nonwhite areas were fiscally depleted owing to restrictions on nonresidential uses and the illegality of home ownership. Meanwhile, open-field informal settlements outside of black townships faced marginalization and exclusion from the local governance system entirely. Pass laws regulated movement of black Africans in urban areas. Transition-period Johannesburg was characterized by a local consociational form of power sharing between the white officials of the old regime, black political leaders, and nongovernmental organizations. Johannesburg (and other South African cities) emphasized the metropolitan scale as a focal point for local government transition negotiations and used metropolitanism as a means to integrate and transcend old local authority boundaries. A Metropolitan Negotiating Forum contained 50 percent nongovernmental and 50 percent governmental representation. It appointed members to an interim council – the Transitional Metropolitan Council – which would manage urban affairs until local elections took place based on newly de marcated, more equitable local and ward boundaries. Metropolitan negotiators debated how to redraw municipal borders to integrate what was torn apart under apartheid. There were basic disagreements about the boundaries and roles of new local governments (called Metropolitan Sub-Structures, or MSSs) in post-apartheid Johannesburg. An
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African National Congress recommendation for local government restructuring proposed four of these substructures and the “stitching of townships to cities” so that they would no longer be marginalized. It also called for the creation of a strong overarching metropolitan authority. Governmental representatives, meanwhile, proposed eight MSSs that would delink some black areas from white ones. After significant contention, a Special Electoral Court in 1995 approved the 4-MSS model, stating that it most effectively eliminated the racial political geography of old group areas. A metropolitan government with the ability to redirect budgetary resources across MSS boundaries was also created. This was added assurance to equity advocates who claimed that a strong metropolitan government role in regional budgets was needed to reverse the extreme inequalities of apartheid. This 4-MSS configuration provided the framework for the 1995 local and metropolitan elections. Electoral rules specified that 60 percent of the seats in each MSS were to be ward-based; the other 40 percent would be based on proportionate representation rules. Sixty percent of the councillors in the overarching metropolitan council were to be appointed by the MSSs while 40 percent were directly elected by proportionate representation. In a compromise with white authorities, a national law governing local representation specified that at least one-half of electoral wards had to come from pre-existing white authority areas (Ewing 1995). Because of this guarantee of white minority representation, local and metropolitan councils elected in Johannesburg and elsewhere were still technically transitional councils. The interim stage of local government restructuring did not end until local elections occurred in 1999 pursuant to new constitutional principles. Further governmental reform, in 2000, created a unified City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. Apartheid-era cities such as Sandton or Roodepoort were subsumed within the metropolitan municipality of Johannesburg. At the same time, administration of some city services such as healthcare, housing, and social development was decentralized to seven precincts. Belfast, Northern Ireland: Legacies of Third Party Intervention, Impotent Local Government
A historic alteration of Northern Ireland’s governing institutions and constitutional status was specified in the April 1998 Agreement Reached in the Multi-Party Negotiations (the Belfast Agreement). This agreement, approved in May 1998 by over 70 percent of Northern Ireland voters, transfers day-to-day rule of the province from Britain to a new directly elected
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Northern Ireland Assembly, in which Protestants (Unionists/Loyalists) and Catholics (Nationalists/Republicans) share power; decisions require concurrent majorities within both unionist and nationalist camps. After several attempts, this reconstituted Northern Ireland Assembly began to function in early 2007. Prior to the Belfast Agreement, from 1972 to 1998, legis lative power for Northern Ireland was held directly by the British House of Commons. The Northern Ireland Parliament, the governing body for the province until 1972, was known to have formulated discriminatory and unjust laws and was held to be incapable of fair and capable governance. In 1972, in the midst of sectarian conflict, the British enacted direct rule. Under direct rule, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, who is chosen from the party ruling at Westminster, assumed the executive power for Northern Ireland. Belfast City is hyper-segregated and characterized by strict sectarian territoriality, with antagonistic groups both close to each other spatially and compartmentalized into homogeneous sectarian neighbourhoods. During the years of sectarian conflict, the city was increasingly barricaded and divided. Severe and extensive intercommunity hostilities since the late 1960s had necessitated building physical partitions, so-called “peace walls,” between proximate Catholic and Protestant neighbourhoods at sixteen locations. Most of these are located in west and north Belfast, where population shifts following the outbreak of violence in 1969 were greatest. The physical dividers are constructed of varied materials ranging from corrugated iron fences and steel palisade structures, to permanent steel or brick walls, to more aesthetically pleasing “environmental” landscaped railings and multicoloured walls, to “buffer” zones of vacant space or alternative nonresidential development. Local governance authority in Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland was substantially eroded by direct rule because it was at the local level of government that sectarian bias was most evident, especially in the fields of public employment, service delivery, and housing (Loughlin 1992). The locally elected fifty-one-member Belfast City Council had severely constrained policy-making power in planning, urban service delivery, and housing; it was predominantly an advisory body (Hadfield 1992). Instead, power in these policy areas was located in appointed boards, such as the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, or in central executive agencies, such as the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, which are responsible to British ministers rather than to local politicians. This centralized policy-making structure was viewed as capable of depoliticizing local
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planning issues and of holding in abeyance the larger community power struggles (Douglas 1982; Blackman 1991; Cunningham and Byrne 2006). Despite the impotence of local elected officials, one of the greatest obstacles to effective urban policy making in Belfast under direct rule was the actions and attitudes of local city councillors, whose relative lack of power freed them to be extreme in their interactions with government. They often had little to lose from being scaremongers who emphasized division, conflict, and a single ethnic identity. Direct rule government units became easy targets for local councillors who ranted and raved at public meetings (Hendry, interview). Local politicians increased their electability most easily by tapping into separate constituencies, not seeking to span them (Fitzduff, interview). In the local politics of contested Belfast, urban issues became subordinated to arguments over nationalism, constitutionalism, and symbolism. In the future, there is hope that the local government of Belfast will be one of shared and genuine authority across sectarian groups, that it will mimic the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly. Such local-level power sharing would likely build upon voluntary “responsibility-sharing” arrangements used in about a dozen of Northern Ireland’s twenty-six district councils (Knox and Carmichael 2007; Hazleton 1999).3 The Belfast Agreement called for a comprehensive review of local governments in Northern Ireland. The “Review of Public Administration” process, initiated in 2002, recommended that Northern Ireland’s twenty-six local councils be cut to seven to reduce fragmentation in local government and equalize populations and tax bases across local bodies (Knox and Carmichael 2006). Critical public functions such as planning, zoning, and transportation would be devolved to these reconstituted local units. The secretary of state for Northern Ireland has suggested that there should be three nationalist-majority councils and three unionist-majority councils across the province, with Belfast constituting a “swing” council due to its mixed population and key anchoring position in the province. Direct rule utilized an urban policy approach for twenty-five years primarily aimed at stability, neutrality, and maintenance (Byrne and Irvin 2002). Such an approach in the future will likely not help Belfast and Northern Ireland advance to a greater level of sectarian coexistence. Indeed, since the Belfast Agreement, none of the peace walls built by security forces during the Troubles have been torn down, and a number of new ones have even been added (Community Relations Council of Northern Ireland 2009).
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Devolution of genuine political power to city government will thus likely need to introduce a more proactive and progressive ethnic agenda to be able to move this urban society forward, one that is responsive to the differential and changing needs of both Catholic and Protestant communities. Beirut, Lebanon: Urban and National Power Sharing
The Lebanese system of political “confessionalism” allocates political power among its various confessional and sectarian communities. Article 24 of the 1926 Constitution mandated the distribution of offices on the basis of confessionalism as an interim measure. It officially recognizes eighteen confessions, including Maronites, Orthodox Christians, Druze, and Shiite and Sunni Muslims. The Lebanese National Accord, signed soon after independence in 1943, specified the allocation of elected offices. It used the national census of 1932 to assign political positions and shares of parliamentary seats to each religious group. Because no census has been conducted since, the accord effectively locked in place shares of political power for over seventy years. Prior to 1990, the mandated ratio of parliament representation was 6:5 in favour of Christians. The accord also specifies that the president has to be a Maronite Catholic Christian, the parliament speaker a Shi’a Muslim, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the deputy prime minister an Orthodox Christian. At the end of the 1975-90 civil war, this ratio was adjusted in the 1989 Ta’if Agreement (Charter of Lebanese National Reconciliation) to grant equal representation to followers of the two religions. The city of Beirut has dominated as a central locus of power in Lebanon through the decades. The political composition of Beirut’s local government institutions usually mirrors the distribution of power at the national level. Powers that represent the dominant and driving forces of the country are usually able to shape city development and welfare policies. Political support for the pro-Western March 14 alliance is much more likely to come from voters in Beirut city (Salamey 2007) than from Beirut suburbs or outside Greater Beirut.4 In the early decades of the country, confessionalism was viewed as having been successful in accommodating diversity amid Beirut’s multi-denominationalism (ibid.). Each confessional group came to reside in neighbourhoods around its respective religious institutions, community centres, and schools. Personal status laws such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance were confessionally based; public jobs, public services, and electoral seats and districts were confessionally allocated.
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Eventually, however, particularly in the Beirut urban region, spatial and demographic fluidity and change have caused population alterations such that particular groups are increasingly underrepresented by the static traditional power-sharing arrangements of the Lebanese system, resulting in group grievances rather than accommodation (Khalaf 2001; 2002). The 1975-90 war was partially due to the inability of this rigid consociational political system to adapt to demographic changes in Lebanon and Beirut, in particular Muslim challenges to the Christian advantage enshrined in the Lebanese constitution. Most estimates of national religious affiliations now assume a Muslim majority, with roughly 20 percent Sunnis and 35 percent Shiite. The rest of the population is made up of approximately 40 percent Maronites, Orthodox, and other Christians, and 5 percent Druze (Hockel 2007).5 Although voter information for the 2005 national parliament indicated that 59 percent of voters were Muslim and 41 percent were Christian and minorities combined, both Christians and Muslims receive sixty-four seats in the national parliament under the system of confessionalism (Lebanese Ministry of Interior data, reported in Salamey 2007). In Beirut, at the time of the 1932 census, the city was predominantly inhabited by Christians (with a slight majority) and Sunni Muslims. Since then, the Muslim proportion of the city population has likely increased with inmigration and Christian migration to the West; demographers have traced significant shifts in some neighbourhoods from Christian to Muslim (Duwayhe 2006). The Beirut urban area became a flashpoint where confessionalism ran up against demographic realities. Members of newly emergent urban Shiite Muslim groups, in particular, have been met with systematic political and economic exclusion. There has been severe underrepresentation of these suburban voters of Beirut because voting in parliamentary and municipal elections is based not on current place of residence but on place of family origin at the time of Lebanese independence.6 This often means that residents now residing in urban and suburban areas vote in villages and remote areas outside of Beirut that have historically been under sectarian control. Thus, voters who reside in mixed religious neighbourhoods in Beirut or its suburbs have often been influenced to vote for sectarian candidates up for election in their villages and hometowns of origin (Khuri 1975).7 According to Kasparian (2003), while Beirut suburbs contain an estimated 27 percent of the national population, they have less than 5 percent of national parliament representation (in contrast, city of Beirut voters are favoured; home to about 9 percent of Lebanon voters, they elect 15 percent of the representatives in
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parliament). Not only does ancestral voting purify sectarian outcomes, but it leads to a profound lack of accountability for those leaders who are elected from high growth areas and districts; this is especially noticeable in municipal elections (Yacoubian 2009). Due to the spatial rigidity of electoral districts, Lebanese consociationalism forecloses on the capacity of urban social and economic dynamics to spawn new urban-based secular and cross-confessional communities. “Breathing spaces” in the Beirut urban area might have offered diverse ethnosectarian communities with an alternative, often contested, space of coexistence bound not to sectarian allegiance but by a sense of a unified national identity (Salamey and Tabar 2008). This more optimistic model asserts that urban electoral outcomes will be more mixed and cross-ethnic than in less urban electoral districts. Such a new urban politics in Beirut, however, is thwarted and rigidified into the “static consociational edifice” of the Lebanese system (Salamey 2007, 9). Many inhabitants of the city of Beirut and its suburbs are non-voting residents and have been subjugated to systematic political exclusion from the city through power sharing’s “permanent confessional gerrymandering” (ibid., 13). Thus, urbanization is spawning group grievances rather than helping to moderate intergroup conflict. The rigid power-sharing allocation of power spatially across Lebanon is not able to accommodate the hybridization of changing urban communities. Urban and national sectarian politics intersect. Sectarianism has emerged as a crucial mobilizing agent in the struggle for urban reform or preservation (Salamey 2007). Hezbollah, with its strong suburban and politically marginalized Shia base, has led the campaign for political inclusion and is more in favour of expanding urban electoral districts to include suburbs and reconfiguring electoral districts to reflect contemporary sectarian demography. In contrast, the primarily Sunni’s Future Current Party and the Druze Progressive Social Party have called for the “defence of the city” and preservation of the status quo favourable to them. Even though power-sharing institutional arrangements in Lebanon were designed as a transitional mechanism toward a nonsectarian democracy, the reality has been that sectarianism has become more firmly rooted over time (Zahar 2005; Kerr 2005). Power sharing has also weakened state and local government effectiveness, allowing two important non-state actors – Solidere in the downtown, Hezbollah in the southern suburbs – to operate in the Beirut area with distinctly different goals, shaping new spatial and social geographies through their actions (Hockel 2007; Fawaz 2009).
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Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina: A Multicultural City Unravelled
Sarajevo demonstrates the difficulty of sustaining the multiculturalism of a city after it has experienced the trauma of massive war. With a prewar mixed ethnic population in 1991 of 540,000 – Bosnian Muslims (40 percent), Bosnian Serbs (30 percent), and Bosnian Croats (20 percent) – Sarajevo, by the early postwar years, had become an approximately 80 percent Muslim city of approximately 340,000. Despite the international community’s acknowledgment of the city’s importance as an anchor in rebuilding Bosnia, and local power-sharing efforts that sought electoral representation of displaced residents and provided minimum representation to minority groups, the city’s essence as a multicultural entity expired soon after the end of the 1992-95 Bosnian War. Sarajevo is located close to the boundary between the two autonomous regions of the Bosnian state: the Muslim-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska. An initial strategy during early diplomatic efforts to counter possible ethnic claims on the city was to create a special status as a district under United Nations or European Community administration. This “corpus separatum” strategy resembled the unsuccessful attempt in 1947 to protect the city of Jerusalem through United Nations oversight. The strategy was premised on Sarajevo being different and special in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The urban region was to be preserved as a multiethnic capital and a place where collective rights would be protected (Ivanovic, interview). The OwenStoltenberg proposal of August 1993 proposed that Sarajevo city come under United Nations governance. One year later, the UN neutral zone idea still appeared alive in diplomatic discussions; the Contact Group (United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia) Plan of July 1994 recommended UN administration of a spatially expansive Sarajevo district. However, by the time of the 1995 Dayton Accord that ended the war, the idea for international governance or oversight of the city had been overtaken by the give-and-take negotiations of ethnic leaders. When peace came to Bosnia, peacemaking paradoxically started processes that unravelled Sarajevo as a multicultural space amid a fracturing state. The Dayton Accord structured and empowered the two entities – the Muslim-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska – and the federation’s cantonal governments to facilitate ethnic self-rule. However, its ethnic circumscription of space had detrimental effects on Sarajevo, catalyzing a mass exodus in early 1996 of some sixty-two thousand Sarajevo Serbs from inside what would be the Dayton borders of Sarajevo city and creating today’s more mono-ethnic postwar city (Internal Displacement Monitoring
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Centre 1996). To the credit of Dayton negotiators, there was a strategy to “reunify” postwar Sarajevo and not let it become ethnically fragmented. The transfer of certain Serbian-populated districts and suburbs into postwar Sarajevo city boundaries was an effort to maintain the Bosnian Serb population within the postwar city. Yet this reunification of Sarajevo was a proposition with significant ethnic salience because the Serbs, to be reunified within the city, would also, under Dayton, be simultaneously incorporated into the Muslim-Croat Federation. This psychological factor spawned the substantial out-movement of the Bosnian Serb population from the transferred districts and suburbs to nearby Serb Republic land and to other places in that republic. Even after the out-migration of Serbs, the city had a joint governance and administrative structure that sought fair representation of minority groups. A mayor and two deputy mayors were selected so that each of the main nationalistic groups – Bosniak (Muslim), Croat, and Serb – had a representative in one of these positions. From 1997 to 2000, the allocation of city council seats was also engineered to assure multiethnic representation. In the run-up to the first municipal elections in September 1997, the international community created the Protocol on the Organization of Sarajevo (Office of the High Representative 1996). This protocol specified that at least 20 percent of city council seats should go to Croats and 20 percent to groups other than Muslims or Croats. In March 1997, the constitution of the city was amended to reflect these ethnic quotas. The intent was that the city would be governed on a shared basis, demonstrating a way forward for the Bosnian state. With the 2001 Election Law for Bosnia, however, this ethnically engineered electoral system for Sarajevo was replaced by an electoral system through which council seats are allocated proportionately to popular votes garnered. As of 2004, without minimum representation quotas, an ethnic party representing Croats or Serbs held only one of the twenty-four city council seats. The days of prescribed ethnic sharing of Sarajevo city governance were over. Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine: Hegemonic Control
Israel exercises hegemonic control over Jerusalem, dominating the state apparatus and channelling decision-making outcomes to benefit the Israeli Jewish population. This city of almost eight hundred thousand residents is a site of demographic, physical, and political competition. Between 1920 and 1948, Jerusalem’s social and political geography consisted of a multicultural mosaic under British control and then, between 1948 and 1967, two-sided
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physical partitioning into Israeli and Jordanian-controlled components. Since 1967, it has been an Israeli-controlled municipality three times the area of the pre-1967 city (due to unilateral annexation) and encompassing formerly Arab East Jerusalem. The international status of East Jerusalem remains strongly contested. Jewish demographic advantage (approximately 65 to 35 percent) within the Israeli-defined city borders translates into Jewish control of the city council and mayor’s office. Arabs within the annexed eastern part of Jerusalem are considered by Israel to be residents of the city but not citizens of Israel. Although they can vote in municipal elections, they resist participating in municipal elections they deem illegitimate. Since 1967, Israel has created an urban landscape of visible and stark inequalities. “From the very first, all major development represented politically and strategically motivated planning,” acknowledged Israel Kimhi (interview). Equating demographic dominance with political control, the Israeli government built large Jewish communities in strategic locations throughout the annexed and disputed municipal area. Of the approximately twenty-seven square miles unilaterally annexed after the 1967 war, the Israeli government has expropriated approximately 33 percent, and neighbourhoods built in these areas were home to approximately two hundred thousand Jewish residents by 2009 (Choshen and Korach 2010). At the same time, Israeli planners have curtailed the growth of Palestinian neighbourhoods so severely that, as of 1995, only 11 percent of annexed East Jerusalem was vacant land on which the Israeli government allowed Pales tinian development (Tufakji, interview). The Israeli separation barrier, begun June 2002, will include over one hundred miles of wall extending alongside and beyond Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. The barrier is the most recent and imposing manifestation of Israel’s use of land development and planning for security and political goals. The partition is characterized by twenty-five-foot concrete slabs, electronic fences, barbed wire, radar, cameras, deep trenches, observation posts, and patrol roads (Weizman 2007). The wall surrounding Jerusalem will functionally detach around one hundred thousand Palestinian Jeru salemites from the city: about fifty-five thousand Palestinian Jerusalemites who presently live within municipal Jerusalem will be enclosed by the wall and cut off from the rest of the city; and another forty thousand to sixty thousand Palestinian Jerusalemites who presently live in suburbs adjacent to the Jerusalem municipal border will be placed east of the wall. Arab vil lages have gone through radical upheavals in the costs of land, resident composition, and travel behaviour; the “re-topology” of Jerusalem caused
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by the wall constitutes both a substantial relocation and loss of value to Palestinian individuals and their economy (Savitch and Garb 2006). Israeli policies of partition, segregation, and exclusion are “leading to a ‘ware housing’ of Palestinian residents in the city and the abandonment of neighbourhoods” (Dumper and Pullan 2010, 1). In the early years of contested Jerusalem under Israeli control, a Borough Plan was debated from 1968 to 1977. The plan envisioned a single municipal government under dual sovereignty, the representation of Palestinians in the running of the city, and the creation of separate semi-autonomous borough governments to manage local affairs in different ethnic neighbourhoods. The possibility of creating spatially cohesive local ethnic boroughs has become increasingly problematic due to the large Israeli neighbourhoods built so as to fragment Palestinian settlement patterns in the contested eastern part of the city. Through the years, numerous other ideas have been suggested in an effort to address the conflicting sovereignty claims of Israelis and Palestinians. In the 2000 Camp David Summit, according to Dennis Ross (2004), key elements of a Jerusalem proposal provided Palestinian sovereignty over specified outer neighbourhoods and over the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City, and Palestinian selfgovernment in inner neighbourhoods (although under Israeli sovereignty). A neighbourhood outside the Israeli borders of Jerusalem was seen as a possible site for a Palestinian capital, with the municipal border enlarged to encompass this area. Other ideas, less officially debated, include the model of “scattered sovereignty” (Baskin and Twite 1993). In this proposal, Jewish communities (in both West and East Jerusalem) would be under the sovereignty of Israel, while Arab communities in East Jerusalem would be under Palestinian sovereignty. Sovereignty would be “scattered” because of the dispersed and complex spatial mosaic patterns of Arab and Jewish communities. A simpler geographic demarcation of sovereignty would be to use the pre-1967 Green Line to delineate west from east. This “simple solution,” however, is made difficult by the now Jewish majority in “East” Jerusalem. One response might be to re-establish an Arab majority in East Jerusalem by expanding eastern Jerusalem borders to include Arab communities that are just outside the Israeli-drawn border. In this plan, Jewish neighbourhoods in eastern Jerusalem would be under Palestinian control, although residents would remain Israeli citizens. Another idea would be to enlarge the jurisdictional coverage of Jerusalem. A metropolitan expansion of Jerusalem’s borders would encompass approximately equal Arab and Jewish populations within
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the new larger city, thus likely increasing the parity of sovereignty solutions.8 There could then be two ethnic-based municipalities under a joint umbrella metropolitan council. Sovereignty issues within Jerusalem municipality would remain, however. Conclusions
This chapter has investigated six robustly nationalistic cities – Brussels, Johannesburg, Belfast, Beirut, Sarajevo, and Jerusalem – in which group identity matters substantially and whose leaders have been faced with the challenge of accommodating the unique needs of each salient group while building and protecting a citywide public interest. These case studies show that power sharing has worked successfully in some cities but not others, that such efforts are frequently fragile, and that there is an evolutionary nature to governance reform even in the best case examples. Utilizing metro politan processes and structures appears beneficial in governing multi cultural urban areas in several of the case studies – both during political transitions and during politically stable times. Considerations of the ways in which local governance can contribute to intergroup tolerance should be incorporated into negotiated national political agreements. Brussels and Johannesburg are more politically sustainable than the other cities because power-sharing structures and forms of transitional democratization have effectively stabilized the local state sufficiently that most group-based conflicts are channelled into political processes in which there is the opportunity for some compromise. In the cases of Belfast, Sarajevo, and Beirut, local governance arrangements are not sufficiently stable. Local political arrangements have not developed to a point where they can contribute to stabilization of the local and national state. Local governance is emergent and untested in Belfast and Sarajevo and is hamstrung by rigid power-sharing formulas in Beirut.9 The most unstable and inflammatory case is the contested city of Jerusalem, as the question of how the city is to be governed is itself part of larger political negotiations and a potential contributor to further instability. In cases such as this, a city’s governance can be a major roadblock and obstacle to larger national peace agreements and constitutional arrangements.10 In cases such as Brussels and Johannesburg, amelioration of overt groupbased conflict has occurred but this has not meant constancy of institutional arrangements. Brussels and Johannesburg have changed and modified governing arrangements to accommodate new needs and circumstances.11
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In these cases, there exists an institutional learning process sufficiently embedded and open to democratic innovation that long-term sustainability is likely. Brussels’ governance structure has been a work in progress since the 1970s. Similarly, Johannesburg’s establishment of a sustainable system of governance did not happen overnight, but was created over a five-year period and included numerous and multilayered transitional forms of governing institutions. As late as 2000, local and metropolitan government was still being substantially reorganized. In both of these cases, political leaders’ ability to be open to adaptation and evolution in local governance arrangements appears critical. Further, in the Johannesburg case, a key reason for success was that deliberations on local governance reform occurred concurrently with significant national political transformation, thus taking advantage of the opportunity and momentum associated with historic change. Governance of intergroup relations is less advanced in Belfast, Sarajevo, and Beirut. In Northern Ireland, the legacy of direct rule weakened the capacity of local government. In Bosnia, international peace agreements led to Sarajevo’s ethnic homogenization. In Lebanon, local governance has become fossilized by power-sharing requirements. National and local political elites in these cases will likely need to adapt and even restructure local governance institutions over time to effectively address local problems and obstacles. The best-case examples in this study highlight the important role of such alterations. In the more dire case of Jerusalem, any sustainable peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians will need to directly confront the mechanisms and outcomes of forty-five years of partisan governance in the Holy City. Shared urban policies and institutions can set important local precedents that can positively shape broader long-term social and political development. Two of the case study cities – Sarajevo and Johannesburg – allow for the analysis of local democratic management during major transitions associated with regime change or postwar reconstitution. Two additional findings emerge. From Sarajevo, international agreements that stop war create new ethnic geographies of local and substate governments that can unintentionally stunt the inherent ability of a city to bring people together, over time. Thus, in both Beirut and Sarajevo, the capacity of local governance to contribute to intergroup tolerance has been hamstrung by national political accords. From Johannesburg, two-tier governance utilizing metropolitan
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and local levels can be particularly useful during political transitions. Metropolitan-level negotiations and governance created new distributions of power that transcended older, more ossified racial power structures. Metropolitanism can be an effective mechanism not only during times of major political transitions, but also in more stable arrangements, as in Brussels, that have used multi-tier governance to assure the territorial and political expression of identity groups. In conclusion, local political arrangements that allocate power to identity groups in some shared way appear essential for moderation of urban tensions amid contested sovereignty. However, this may not be enough. By building ethnic group power into local institutions, these systems run the risk of ethnicizing many policy issues, dampening cross-cutting cleavages, and concentrating institutional power in the hands of ethnic politicians who then have the means to escalate demands (Roeder and Rothchild 2005). The group acknowledgment and autonomy provided by these structural solutions can lead to ethnic separation and urban and regional dysfunctionality. Something more than shared political power is likely essential in these circumstances – the execution of urban policies and strategies that facilitate on-the-ground mutual tolerance and coexistence. Examples of such strategies include the building of development projects with cross-group benefits (such as commercial centres and community facilities) along ethnic interface areas in the city, the extension and enlargement of public services to traditionally marginalized and aggrieved urban populations, and the physical creation of public spaces that facilitate collective citizenship. Any local political arrangement, no matter how constituted, must have the capacity and means to implement programs and produce outcomes (in terms of job opportunities, better services, and safer neighbourhoods) that make a meaningful difference to all groups in the divided society. Under either shared local rule or international management, effective city policy making must move urban life toward mutual accommodation and away from rigidity and the status quo. Seen in this light, political negotiations that restructure local political power represent a first, but by no means sufficient, step toward the effective management of multicultural cities in divided countries. Notes
1 Other overviews of ethnic management techniques include Smith (1969), Esman (1973), and Palley (1979).
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2 “Metropolitan” involves governance or management at an urban region level inclusive of multiple local municipal governments. For Johannesburg, at apartheid’s end, the city population was approximately 615,000 while the metropolitan areas contained over two million people (South Africa 1992). 3 The most common mechanisms in these agreements were office rotation of mayor and vice-mayor positions and proportional arrangements for assigning committee chairs and/or membership. 4 In Beirut suburbs and outside Greater Beirut, support is greater for the more antiWestern March 8 Alliance. 5 The CIA estimates that almost 60 percent of the Lebanese population as of 2013 was Muslim and about 39 percent was Christian (www.cia.gov/). 6 Voters register and vote in ancestral villages rather than place of residence (Yacoubian 2009). 7 Confessional gerrymandering of electoral districts also suppresses minority voting strength, leading to purified sectarian outcomes across electoral space (Salamey 2007). 8 Within the functional commuting region of Jerusalem, 54 percent of the 1.14 million population was estimated to be Arab, 46 percent Jewish (Mazor and Cohen 1994). 9 In other examples of local governance fragility, local public authority has faced severe obstructions by nationalist leaders in Mostar and has been divided in Nicosia (Bollens 2007). 10 Inflammatory cases similarly situated to Jerusalem include Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Mitrovica. The effective multiethnic governance of Baghdad and Kirkuk cities appear as key centrepieces for holding together Iraq. These cities face debilitating sectarian fragmentation unless strong and effective integrative institutions are put in place. The divided Serb-Albanian city of Mitrovica presents a critical challenge to the sustainability of the disputed independent country of Kosovo (Spahiu 2002). 11 Another example of evolutionary change in institutional arrangements is bicultural Montreal, which, since 1996, has reorganized metropolitan-level government, amalgamated local governments in the urban core, and decentralized some political power to boroughs (Collin and Robertson 2005). Works Cited
Baskin, Gershon, and Robin Twite, eds. 1993. The Future of Jerusalem: Proceedings of the First Israeli-Palestinian International Academic Seminar on the Future of Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. Beavon, K.S. 1992. “The Post-Apartheid City: Hopes, Possibilities, and Harsh Realities.” In The Apartheid City and Beyond: Urbanization and Social Change in South Africa, edited by David M. Smith, 231-42. London: Routledge. Blackman, Tim. 1991. Planning Belfast: A Case Study of Public Policy and Community Action. Aldershot, UK: Avebury. Bollens, Scott A. 1999. Urban Peace-Building in Divided Societies: Belfast and Johannesburg. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. –. 2000. On Narrow Ground: Urban Policy and Conflict in Jerusalem and Belfast. Albany: State University of New York Press.
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–. 2007. Cities, Nationalism, and Democratization. London: Routledge. –. 2012. City and Soul in Divided Societies. London: Routledge. Byrne, Sean, and Cynthia Irvin. 2002. “A Shared Common Sense: Perceptions of the Material Effects and Impacts of Economic Growth in Northern Ireland.” Civil Wars 5 (1): 55-86. Choshen, Maya, and Michal Korasch. 2010. Jerusalem: Facts and Trends 2009-2010. Jerusalem: Institute of Israel Studies. Collin, Jean-Pierre, and Melanie Robertson. 2005. “The Borough System of Con solidated Montreal: Revisiting Urban Governance in a Composite Metropolis.” Journal of Urban Affairs 27 (3): 307-30. Community Relations Council of Northern Ireland. 2009. Towards Sustainable Security: Interface Barriers and the Legacy of Segregation in Belfast. Belfast: CRC. Cunningham, Chris, and Sean Byrne. 2006. “Peacebuilding in Belfast: Urban Govern ance in Polarized Societies.” International Journal on World Peace 23 (1): 41-73. Douglas, J. Neville. 1982. “Northern Ireland: Spatial Frameworks and Community Relations.” In Integration and Division: Geographical Perspectives on the Northern Ireland Problem, edited by Frederick W. Boal and J. Neville Douglas, 105-35. London: Academic Press. Dumper, Mick, and Wendy Pullan. 2010. “Jerusalem: The Cost of Failure.” Briefing Paper. February. London: Chatham House/Royal Institute of International Affairs. Duwayhe, Youssef. 2006. “Comprehensive Survey Study of Lebanese and Demo graphic Distribution.” (Arabic) Annahar, Beirut, 13 November. Esman, Milton J. 1973. “The Management of Communal Conflict.” Public Policy 21 (1): 49-78. Ewing, Deborah. 1995. Guide to Local Government Elections. Durban, South Africa: Y Press. Fawaz, Mona. 2009. “Hezbollah as Urban Planner? Questions to and from Planning Theory.” Planning Theory 8 (4): 323-34. Fitzduff, Mari. 1995. Interview. (Director, Northern Ireland Community Relations Council.) 13 January. Hadfield, Brigid. 1992. “The Northern Ireland Constitution.” In Northern Ireland: Politics and Constitution, edited by Brigid Hadfield, 1-12. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Hart, Tim. 1995. Interview. (Urban geographer, SRK Engineers, Johannesburg.) 10 August. Hazleton, William A. 1999. “Local Government and the Peace Process.” In Politics and Performance in Contemporary Northern Ireland, edited by John Harrington, Elizabeth J. Mitchell, and American Conference for Irish Studies, 174-96. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Hendry, John. 1995. Interview. (Professor of Town and Regional Planning, Depart ment of Environmental Planning, Queen’s University of Belfast.) 18 January. Hepburn, A.C. 2004. Contested Cities in the Modern West. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hockel, Kathrin. 2007. “Beyond Beirut: Why Reconstruction in Lebanon Did Not Contribute to State Making and Stability.” Crisis States Research Centre, Occasional Paper 4, London School of Economics and Political Science, July.
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Hooghe, L. 1995. “Belgian Federalism and the European Community.” In The European Union and the Regions, edited by James Barry Jones, and Michael Keating, 134-65. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of Cali fornia Press. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. 1996. “More Population Displacement in 1996.” Oslo: Norwegian Refugee Council. International IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). 2001. Democracy at the Local Level: The International IDEA Handbook on Participation, Representation, Conflict Management, and Governance. Stockholm: Author. International Peace and Cooperation Center. 2007. The Wall – Fragmenting the Palestinian Fabric in Jerusalem. Jerusalem: IPCC. Ivanovic, Dragan. 2003. Interview. (Deputy Speaker, Sarajevo Canton Assembly; Member, Federation Parliament (Chamber of Peoples); Director, Center for Policy Research and Development.) 24 November. Kasparian, Choghig. 2003. La Population Libanaise et se Caracteristiques. Beirut: University of Saint Joseph. Kerr, Michael. 2005. Imposing Power-Sharing: Conflict and Coexistence in Northern Ireland and Lebanon. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. Khalaf, Samir. 2001. Cultural Resistance: Global and Local Encounters in the Middle East. London: Saqi Books. –. 2002. Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon: A History of the Internationalization of Communal Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Khuri, I. Fuad. 1975. From Village to Suburb: Order and Change in Greater Beirut. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kimhi, Israel. 1994. Interview. (Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies; City planner, Municipality of Jerusalem [1963-86].) 20 October. Knox, Colin, and Paul Carmichael. 2006. “Bureau Shuffling? The Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland.” Public Administration 84 (4): 941-65. –. 2007. “Making Progress in Northern Ireland? Evidence from Recent Elections.” Government and Opposition 33 (3): 372-93. Lijphart, Arend. 1968. The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands. Berkeley: University of California Press. –. 1977. Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Loughlin, John. 1992. “Administering Policy in Northern Ireland.” In Northern Ireland: Politics and Constitution, edited by Brigid Hadfield, 60-75. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press. Lustick, Ian. 1979. “Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism vs. Control.” World Politics 31 (3): 325-44. Mazor, Adam, and Shermiyahu Cohen. 1994. “Metropolitan Jerusalem: Master Plan and Development Plan.” Summary Document, June. Nordlinger, Eric A. 1972. Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies. Boston: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Office of the High Representative. 1996. “Protocol on the Organization of Sarajevo.” Federation Forum Meeting, Sarajevo, 25 October.
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O’Leary, Brendan, and John McGarry. 1995. “Regulating Nations and Ethnic Communities.” In Nationalism and Rationality, edited by Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon, and Ronald Wintrobe, 245-89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Palley, Claire. 1979. Constitutional Law and Minorities. London: Minority Rights Group. Roeder, Philip G., and Donald Rothchild, eds. 2005. Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Ross, Dennis. 2004. The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Salamey, Imad. 2007. “The Crisis of Consociational Democracy in Beirut: Conflict Transformation and Sustainability through Electoral Reform.” Unpublished manuscript. Lebanese American University, Beirut, 17 September. Salamey, Imad, and Paul Tabar. 2008. “Consociational Democracy and Urban Sus tainability: Transforming the Confessional Divides in Beirut.” Ethnopolitics 7 (2-3): 239-63. Savitch, Hank V., and Yaakov Garb. 2006. “Terror, Barriers, and the Changing Topography of Jerusalem.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 26 (2): 152-73. Sisk, Timothy D., and Christoph Stefes. 2005. “Power Sharing as an Interim Step in Peace Building: Lessons from South Africa.” In Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars, edited by Philip G. Roeder and Donald Rothchild, 293317. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Smith, M.G. 1969. “Some Developments in the Analytic Framework of Pluralism.” In Pluralism in Africa, edited by Leo Kuper and M.G. Smith, 415-58. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Smooha, Sammy. 1980. “Control of Minorities in Israel and Northern Ireland.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22 (2): 256-80. South Africa. 1992. Population Census 1991: Geographical Distribution of the Population with a Review for 1970-1991. Report No. 03-01-02 (1991). Pretoria: Central Statistical Service. Spahiu, Nexhmedin. 2002. “‘Legalized’ Division of Mitrovica.” Balkan Crisis Report 393. Institute for War and Peace Reporting, London, 23 December. Swyngedouw, Erik, and Johan Moyersoen. 2006. “Reluctant Globalizers: The Paradoxes of ‘Glocal’ Development in Brussels.” In Relocating Global Cities: From the Center to the Margins, edited by M. Mark Amen, Kevin Archer, and M. Martin Bosman, 155-77. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Terhorst, P.J.F., and J.C.L. van de Ven, 1997. Fragmented Brussels and Consolidated Amsterdam, A Comparative Study of the Spatial Organization of Property Rights. Netherlands Geographical Studies 223. Amsterdam: Netherlands Geographical Society/Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Amsterdam. Tufakji, Khalil. 1994. Interview. (Geographer, Arab Studies Society Member; Palestinian-Israeli Security Committee.) 10 December. Weizman, Eyal. 2007. Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation. London: Verso.
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Social Cohesion and Democratic Voice Paths to Political Incorporation Susan E. Clarke and Keeley W. Stokes
Chapter
10
This chapter is based on a research project that examined Muslim representation on local borough councils within the London, England, metropolitan area. Our research on Muslims and local governance in London underscores the need to reconsider the ways in which political incorporation processes contribute to social cohesion and democratic voice. Incor poration into processes by which diverse interests and needs are represented in the political system is presumed to be an important path to greater social cohesion. It is also the hallmark of liberal democratic societies. Increasingly, local officials – such as municipal councillors in North America or those on borough councils in Britain – are on the front line in managing these processes even in the face of a “confused retreat from multiculturalism” (Modood 2003) that seems evident on both sides of the Atlantic. To analyze local democratic practices in a global and multicultural city such as London, we sketch the trends shaping the prospects for and the conditions – local political economy, ethnoreligious configurations, institutional features– under which immigrant groups gain representation on local borough councils. Specifically, we examine the representation of black and minority ethnic (BME) councillors on London borough councils during the period of 2002-6.1 The empirical research includes data gained from both fieldwork in London boroughs and archival research to construct a dataset for statistical analysis of variations in the political representation and incorporation of racial and ethnic minorities across the London metropolitan
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area. Political incorporation of immigrant groups varies dramatically across London boroughs. But neither the size of immigrant groups residing within a particular borough nor their needs translate directly into political voice. The ability of groups to mobilize around ethnic and religious identities is important, but our cluster analysis of data on all London boroughs indicates there are multiple paths to political incorporation. These findings highlight the ways in which local political factors encourage or discourage incorporation processes. The British Case
Britain is often referred to as an exceptional case among European states due to population changes prompted by significant post–Second World War inward migration from countries of the British Commonwealth (Messina 2001). The 1948 Nationality Act gave all citizens of countries within the British Commonwealth unrestricted rights to work, live, and vote in Britain. In the 1950s and 1960s, migration of male immigrants from the Common wealth was encouraged because of labour shortages in Britain and was facilitated through the 1948 act. Especially after the division of Pakistan and India, many male migrants were Muslims from India and Pakistan although Afro-Caribbeans were another significant group. In the 1960s and ’70s, another wave of Muslim immigrants arrived from Kenya and Uganda with immigration overall accelerating prior to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act (1962) that subsequently removed the earlier established right of automatic entry for Commonwealth citizens. Britain was one of the first to curb immigration flows beginning in the 1960s so that immigrants are a much smaller share of the labour force than in other Western European countries. Although the British National Party has had some successes at the local level, no major anti-immigration movement or right-wing parties have emerged to challenge the major parties. Britain is a prime setting to compare local political incorporation processes. Several legislative acts and policy initiatives have shaped the context in which local governments increasingly contend with multiracial constituencies (Nanton and Fitzgerald 1990). The 1948 and 1962 acts were critical in interjecting and then removing immigration from the national political agenda. The 1976 Race Relations Act set out a series of anti-discrimination strictures and equality responsibilities on local authorities and established the Commission for Racial Equality, although it did not include religious identity as grounds for discrimination cases.2 The updated Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000) puts a duty on all public bodies to “promote racial
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equality,” but it does not make clear how this duty to promote will be audited or enforced (Collins 2002). Britain’s initial colour-blind response to immigration changed in the 1960s with Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins’s declaration that the country was and should be a multicultural community. Even at this early period, this statement suggested that integration did not mean assimilation and that diversity and tolerance were the key values. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the government sought to channel representation of BME communities through intermediary community organizations established, for the most part, by the government. Over forty years later, these themes and values remain part of the dominant discourse but are now challenged by the July 2005 bombings of London’s transportation system and subsequent terrorist threats. The country’s multicultural orientation is now often undermined by arguments for a more communitarian “social cohesion” and a growing emphasis on integration and “Britishness.”3 Indeed, some scholars argue that the national bipartisan effort to depoliticize ethnic minority politics in the 1960s pushed these issues into the local arena in order to avoid dealing with them at the national level (Garbaye 2003; Modood 2005). By framing issues as problems between communities or races that occur on an everyday basis at the local level, national politicians pushed race relations and the management of ethnic minority relations on to the local authorities’ agenda (Garbaye 2003, 305; Messina 2001). In November 2007, in response to the Commission on Integration and Cohesion’s recommendations in its Our Shared Future report to avoid single group funding, the national government cut back on funding to monocultural and ethnic group organizations. In its place, they raised local grants for integration services to fifty million GBP over three years but also encouraged local governments to eliminate multilingual signage and translation services and to increase English language teaching to encourage integration. What some scholars see as a necessary focus on “the everyday urban – the daily negotiation of ethnic difference – rather than national policy orientations” (Amin 2002, 959) is a negotiation structured by earlier political arrangements. Thus, Saggar (2000, 238) argues that to fully understand the importance of ethnicity in shaping electoral behaviour and political participation more generally in Britain, “it is necessary to look toward local politics and elections.” Saggar (ibid.) goes so far as to argue that “the bulk of conflicts over race and ethnicity in British politics have been contested at this level,” particularly culturally charged issues involving local schools, land use, and housing. Although there is a persistent argument that central
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government and centralized party structures vitiate local autonomy, recent trends toward multilevel governance in the United Kingdom demand a more nuanced analysis. Empirical analyses document continued central initiatives but wide variations in local policy choices and outcomes in the wake of devolution and electoral reforms (Wilson 2005; Sullivan et al. 2004). The 2000 Local Government Act gave local governments more flexibility in making expenditure choices and a community leadership role to promote “well-being” (Wilson 2005, 173). There are still centralizing tendencies, of course, but United Kingdom boroughs have increased discretion and resources to make distinctive choices about important issues. The Changing Multicultural Context in London
As of 2002, the British population of sixty million included 700,000 Pakistanis, 300,000 Bangladeshis, 240,000 Indians, 375,000 Middle East erners and Africans, and 10,000 Afro-Caribbean persons. Overall, in England and Wales combined, 9 percent of the population (4.5 million) is from a minority ethnic background.4 London is home to nearly half that total (2.1 million): the 2001 Census reported that 29 percent of the city’s population was from a minority ethnic population. Of that minority ethnic population, 42 percent were Asian or Asian British, 38 percent were black or black British, and 11 percent belonged to one of the “mixed” categories. Indians are the single largest minority ethnic group, followed by black Africans and black Caribbeans (ONS et al. 2003). The 2001 Census was the first to map the religious landscape in Britain with optional queries on religious affiliation.5 Britain remains overwhelmingly Christian (71.7 percent) but Islam is the second largest group with more than 1.5 million Muslims reporting in England and Wales (3.1 percent of the population) (Peach 2006; Gledhill and Ford 2003). British Muslims now make up 36 percent of Britain’s total ethnic minority population. Fourteen percent of London’s total population of 7.2 million are Muslim. This group comprises the most diverse Muslim community in Britain: 250,000 are Bangladeshi and Pakistani, another 150,000 are Turkish, and others are from Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, North Africa, Somalia, Nigeria, etc. (Guardian 2002). Muslims overall are less segregated than other religious groups, but there is more intra-Muslim ethnic segregation overall (Peach 2006). For Muslims, the confirmation of their considerable presence reflected in the census count meant that their needs could no longer be discounted and marginalized. For non-Muslims, the growing Muslim presence often introduced cultural needs felt by some to clash with existing community norms.
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The spatial distribution of ethnic minority populations in the London metropolitan area is especially significant: we see growing spatial dispersion of BME populations over the political and jurisdictional landscape. There is a high BME concentration in East London, for example, but the 2001 Census showed significant deconcentration underway.6 In particular, the census revealed processes of suburbanization and metropolitan deconcentration for many minority ethnic groups (Rees and Butt 2004). As a result, the outer London boroughs have become the most diverse area in Great Britain (ibid.). The relative growth of the ethnic minority population is now faster in the outer boroughs than within the city (ibid., 181). This growth in the outer boroughs is particularly interesting since it reflects recent movement of ethnic minorities into previously relatively homogeneous areas with little history of dealing with such cultural diversity. Taking Boroughs Seriously In Britain, the institutional and political context for political incorporation of ethnic minorities centres on borough governments. Boroughs are the key local government authorities in London. The thirty-two local authorities in London were established in 1965, with significant expansion of their responsibilities in 1986 and 2000.7 Prior to the 2000 Local Government Act, it might have been accurate to say that borough racial politics were primarily symbolic (Reeves 1989, 246). Now, however, boroughs have a more extensive range of responsibilities and specific charges to promote racial equality through policy making. The decisions important to ethnic minorities in everyday life are made at the borough level in England, albeit guided by national political frameworks of rules, regulations, and funding priorities. Tracking Inclusion and Incorporation Overall, London boroughs reflect a multicultural Britain: they have high proportions of BME populations and high concentrations of non-Christian communities, all growing and dispersing away from traditional immigrant gateway areas. Demographic changes, however, are significant but not sufficient factors for understanding the changing political landscape. Here we draw on the rich literature on descriptive and substantive representation for the larger theoretical framework to understand these changes. Pitkin (1969) contrasts descriptive and substantive representation in terms that allow us to measure if members of minority populations themselves hold office or whether the interests of these groups are substantively represented
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independent of the racial or ethnic attributes of political officeholders. This distinction informs the concept of political incorporation, which tracks the extent to which diverse constituencies are represented in and able to influence local political processes (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 2002; 1997; 1990). For Browning, Marshall, and Tabb, representational parity means having minority representation on local councils in approximate proportion to population numbers in the city as a whole. This measure of descriptive representation is at the heart of our work. General elections are held every four years; in 2006 all 1,861 borough seats were contested. The aggregate trend of BME elected officials seems encouraging: with an increase from seventy-nine ethnic minority councillors comprising only 4.1 percent of all councillors in 1982, to 217 ethnic councillors comprising 11.3 percent of all councillors in 1998 (Anwar 2001). But preliminary calculations (Tables 10.1, 10.2) show electoral representational parity varies widely across London boroughs. Relative to their share of the population there are only three boroughs (Hounslow in 2002, Barking and Dagenham in 2006, Tower Hamlets in 2002 and 2006) where ethnic minorities achieve representational parity in the London metropolitan area. Mapping Electoral Incorporation To map political incorporation in London, we developed a unique dataset of political representation and incorporation for all thirty-two London boroughs. Information on ethnic composition of borough councils and 2002-6 election data was collected from each borough’s website and/or through personal communications.8 We developed two different measures for political incorporation. The first – percentage of minority councillors in 2006 – relates to the overall percentage of seats held by BME councillors within each borough after the most recent local government elections in May 2006. The second utilizes the representational parity measure developed by Browning, Marshall, and Tabb (1990; 1984), the BME percent share of council seats relative to their percent share of that borough’s population in 2006. The representational parity measure shows whether the share of seats held by BME representatives reflects their share of the borough population. It is quite possible that boroughs with low percentages of BME representation relative to seats held by non-BME councillors nevertheless have relatively high parity measures because the BME representation is proportionate to the size of that borough’s BME community.
51 63 63 63 60 70 69 63 51 63 54 65 60 48 60 63 54 54 60
14.81 25.97 8.61 54.73 8.41 29.84 41.27 22.89 22.89 41.23 4.83 20.94 35.13 15.54 25.03 36.48 9.02 10.80 35.51
5.88 12.70 7.94 34.92 0.00 11.43 30.43 19.05 17.65 27.42 0.00 12.31 35.00 8.33 15.00 15.87 0.00 5.56 16.67
15.69 11.11 3.17 36.51 1.67 17.14 33.33 15.87 11.76 35.48 1.85 10.77 30.00 6.25 13.33 22.22 5.56 1.85 31.67
Sources: Authors’ calculations based on 2001 Census and borough webpages, http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/.
Barking & Dagenham Barnet Bexley Brent Bromley Croydon Ealing Enfield Greenwich Harrow Havering Hillingdon Hounslow Kingston upon Thames Merton Redbridge Richmond upon Thames Sutton Waltham Forest
+9.80 −1.59 −4.76 +1.59 +1.67 +5.71 +2.90 −3.17 −5.88 +8.06 +1.85 −1.54 −5.00 −2.08 −1.67 +6.35 +5.56 −3.70 +15.00
0.40 1.06 0.49 0.43 0.92 0.37 0.64 0.67 0.00 0.20 0.38 0.57 0.74 0.81 0.83 0.69 0.77 0.51 0.67 0.86 0.00 0.38 0.59 0.51 1.00 0.85 0.54 0.40 0.60 0.53 0.44 0.61 0.00 0.62 0.51 0.17 0.47 0.89
Measures of representational parity: Outer boroughs of London, 2002 and 2006 % change % minority in minority Parity score Borough name: Total number Nonwhite Councillors Councillors councillors Outer boroughs of councillors population 2002 2006 2006 2002 2006
TABLE 10.1
54 57 46 54 48 54 63 54 60 63 51 60 60
26.83 40.60 22.17 34.38 24.65 21.39 37.61 34.08 60.58 36.98 48.60 22.05 26.79
11.11 29.82 6.52 26.32 6.25 3.70 4.76 14.81 41.67 20.63 54.90 13.33 6.67
16.67 24.56 4.35 26.32 10.42 3.70 20.63 11.11 46.67 22.22 62.75 5.00 8.33
Sources: Authors’ calculations based on 2001 Census and borough webpages, http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/.
Camden Hackney Hammersmith & Fulham Haringey Islington Kensington & Chelsea Lambeth Lewisham Newham Southwark Tower Hamlets Wandsworth Westminster
+5.56 −5.26 −2.17 0.00 +4.17 +0.00 +15.87 −3.70 +5.00 +1.59 +7.84 −8.33 +1.67
0.41 0.62 0.73 0.60 0.29 0.20 0.77 0.77 0.25 0.42 0.17 0.17 0.13 0.55 0.43 0.33 0.69 0.77 0.56 0.60 1.13 1.29 0.60 0.23 0.25 0.31
Measures of representational parity: Inner boroughs of London, 2002 and 2006 % change % minority in minority Parity score Borough name: Total number Nonwhite Councillors Councillors councillors Inner boroughs of councillors population 2002 2006 2006 2002 2006
TABLE 10.2
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As Tables 10.1 and 10.2 show, parity scores are constructed for white/all nonwhite councillors as of June 2006.9 The number of minority councillors across the entire thirty-two local authorities in 2006 was 336, with nearly half (45.5 percent) newly elected in 2006. This is slightly higher than the 305 in office as of 2002 and signals a recovery from the previous downward trend decried by advocacy groups (Operation Black Vote 2005). Over half the boroughs had gained BME councillors or remained constant. Some outer boroughs – Croydon, Harrow, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Barking and Dagenham, and Waltham Forest – gained substantially, as did the inner boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Camden, Islington, Newham, and Lambeth. Political Incorporation across Boroughs: Societal and Institutional Perspectives
Browning, Marshall, and Tabb (1984) argue that to understand political incorporation processes we need to recognize the contextual variables that shape these processes. Broadly stated, these variables consist of particular societal conditions that are often assumed to lead to political mobilization, additional resource needs, and group identity formation. In the multi ethnic London setting, three factors are theorized to be associated with variations in political incorporation: levels of religious diversity, levels of ethnic diversity, and apparent socioeconomic inequality (as measured in a 2005 national government index of deprivation). Groups with these characteristics, who lack influence despite their growing presence and the persistence of inequalities, are underrepresented elements in London politics. In addition, as Hopkins (2010) theorizes, greater concentrations of immigrants lead to greater political competition and also potential increases in antiimmigrant sentiments. While societal conditions are likely to be important influences on immigrant political incorporation, they provide little sense of how political influence operates. Indeed, a purely societal approach assumes a rather stable and consistent set of institutional arenas, a state-centric polity, the preeminence of electoral institutions, and the construction of racial and ethnic identities within a societal context bounded by national borders. But in the United Kingdom, the institutional landscape is denser, no longer solely oriented to elections, and not necessarily state-centric as non-elected organizations and public-private partnerships take on local services and functions. Furthermore, translocal identities and bounded democratic institutions increasingly characterize local politics. Whereas immigrants and racial minorities historically used their ethnic identities and citizenship status to
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mobilize for local political incorporation, the contemporary arenas are more ambiguous (Penninx et al. 2004). To many, immigration is not an act of forsaking their homes but of moving within diasporas linking their new community and their home community. Recent research indicates immigrants in English cities, for example, often eschew traditional electoral politics but engage in issue-based activities that reach across cities and continents (ESRC 2003). This cautions against a singular focus on voting patterns rather than a broader view of non-electoral activities.10 But the question of political representation speaks to institutional configurations as well as voter choice. To capture these more complex and dynamic settings, Kittilson and Tate (2005, 174) encourage a focus on “the political and institutional environment” that shapes actors’ choices. Such a focus directs our attention to the institutional features that encourage or discourage representation, and thus the political incorporation, of ethnic minorities. As the single member plurality constituency system is universal in England, the critical institutional factors likely to shape local political behaviour are internal to each borough (Togeby 2008). At the borough level, our attention centres on two features: differences in party control and Labour Party strength. The expectation is that in competitive boroughs in which BME candidates can deliver seats for one party at the expense of another (Crewe 1983, 268), BME incorporation will be potentially greater. Unstable party control of the borough council provides individual councillors greater leverage and potential influence. In our analysis of borough configurations, we look for the importance of differences in party control over borough councils from 2002-6. Despite an often wary view of BME incorporation, the Labour Party historically wins the largest share of the BME vote and is considered more receptive to immigrant issues and demands. The strength of Labour control – measured as the percentage of Labour votes in 2006 – is assumed to be associated with greater BME incorporation. These five features – religious diversity, ethnic diversity, deprivation, changes in party control, and Labour Party strength – are used to cluster boroughs into distinctive groupings with varying levels of political incorporation as measured by the percentage of BME councillors in 2006 and the BME parity scores in 2006. Methods and Analysis
In this chapter, we compare the configurations of BME political incorporation across boroughs using cluster analysis.11 Rather than sorting out individual
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TABLE 10.3 Variable names, descriptions, and sources used to cluster the boroughs Variable name
Description
Source
Percentage BME Calculated by dividing the number Election returns officers councillors of BME councillors by the total and election results 20061 number of borough councillors available on borough websites BME parity A ratio of BME representation on 2001 Census data and score 2006 the council to the total BME authors’ calculations population in the borough Religious Herfindahl index measuring the 2001 Census data and Herfindahl concentration of religious groups authors’ calculations Index 2001 in a borough2 Ethnic Herfindahl index measuring the 2001 Census data and Herfindahl concentration of ethnic groups authors’ calculations Index 2001 in a borough3 Index of A combined measure of community Deprivation deprivation based on unemploy 2001 ment, crime, and other statistics
2001 Census data
Number of A measure of the turnover rate for Election returns officers party changes council seats in a given borough and election results 2002-6 available on borough websites Percentage of vote Percentage of the vote the Labour Election returns officers for the Labour Party received in a given borough and election results Party 2006 available on borough websites Notes: 1 Percentage of BME councillors in 2006 is calculated by dividing the number of BME councillors by the total number of councillors. Ethnic and religious group concentration measures were calculated by counting the number of ethnic or religious groups that comprise more than 5 percent of the total borough population. The Deprivation Index and average unemployment rates are from the Office of National Statistics data. The number of party changes and the percentage of the vote for the Labour Party are derived from Greater London Authority election data (http://legacy.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/factsand figures/boroelec06-all.pdf ) and borough websites. The number of party changes is a measure of how many seats changed parties, regardless of which party won/lost the seat. 2 The Religious Herfindahl Index ranges from 0 to 1 with 1 representing a complete mon opoly by a single group within society. In this case, scores nearing 1 indicate a primarily Christian borough; scores nearing 0 indicate a more religiously diverse society. 3 The Ethnic Herfindahl Index ranges from 0 to 1 with 1 representing a complete monopoly by a single group within society. In this case, scores nearing 1 indicate a primarily white borough; scores nearing 0 indicate a more ethnically diverse society.
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FIGURE 10.1
Map of London boroughs clustered by parity and incorporation scores, 2002 and 2006
determinants of BME political incorporation, under the cluster analysis approach we identify different pathways to political influence and the borough conditions associated with these different power configurations. Cluster analysis is especially useful in delineating the societal and institutional factors associated with different types and levels of political incorporation. In this case-wise analysis, each borough represents a case. While regression analyses offer some predictive value, its variable-wise analysis obscures what are, in many instances, influences of important and interactive contextual factors across cases. In cluster analysis, the aim is to highlight the interaction of variables in distinguishing among boroughs. The goal is to identify configurations of factors associated with more or less BME representation and changes in BME representation. The cluster analysis centres on the interactions of the five factors – religious diversity, ethnic diversity, deprivation, changes in party control,
62.75 46.67 33.83 22.86 11.65 11.94 3.39 1.29 0.77 0.80 0.65 0.53 0.45 0.36 0.38 0.21 0.38 0.46 0.59 0.57 0.82 0.28 0.28 0.28 0.33 0.36 0.37 0.50 45.88 40.41 21.53 35.67 33.01 20.33 12.92 29.00 5.00 19.50 8.33 18.40 5.89 16.00 31.70 41.90 31.80 36.50 33.92 25.54 12.52 11.87 11.26 7.16 9.63 8.35 6.31 4.36 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.33 0.20 0.67 1.00 7.84 5.00 1.89 3.55 2.73 –0.29 –0.24 48.57 55.56 38.47 25.18 10.90 11.45 3.92 68.63 45.00 45.65 45.26 60.97 38.52 47.57 53.1 85.7 68.93 79.95 78 71.38 16.66 1.13 0.69 0.76 0.57 0.36 0.48 0.33 4.39 -2.30 –0.48 1.35 1.87 5.49 1.57 16.50 13.60 35.50 19.18 24.76 46.92 43.95 17.80 2.90 20.95 26.05 19.92 15.26 27.77 43.90 48.30 41.95 39.25 40.32 32.52 18.20
Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster 4 Cluster 5 Cluster 6 Cluster 7 Highest Escalating High Increasing Increasing Declining Lowest parity, incorporation, parity, incorporation, incorporation, parity, parity, highest escalating high increasing relatively declining lowest incorporation parity incorporation parity low parity incorporation incorporation
% BME councillors 2006 Parity score 2006 Ethnic Herfindahl Index 2001 Religious Herfindahl Index 2001 Index of Deprivation 2001 Number of party changes 2002-6 Vote for Labour 2006 Unemployment 2002-5 Borough location (Inner/Outer) % change in BME 2002-6 % new councillors that are BME 2006 % new councillors overall 2006 % BME councillors from Labour 2006 Parity score 2002 % change in borough population 2002-5 Vote for Conservative 2006 Vote for Lib Dems 2006 Vote for Labour 2002
Cluster analysis summary Variable
TABLE 10.4
14.58 20.20 35.65 18.97 20.56 46.44 40.92 29.30 4.10 11.88 26.30 24.34 14.26 30.80 51.40 39.42 56.91 65.34 75.49 74.29 90.47 48.60 60.58 43.09 34.66 24.51 25.71 9.54 1.53 12.14 18.56 3.00 1.85 6.09 2.28 0.76 8.46 3.54 2.05 0.90 2.02 0.49 33.43 8.80 0.45 1.36 2.05 1.05 0.25 6.50 21.59 9.79 20.48 12.33 8.05 2.04 2.66 7.35 4.81 8.53 5.24 3.77 0.85 3.36 13.11 4.24 10.29 6.06 3.65 1.05 16.52 13.40 13.36 15.13 16.28 15.22 11.42 5.66 8.28 5.73 4.74 4.04 4.16 1.76 38.60 46.80 49.45 55.90 59.02 59.17 70.32 1.00 0.60 0.85 0.90 0.88 0.77 0.47 0.80 6.90 13.05 1.50 1.28 4.16 1.67 0.90 0.20 2.38 1.60 1.60 3.52 0.50 36.40 24.30 9.73 9.45 7.10 7.64 2.07 0.40 2.80 4.70 0.72 0.40 1.34 0.57
Notes: The boroughs are grouped into the following clusters: Cluster 1: Tower Hamlets. Cluster 2: Newham. Cluster 3: Ealing, Brent, Hounslow, and Harrow. Cluster 4: Lambeth, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Haringey, Southwark, and Greenwich. Cluster 5: Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham, Lewisham, Islington, and Barking and Dagenham. Cluster 6: Wandsworth, Merton, Kensington and Chelsea, Croydon, Westminster, Enfield, Redbridge, Hillingdon, and Barnet. Cluster 7: Sutton, Richmond upon Thames, Bexley, Bromley, Kingston upon Thames, and Havering. The first seven rows are in bold to highlight factors driving clusters. In the rows that follow, the lowest and highest factors are in bold.
Vote for Conservative 2002 Vote for Lib Dems 2002 % white % ethnic nonwhite % Indian % Pakistani % Bangladeshi % black British % black Caribbean % black African % borough pop. of in-migrants % borough pop. of nonwhite in-migrants % Christian % Buddhist % Hindu % Jewish % Muslim % Sikh
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and Labour Party strength – as they delineate groupings of boroughs that have more in common with their cluster members than with other clusters.12 To flesh out the broader context of these clusters, we also compare a wide range of characteristics across groupings. As the clusters in Table 10.4 show, there is substantial variation in the configurations of context and representation across boroughs. Figure 10.1 maps these clusters across boroughs.13 Given the distinctive profiles of Tower Hamlets and Newham, we present these clusters first and then compare the five multiple borough clusters to each other, noting the ways in which they differ from Tower Hamlets and Newham. Cluster 1: Highest Parity and Highest Incorporation (Tower Hamlets [I])
Because it is so well known and distinctive, we single out the East End inner borough of Tower Hamlets, the sole occupant of Cluster 1. While the other clusters are compared to each other, Tower Hamlets is often the highest/ lowest on every measure. Political Representation It is above parity in both 2002 (1.13) and 2006 (1.29). Tower Hamlets had the highest number of new councillors of any borough although Newham showed the highest percentage of new councillors who were BME. Never theless, Tower Hamlets reports the greatest increase in BME councillors from 2002-6; over half the council is BME, the largest share of any borough. Social Context Tower Hamlets also has the highest deprivation and highest unemployment rates of any borough although Newham has similar measurements in these two areas. Tower Hamlets also has one of the highest population increases of any borough, second only to Cluster 6 and one of the highest in-migration rates, including nonwhite migration. Tower Hamlets, however, is no longer the most diverse borough and no longer has the lowest white and highest nonwhite population; Newham now reflects these features, thanks to the gentrification reshaping Tower Hamlets. Bangladeshi populations dominate Tower Hamlets, more so than any other group in any other borough. Along with Cluster 3, Tower Hamlets reports the greatest religious diversity, although Hindus dominate in Cluster 3 whereas Muslims
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dominate in Tower Hamlets. Tower Hamlets has the highest Muslim population (and smallest Christian community) of any cluster. Nearly 43 percent of the London Bangladeshi Muslim population lives in this borough and 24 percent of all United Kingdom Bangladeshi Muslims live here (Peach 2006, 360). Political Change Tower Hamlets reported the highest rate of electoral turnover as measured by the number of party seat changes from 2002-6. Both Labour and Liberal Democrats lost seats since 2002, with Labour losing more dramatically here than in any other borough. Conservatives made some gains, but by 2006 the anti-war, far-left Respect Party held twelve council seats and overshadowed Conservative (7) and Liberal Democrat (6) blocs. BME representatives were less likely to be Labour councillors in Tower Hamlets than in any borough other than Cluster 7. Cluster 2: Escalating Incorporation and Escalating Parity (Newham [I])
Whereas Tower Hamlets is often considered to be the archetypal diverse borough, increasingly this is a more apt characterization of Newham. Political Representation Newham’s parity score is second only to Tower Hamlets and increased again in 2006 although not at an appreciably higher rate than in Clusters 4 and 5. While similar to Clusters 3 and 4 in its influx of new councillors in 2006, Newham shows the greatest increase in new councillors who are BME in any borough. Again, it is second only to Tower Hamlets in the percentage of BME councillors in 2006 and the change in that number over time; both the numbers and the share are increasing. Social Context Unfortunately, it is also similar to Tower Hamlets in its deprivation and unemployment rates. Whereas Tower Hamlets’ population is increasing, Newham’s is in decline. Newham is now the most diverse of all boroughs, more so than Tower Hamlets; the white population is smaller than any other borough and the ethnic nonwhite population is larger than in any other borough. Nonwhite migrants comprise more than 8 percent of the population of this borough but out-migration of white groups contributes tellingly to the
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borough’s increased diversity. In contrast to the Bangladeshi concentration in Tower Hamlets, Newham has the largest black British and black Caribbean settlements of any borough. Newham and Tower Hamlets have identical Herfindahl scores on religious diversity, similar to Cluster 3’s scores. Newham and Cluster 3 have similarly small Christian populations – less than 50 percent – but Newham’s Muslim community is second only to Tower Hamlets’. Political Change Along with Cluster 6, Newham has one of the lowest rates of party turnover. Newham has the highest Labour representation of any borough and provides the lowest support to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. In Newham, the Christian Peoples Alliance held three seats as of 2006, at the expense of Conservatives and the Respect Party. Nevertheless, BME political incorporation remains in Newham through their representation in the Labour Party: more than 86 percent of the BME councillors in this borough were Labour Party representatives. Cluster 3: High Parity and High Incorporation (Ealing [O], Brent [O], Hounslow [O], Harrow [O])
Cluster 3 includes only outer boroughs, but several with historical immigrant settlements: Brent (O), Ealing (O), Harrow (O), and Hounslow (O). These boroughs and Newham were the only ones that experienced popu lation loss from 2002 to 2005. Political Representation These boroughs are the historical heart of immigrant politics in London. Cluster 3 shows the presence and increasing strength of BME representation. The parity score in 2006 averaged 0.80, a slight increase from the 0.76 average in 2002 and second only to Tower Hamlets. Other than Newham and Tower Hamlets, these boroughs have the highest proportion of BME councillors in both 2002 and 2006 and the highest percentage, nearly 38 percent, of councillors newly elected in 2006 were BME. Social Context This cluster is the most diverse of the multiborough clusters; its Herfindahl ethnicity score is identical to Tower Hamlets – only Newham is more diverse. It has the highest Indian and Pakistani population of any cluster and is also the most religiously diverse, along with Newham and Tower Hamlets. At the
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same time, it shows relatively moderate rankings on the index of relative deprivation. Political Change Election turnover is the highest of all the multiborough clusters: Labour lost ground heavily here over 2002, with Liberal Democrats nearly doubling their vote share in 2006. In 2006, Conservatives dominated the vote, with Conservatives taking over the Ealing Council from Labour in 2006. These boroughs have the highest nonwhite population of the multiborough clusters and also high ethnic nonwhite in-migration (5.75 percent), second only to Newham. The largest Indian and Pakistani communities and largest Hindu and Sikh groups in London are in these boroughs. Only Tower Hamlets and Newham have smaller Christian communities. Cluster 4: Increasing Incorporation and Increasing Parity (Lambeth [I], Southwark [I], Haringey [I], Waltham Forest [O], Hackney [I], Greenwich [O])
Cluster 4 is a mix of inner and outer boroughs. Political Representation These boroughs report the highest percentage of new councillors – over half were first elected in 2006 – with an average of 25 percent BME in 2006. This reflects a 3.5 percent increase in BME councillors from 2002-6 and boosted the parity score by eight points to 0.65, a higher level than Cluster 5 although not as dramatic an increase. Social Context Of the five multiborough clusters, these average the highest scores (36) on the deprivation index and had the highest unemployment rates between 2002 and 2005. These boroughs also experienced a high rate of in-migration (15 percent) with nearly 5 percent ethnic nonwhite populations entering these boroughs. These are among the most diverse of the multiborough clusters, second only to Cluster 3 in diversity. These boroughs have the largest black Caribbean settlements of any boroughs and, of the five multiborough clusters, are home to the second largest black African community, after Newham. While there is more religious diversity than ethnic diversity in these boroughs, as measured by the Herfindahl indices, Christians and a small community of Muslims typically dominate.
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Political Change The political landscape is relatively stable. Although they report the lowest average election turnout, these boroughs average the highest Labour (37 percent), Liberal Democrat, and Green Party support, and the lowest Conservative Party votes (19 percent) of the five multiborough clusters in 2006. None of these figures differs substantially from vote shares in 2002. Labour seems the channel for BME political incorporation in these boroughs: nearly 80 percent of BME councillors were Labour. Cluster 5: Increasing Incorporation, Relatively Low Parity (Camden [I], Barking and Dagenham [O], Hammersmith and Fulham [I], Lewisham [I], Islington [I])
Cluster 5 is mostly inner boroughs grouped with one outer borough – Barking and Dagenham. Camden stands out as the site of the terrorist bombings in 2005. Political Representation Although these boroughs report the highest percent (61 percent) of new councillors – over half were first elected in 2006 – a relatively low 10 percent are BME in 2006, and there is a low percentage increase (3 percent) in BME representation. Nevertheless, the parity score for these boroughs increased significantly (seventeen points); these boroughs had relatively low parity scores in 2002 and exhibited the greatest increase in 2006. Social Context These boroughs experienced the highest rate of inward migration overall (16 percent), with approximately 4 percent nonwhite in-migration. This trend did not necessarily lead to high population growth rates; these boroughs are characterized by transitional and mobile populations. They have one of the larger white populations (similar to Cluster 3); black British are the largest nonwhite ethnic group in these boroughs, while Indian groups are least visible here. There is more religious diversity than ethnic diversity in these boroughs, as measured by the Herfindahl indices. Political Change These boroughs experienced a high number of party changes (similar to Cluster 3) from 2002 to 2006. The high Labour vote in 2006 nevertheless reflected a drop from the 2002 vote. These boroughs also averaged a 9 percent vote for the British National Party.
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Cluster 6: Declining Parity and Declining Incorporation (Wandsworth [I], Kensington and Chelsea [I], Westminster [I], Merton [O], Barnet [O], Croydon [O], Enfield [O], Hillingdon [O], Redbridge [O])
Both inner and outer boroughs are grouped in Cluster 6. Political Representation The parity scores in 2006 declined by 0.03, the only declines in any boroughs. These boroughs also declined in the number of BME representatives; with a low increase in new councillors overall relative to the other boroughs, only 11 percent were BME. Social Context These boroughs showed the greatest population increases of any boroughs, with deprivation scores similar to those in Cluster 3. These boroughs are not particularly diverse ethnically (0.57), similar to Cluster 5. Also similar to Cluster 5, there is more religious than ethnic diversity – these boroughs have the largest Jewish population of any other boroughs. Clusters 5 and 6 have the largest white populations, other than Cluster 7. Political Change With the exception of Cluster 7, these boroughs average the lowest Labour vote (26 percent), dropping significantly from 2002 levels. They report the highest Conservative vote of all boroughs in both 2002 and 2006 at 47 percent. With the lowest election turnout, they also display a low Green vote and the lowest Liberal Democrat vote in the multiborough clusters. Cluster 7: Lowest Parity and Lowest Incorporation (Sutton [O], Richmond upon Thames [O], Kingston upon Thames [O], Bromley [O], Havering [O], Bexley [O])
Cluster 7 includes all outer boroughs. Political Representation Both BME representation and incorporation are lower here than in any other cluster. The parity scores averaged 0.36 in 2006, a slight increase over the 0.33 average in 2002, but the lowest of any borough in both time periods. Like Cluster 6, these boroughs saw a decline in BME councillors along with the decline in parity scores. Similar to Clusters 3 and 4, there was a relatively high influx of new councillors in these boroughs but, in contrast,
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Cluster 6 boroughs reported the lowest percentage of new councillors who were BME. Social Context In many ways Cluster 7 seems to reflect an “Olde London,” with little ethnic or religious diversity. Indeed, the rates of in-migration are the lowest of all amongst the borough clusters as are the deprivation scores and unemployment rates. This cluster is the “whitest” (90 percent) of any of the clusters, with the lowest nonwhite ethnic population and the lowest Muslim population of any of the borough clusters. In the very small nonwhite community, Indians (2.3 percent) are the largest group. Nonwhite inward migration rates are the lowest here, at only 1.78 percent of the total population. Political Change There is less party turnover than in Clusters 3 and 5, not to mention Tower Hamlets. Labour had the poorest showing here, losing ground since 2002. Conservatives retained their 2002 standing but were not as dominant as in Cluster 6. Liberal Democrats were stronger here than in any other group of boroughs in both elections, although with some loss in the percentage of the election votes received in 2002. In the absence of societal pressures and political opportunities, BME representation remains lower than in any other cluster and there is no BME influence in the borough councils. The picture is one of a relatively closed political system. Conclusion
Five features – religious diversity, ethnic diversity, deprivation, changes in party control, and Labour Party strength – were used to classify London boroughs by their patterns of political incorporation and societal and institutional conditions. The London clusters highlight the interactions of societal features, such as ethnic and racial diversity, with institutional features such as party turnover. The importance of growing BME representation in the outer boroughs and the “replacement” or “churning” of BME councillors with newly elected BME councillors in 2006 are two of the most significant findings of our analysis. Given emergent trends of suburbanization of immigrants and generational change within immigrant communities, we anticipate these political dynamics will become common in other settings as well (see Andrew et al. 2008).
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Different pathways to political incorporation are suggested by these clusters. It appears that “old immigrant boroughs” such as Ealing, Brent, Hounslow, and Harrow in the outer boroughs and Tower Hamlets and Newham in the inner boroughs share high BME parity scores and high ethnic and religious diversity features, but differ in terms of the significance of Labour control. Newham and Tower Hamlets, especially, are targeted by smaller parties such as Respect, Christian Peoples Alliance, British National Party, and the Greens competing for BME voters. In Tower Hamlets, these efforts have begun to erode Labour dominance; in 2006, Labour continued to hold a plurality of seats but faced a broad if fragmented opposition. In Newham, Labour continued to dominate; in Ealing, Labour lost council control to Conservatives; in Brent and Hounslow, Labour lost council control (no one party gained control), and in Harrow, Conservatives gained control. This undermines any assumption that the Labour Party – or any traditional party – is the primary vehicle for BME immigrant incorporation. But it also suggests that traditional parties may be able to adapt to new constituencies better in some boroughs than in others. Although all these councils returned to varying degrees of Labour control in the 2010 elections, these shifts may foreshadow more volatile local elections and greater party turnover as BME groups seek greater political incorporation. Boroughs with lower and decreasing levels of incorporation reflect both a lack of nonwhite ethnic and religious pressure for representation and a lack of political opportunities for BME advancement. These boroughs are predominantly white and have yet to experience heavy flows of nonwhite ethnic in-migration. Moreover, rather than seeking alternatives – such as BME candidates – within the Labour Party between the 2002 and 2006 elections, these boroughs were more likely to return Conservatives or Liberal Democrats to council seats. These same characteristics are even more pronounced for borough clusters with no substantive inclusion or incorporation of BME councillors. In these closed political systems, neither political pressures nor opportunities for representation were present. Diversity seems to matter: the clusters with the highest BME representation are the most ethnically and religiously diverse and demonstrated a remarkable influx of new BME councillors in 2006. This highlights the importance of the type of diversity being measured and different ethnic configurations. While they may be lumped together under the BME label, it is significant that Bangladeshi dominate Tower Hamlets and black and black Caribbean are the largest “minority” groups in Newham. But the importance
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of religious diversity is striking across boroughs, more so than ethnic diversity. While there is no particular link with political incorporation – other than the low levels of diversity and BME political incorporation in Cluster 7 – it may signal a potential base for mobilization in the future. This also indicates that societal frameworks need to be refined in analyzing contemporary local settings; as Hopkins (2010) notes, contextual effects are not static, with national political rhetoric influencing the ways in which local political dynamics are framed (see also Leo and August 2009; Wilson 2005). These brief comparisons direct us to seek better concepts and models. While the notion of political incorporation is often used in analyses of multiculturalism and immigration politics in North America and Europe, our research suggests it may no longer be adequate in capturing the new realities (see also Clarke 2005a). While political representation measures conventionally focus on the electoral arena, there has been a migration of authority to non-electoral governance arrangements such as partnerships, trusts, and nonprofit organizations. There is growing evidence that national actions – or inactions – shape local immigrant politics and sentiments (Hopkins 2010). To many analysts, representation remains a “thin measure” of democratic voice, particularly under these contemporary conditions. Furthermore, as hinted at by the diversity measures used here, there are important multiethnic variations in participation preferences and experiences that shape demands on the political system. Finally, our measures of descriptive representation do not reflect influence or actual policy gains. While an important first step, measuring descriptive representation does not demonstrate that this representation matters – only that it exists, sometimes to a greater or lesser degree than might be expected given the size of different groups. Indeed, power and influence wielded by racial and ethnic groups may be less a function of groups’ internal resources than their control over the resources and strategic knowledge essential for “getting things done” in their neighbourhoods and relevant policy areas. This highlights the importance of a coalitional focus on local regimes of immigrant incorporation (Good 2009) in which inclusion in local governing regimes becomes the marker for incorporation rather than electoral representation of groups. It also suggests that inclusion is a strategic factor, not necessarily dependent on group resources or mobilization.
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Notes
1 The term black and minority ethnic (BME) is used by the Home Office, Census Bureau, Office for National Statistics, Commission for Racial Equality, and other official bodies that collect data on or deal with race and ethnicity issues. According to the Office for National Statistics, “This variable was created from responses to the ethnic group question in the 2001 Census. The ethnic group question records each person’s perceived ethnic group and cultural background.” (See Ethnic Group KS06, http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/). BME is used here to mean “visible” or nonwhite minorities, in line with this Census 2001 data. Nonwhite is also used in some reports. 2 Since 1998, the incorporation into domestic law of the European Convention on Human Rights, with a Human Rights Act that guarantees “freedom of thought, conscience and religion,” offers protection for Muslims against religious discrimination (by public authorities only) not provided in the 1976 Race Relations Act. 3 This emphasis on “Britishness” includes government discussion of a “statement of values,” including instituting naturalization processes with tests on British culture, establishing a British Day, and the Times of London contest for a “motto” for Britain. Although “At Least We Are Not French” was a contender, 20.9 percent of the readers favoured the winning, “No Motto Please, We’re British.” 4 Note that this refers to ethnic background; respondents may or may not be British citizens. 5 See http://www.saspac.org/ for interactive maps relating to the 2001 Census. 6 Ethnic identity was first polled in the 1991 Census but the same forms/categories have not been used in the 1991 and 2001 Censuses. 7 There are thirty-three local authorities in London: thirty-two boroughs and the City of London. This project focuses only on the thirty-two boroughs. 8 Borough-level data on socioeconomic, demographic, and political characteristics were collected from the Office of National Statistics, Home Office, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Greater London Authority, Municipal Yearbook, Association of London Government, National Census of Local Authority Councillors of England and Wales, Employers’ Organisation from Improvement and Development Agency, borough websites, and other sources. Voting data and electoral information is collected regularly (e.g., Greater London Authority Election Data, London Borough Council Election Results Database, Municipal Yearbook, ALG reports). 9 In the United Kingdom as in the United States, Irish and other “white”/European ethnic groups, (e.g., Poles, one of the largest immigrant stream now entering the United Kingdom), are folded into the white category. 10 The European Social Survey (2011), for example, includes items that ask respondents about electoral (voting) and non-electoral activities: “There are different ways of trying to improve things in [country] or help prevent things from going wrong. During the last 12 months, have you done any of the following?” (1) Contacted a politician, government or local government official; (2) Worked in a political party or action group; (3) Worked in another organisation or association; (4) Worn or displayed a campaign badge/sticker; (5) Signed a petition; (6) Taken part in a lawful public demonstration; and (7) Boycotted certain products.
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11 See Clarke and Stokes (2013) for regression analyses of determinants of the rates of electoral incorporation and changes in these rates from 2002-6 using the same set of variables as used in these cluster analyses. 12 We derive clusters of boroughs based on the Pearson correlations of means across these five contextual features and BME representation measures. We used average linkage algorithms for determining clusters, resulting in seven clusters in our dataset. 13 Construction of Figure 10.1 was supported by London government software: http:// data.london.gov.uk/datastore/applications/excel-mapping-template-london -boroughs-and-wards. Works Cited
Amin, Ash. 2002. “Ethnicity and the Multicultural City: Living with Diversity.” Environment and Planning A 34 (6): 959-80. Andrew, Caroline, John Biles, Matt Siemiatcyki, and Erin Tolley, eds. 2008. Electing a Diverse Canada: The Representation of Immigrants, Minorities, and Women. Vancouver: UBC Press. Anwar, Muhammad. 2001. “The Participation of Ethnic Minorities in British Politics.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 27 (3): 533-49. Browning, Rufus P., Dale Rogers Marshall, and David H. Tabb. 1984. Protest Is Not Enough: The Struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for Equality in Urban Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. –. 1990. Racial Politics in American Cities. New York: Longman. –. 1997. Racial Politics in American Cities. 2nd ed. New York: Longman. –. 2002. Racial Politics in American Cities. 3rd ed. New York: Longman. Clarke, Susan E. 2005. “Splintering Citizenship and the Prospects for Democratic Inclusion.” In The Politics of Democratic Inclusion, edited by Christina Wolbrecht and Rodney E. Hero, with Peri E. Arnold and Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., 321-62. Phila delphia: Temple University Press. Clarke, Susan E., and Keeley W. Stokes. 2013. “Political Incorporation in a Multi cultural Context: London Boroughs 2002-2010.” Unpublished manuscript. Collins, Clare. 2002. Separate Silos: Race and the Reform Agenda in Whitehall. London: IPPR. Crewe, Ivor. 1983. “Representation and the Ethnic Minorities in Britain.” In Ethnic Pluralism and Public Policy, edited by Nathan Glazer and Ken Young, 258-84. London: Heinemann Educational Books. ESRC. 2003. “Ethnic Minorities Opt for Issue-Based Campaigns Rather than Party Politics.” Press Release, 24 September. European Social Survey. 2011. ESS 1-4, European Social Survey Cumulative File, Study Description. Bergen: Norwegian Social Science Data Services. Garbaye, Romain. 2003. “British Cities and Ethnic Minorities in the Post-war Era: From Xenophobic Agitation to Multi-Ethnic Government.” Immigrants and Min orities 22 (2-3): 29-315. Gledhill, Ruth, and Richard Ford. 2003. “Christianity Remains Dominant Religion – Census 2001. Times-London, 14 February, 4.
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Good, Kristen. 2009. Municipalities and Multiculturalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Greater London Authority, Data Management and Analysis Group. 2001. “London Borough and Ward Map.” 2001 Census, Census Area Statistics, Standard Tables and Specially Commissioned Tables. Guardian (UK). 2002. “Special Report: Muslim Britain: A Map of Muslim Britain,” 17 June. Hopkins, Daniel J. 2010. “National Debates, Local Responses: The Origins of Local Concern about Immigration in the UK and the U.S.” British Journal of Political Science 41 (3): 499-524. Kittilson, Miki C., and Katherine Tate. 2005. “Political Parties, Minorities and Elected Office: Comparing Opportunities for Inclusion in the U.S. and Britain.” In The Politics of Democratic Inclusion, edited by Christina Wolbrecht, Rodney E. Hero, with Peri E. Arnold and Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., 163-85. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Leo, Christopher, and Martine August. 2009. “The Multilevel Governance of Immi gration and Settlement: Making Deep Federalism Work.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 42 (2): 491-510. Messina, Anthony M. 2001. “The Impacts of Post-WWII Migration to Britain: Policy Constraints, Political Opportunism and the Alteration of Representational Politics.” Review of Politics 63: 259-85. Modood, Tariq. R. 2003. “Muslims and the Politics of Difference.” Political Quarterly 74 (1): 100-15. –. 2005. “Ethnicity and Political Mobilization in Britain.” In Ethnicity, Social Mobility and Public Policy, edited by Glenn C. Loury, Tariq Modood, and Steven M. Teles, 457-74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nanton, Phil, and Marian Fitzgerald. 1990. “Race Policies in Local Government: Boundaries or Thresholds?” In Race and Local Politics, edited by Wendy Ball and John Solomos, 155-74. London: Macmillan. Office for National Statistics (ONS), Government Office for London (GOL), and the London Research Centre. 2003. Focus on London 2003. Operation Black Vote. 2005. Black Manifesto for 2005. London: OBV. Peach, Ceri. 2006. “Islam, Ethnicity, and South Asian Religions in the 2001 Census.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 31 (3): 353-70. Penninx, Rinus, Karen Kraal, Marco Martiniello, and Steven Vertovec. 2004. Citizenship in European Cities: Immigrants, Local Politics and Integration Policies. London: Ashgate. Pitkin, Hannah. 1969. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of Cali fornia Press. Rees, Phil, and Faisal Butt. 2004. “Ethnic Change and Diversity in England, 19812001.” Area 36 (2): 174-86. Reeves, Frank. 1989. Race and Borough Politics. Aldershot, UK: Avebury. Saggar, Shamit. 2000. Race and Representation: Electoral Politics and Ethnic Pluralism in Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
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Sullivan, Helen, Andrew Knops, Marian Barnes, and Janet Newman. 2004. “CentralLocal Relations in an Era of Multi-Level Governance: The Case of Public Participation Policy in England, 1997-2001.” Local Government Studies 30 (2): 245-65. Togeby, Lisa. 2008. “The Political Representation of Ethnic Minorities: Denmark as a Deviant Case.” Party Politics 14 (3): 325-43. Wilson, David. 2005. “The United Kingdom: An Increasingly Differentiated Polity?” In Comparing Local Governance: Trends and Development, edited by Bas Denters and Lawrence E. Rose, 155-73. Basingstoke UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Conclusion Cities as Dynamic Sites of Integration and Segmentation Luc Turgeon, Kristin R. Good, Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos
In the early 2000s, Canadian political scientist Caroline Andrew (2000-1) published a provocative article titled “The Shame of (Ignoring) the Cities.” The article denounced the lack of attention paid to cities by Canadian federal and provincial policy makers and the absence of debates around urban affairs in Canada. In Andrew’s view, cities deserve attention because some of the most important contemporary public policy challenges are urban in nature. She cites the management of social polarization and social diversity as one such crucial issue. Implicit in the article was also a criticism of the limited attention paid by Canadian political scientists to urban affairs, a view echoed by others in the field (Eidelman and Taylor 2010). Similarly, one could argue that students of ethnic and nationalist politics have too often ignored the urban dimension of their object of study. They have focused instead, especially when advocating solutions to conflicts, on the potential benefits of different electoral systems, the federal division of powers, or the consociational organization of the central state. As Scott Bollens argues in this volume, national models of conflict management “have tended to treat smaller scale forms of conflict management prevalent in urban areas – such as those dealing with discrimination and segregation, demographic policies, or community relations – as subordinate and as a reflection of broader imbalances of power.” Consequently, such models largely suffer from a central state bias, ignoring the extent to which nationalist and ethnic conflicts are often profoundly urban conflicts that may require uniquely urban solutions.
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The chapters in this volume underscore the central role that cities play in ethnic and nationalist conflicts. As argued by a number of contributors, ethnic and nationalist conflicts cannot be separated from contemporary processes of urbanization that have brought people from different origins who speak different languages and hold different values into urban geographical areas with distinctive demographic mixes, histories, and established group relations. As Dickson Eyoh argues, in the case of Nigeria and Cameroon, “it is urban-based elites who, in their struggle for power, have been the lead agents of the politicization of ethnicity and in shaping ethnic politics at local and national levels in the postcolonial era.” Under certain economic and political circumstances, contact between people of different cultural backgrounds has led and continues to lead to conflicts. Because cities, especially large cities, are often home to key cultural and political institutions as well as a growing proportion of a country’s economic activity, ethnic and nationalist conflicts have increasingly become conflicts over the status and control of cities. As David Cameron demonstrates in this volume, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is also in many ways, and not uniquely, a conflict over the status of Jerusalem, especially the Old City of Jerusalem. Moreover, failure to manage conflict deeply rooted in cities has the potential to lead to secession. Indeed, as Bollens briefly alludes in his chapter, whether Iraq will hold together in the long run depends largely on the ability of policy makers to manage ethnoreligious relations in Baghdad and Kirkuk. Cities have long served as the principal sites of immigrant settlement. As such, they are key to the economic and political incorporation of new comers (Saunders 2011). Vibrant local labour markets, municipal public services, and the presence of fellow immigrants can facilitate the integration process of immigrants. While concerns about the “ghettoization” of immigrants or specific ethnic groups are not new, growing inequalities, increasing international migration, gentrification, and the suburbanization of settlement patterns of newcomers are challenging the capacity of urban areas to continue to be places of integration. Cities undoubtedly matter. An important lesson of this book, however, is that it would be a mistake to replace the fetishism of the national scale that has too often marked the study of ethnic and nationalist conflicts with a fetishism of the local or the urban. Developments at the urban scale are profoundly influenced, although not determined, by developments at the national or international scales. As argued by David Ley in his chapter on neighbourhood conflicts in Vancouver, studying the interaction of different
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scales helps avoid interpretations that over-specify the power of a single variable. It is similarly a mistake, when studying issues of ethnicity and cultural identity, to neglect the importance of other factors such as class and gender, which often intertwine with ethnicity in accentuating processes of urban segmentation. Contributors to this volume focused on the central question outlined in the introduction of this book: under what conditions are cities places of integration or of segmentation? They examine one or more of three sets of factors that might influence ethnic relations in cities: political economy, ethnolinguistic configurations, and the institutional patterning of urban governance. In what follows we present an overview of the lessons that might be drawn from our focus on the centripetal and centrifugal influences of these factors. That is, in light of our book’s contributions, how do economic forces, ethnolinguistic configurations, and urban political institutions facilitate or undermine social cohesion in urban contexts? The Political Economy of Ethnic Relations
One theme that crosses many chapters throughout this volume is the crucial importance of globalization and neoliberalism in contemporary debates related to ethnolinguistic diversity. As argued by Wan Yu and Wei Li, the relationship between globalization and ethnolinguistic diversity is multi- rather than unidirectional. Just as globalization has facilitated immigration by enhancing wage differentiation and reducing the cost of international migration, “the development of contemporary immigrant settlements contributes to international migrant flows by accommodating more immigrants from diverse backgrounds.” Diversity has a “multiplier effect” that can lead to rapid social change. Pluralization, in turn, can provoke tension. Yet, here again, we need to be careful in our analyses of the causes of such tension. Conflicts between ethnic or linguistic groups that may appear to be driven by xenophobia and racism may instead be about the distribution of economic resources or different visions of urban development. This is the lesson from David Ley’s chapter on conflicts in Shaughnessy and other West Vancouver neighbourhoods – conflicts that have been presented as pitting Anglo-Canadians against East Asian immigrants. As Ley puts it, “If racism lay behind the conflict, it was a highly contingent racism … effectively terminated by other factors.” Rather, according to Ley, neighbourhood mobilization “was a local expression of broader municipal and regional antigrowth politics, a politics that was not necessarily directed at any specific residential group but at
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growth pressures that destabilized the familiarities of everyday life.” At the same time, ethnic or nationalist conflict may entrench other divisions, for example, those along class lines. In this vein, Cameron argues that socio economic inequality in Jerusalem, while not a cause of the conflict, has certainly been one of its consequences. It is not always easy, however, to separate the economic and cultural sources of conflict; the two are often intrinsically linked. Indeed, a key conclusion of David McDonald’s study of Cape Town is that racism and xenophobia continue to justify and exacerbate “the spatially exclusionary outcomes created by apartheid and neoliberalism.” Nevertheless, in light of the findings of the different chapters in this volume, we can argue that there are three distinct, though often overlapping, ways in which globalization and neoliberalism can foster segmentation or integration: by transforming the labour market for both native-born citizens and immigrants; by influencing patterns of settlement for immigrants; and finally by contributing to the creation of new pro-growth coalitions at the urban level. The transformation of the labour market since the 1980s has played a key role in exacerbating some urban ethnic conflicts. In his chapter on urban politics in postcolonial Africa, Eyoh shows how the contraction in employment opportunities in Nigera and Cameroon from the 1980s onward alienated a generation of young men, contributing at times to the emergence of pro-democracy movements and, at other times, to the creation of urbanbased movements dedicated to advancing ethnoregional interests. Many of those groups came to be at the forefront of xenophobic violence, thus furthering urban segmentation. The geography of urban settlements has changed in an age of globalization. Especially important has been the steadily increasing suburbanization of immigrant settlements. As shown by Yu and Li, suburbanization is often a byproduct, at least in the American context, of economically well-off immigrants moving to better neighbourhoods or municipalities. Another important contribution of Yu and Li is their demonstration that the phenomena of ethnoburbs is no longer limited to the global North, but is also developing in the global South as shown by the emergence of Korean ethnoburbs in Beijing. Ethnoburbs, according to Yu and Li, can serve as a springboard for integration, allowing immigrants to find housing and jobs while improving their language skills. Their comparative analysis demonstrates the power of structural factors, namely globalization, to produce similar outcomes in very different contexts. Alan Walks documents the development of a similar phenomenon in Canadian cities, where despite the declining position of
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immigrants and visible minorities within urban labour markets, there is no evidence that ghettos of racialized disadvantaged groups are forming; rather, visible minorities are split between economically disadvantaged members likely to locate in poorly serviced but not ethnically homogeneous “isoburbs” and economically advantaged immigrants, increasingly concentrated in middle-class ethnoburbs. The capacity of ethnoburbs to be places of integration can be disrupted by changes in the international economy. Yu and Li find that following the drastic devaluation of the South Korean won, a significant number of students and entrepreneurs left the ethnoburb of Wangjing to return to Korea, while those who chose to stay in Beijing often had to move to less expensive localities farther from the city. Similarly, Walks argues that with growing gentrification in Toronto (and related increases in housing costs), we are witnessing the emergence of “isoburbs,” which are socially and geographically distant both from middle-class ethnoburbs and from access to important public services. For Walks, the increasing social distance involved “portends a weakening of social capital and the integrating forces that had previously characterized the diversity of the inner city.” McDonald finds a similar process at work in South Africa, where new African residents are pushed to settle in peripheral, poorly serviced parts of the city “where they can take part in the economy (if they can find a job) but will not interfere with the cultural lives of the city’s elite.” Ley’s contribution draws our attention to the role of wealthy and highly mobile East Asian immigrants who have drawn on their economic resources in combination with property rights and discourses of democratic citizenship to challenge long-standing views on neighbourhood development in the Shaughnessy Heights neighbourhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. Here, the spatial concentration of a wealthy and activist immigrant group enabled political action that challenged the long-standing dominance of the white Anglo elite and a broader municipal and regional antigrowth coalition. Immigrants’ relative political power helped them secure a solution that balanced their preference for the unrestrained exercise of property rights with the more conservationist views of defenders of Shaughnessy Heights’ traditional character. While the debate over growth in Shaughnessy Heights was sharp, it did lead to a resolution that acknowledged the opposing sides’ positions. Finally, globalization is associated with the rise of new pro-growth coalitions that can promote greater tolerance. As economic development is increasingly based on the capacity to attract highly educated workers with
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specialized knowledge from all over the world, cities require not only financial and natural resources, but the capacity for openness towards outsiders. As a result, as argued by Blair Ruble in his chapter on Kazan, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg, efforts are underway by pro-development coalitions to promote tolerance, viewed as essential to attracting workers to those Russian cities. Those promoting such efforts, in the words of Ruble, have done so “out of a desire to promote economic growth rather than out of an embrace of tolerance as a value in its own right.” Similarly, Yu and Li point out that local governments and tourist agencies often market prominent immigrant or minority neighbourhoods as tourist attractions or as symbols of their diversity and cosmopolitan nature. Nevertheless, contributors to this volume suggest that diversity is not always stressed in the quest to sell a city to transnational global capital. For instance, McDonald’s piece on Cape Town suggests that local elites stress the city’s “whiteness” in their city boosting and branding efforts. The business community does support African immigration, although primarily as a source of underpaid labour, a trend resisted by the local mass population who perceive this form of “Africanization” as competition for subsistence level jobs and resources. The Impact of Ethnolinguistic Configurations
Globalization greatly influences the process of integration of immigrants, but it undoubtedly intersects with another important phenomenon, namely the demographic crisis experienced by many countries of the global North. Declining birth rates and an aging population have created a tremendous demand for workers from other countries. For example, as shown by Ruble, the desire of the new business class in Russian cities to promote tolerance in order to attract workers is not only linked to the new economy of the “creative class” (Florida 2003) but to the reality of the demographic crisis and labour shortages that threaten the Russian economy. Given that many of these migrants are hired in the service sector, increasing contact between the native-born majority and migrants has the potential to attenuate or intensify conflicts depending on the circumstances. A number of chapters in this volume confirm insights from group conflict theory, according to which the combination of increasing immigration with declining economic conditions is likely to create greater intolerance towards immigrants and members of visible minorities. This is certainly the case in Cape Town, where many low-income South Africans, according to McDonald, “complain that foreigners are ‘stealing jobs’ or ‘taking resources.’” Evidence in different chapters supports some insights of contact
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theory, according to which limited contact with foreigners or members of another religious, ethnic, or linguistic community is likely to contribute to negative attitudes between members of those communities. Belfast, as presented by Bollens, is a clear case where territorial segregation has exacerbated sectarian conflict. While the chapters in this volume do not ultimately provide definitive evidence for either group conflict or contact theory, they point to certain sociodemographic conditions that may or may not foster integration over segmentation. Where immigrants settle is one such factor. Both the ethnic mix of the neighbourhood and its proximity to essential services are particularly important to its capacity to foster integration. While ethnoburbs may appear to enable segmentation, they often increase integration over the long term by providing housing and employment opportunities for newcomers. As Yu and Li argue, “Once [immigrants] feel at home through improved language skills and mainstream job opportunities, some choose to move to other neighbourhoods whereas others stay.” According to Walks, two key characteristics of ethnoburbs help to foster integration. First, they often concentrate members of the same community – for example, Chinese in the middle-class suburb of Markham in Ontario, Canada – making it easier for them to a) find employment, and b) rely on a network that can help navigate different aspects of life in their new country. Second, they have high quality urban infrastructure, from schools to transit. More problematic are isoburbs, an important conceptual contribution of Walks. Such neighbourhoods are more likely to have a mixed ethnic population as inexpensive rental housing concentrates the poorer members of different minority groups in those neighbourhoods. They are also poorly served by public transit. This double isolation, from one’s community and from the public resources of the inner city, fosters segmentation rather than integration, as demonstrated by Walks’s recognition that such neighbourhoods have “higher rates of crime, school dropout, and disproportionately house female loneparent families.” The concentration of minorities in a neighbourhood may, however, positively affect political incorporation. Clarke and Stokes find that political incorporation, measured as the proportion of members of council elected from minority ethnic and religious groups to their presence in a given neighbourhood is much higher in neighbourhoods that have a substantial presence of minorities. Patterns of ethnic concentration in cities can also affect immigrants political incorporation into local governance arrangements, informal relationships that bridge municipalities and civil society. For instance, in the
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Canadian context, Good (2009) found that the simplicity of a “biracial” rather than “multiracial” ethnic configuration is an important factor that influences an immigrant’s incorporation into informal governance arrangements by, among other things, simplifying the collective action problem. In Chapter 1, Ruble reaches a similar conclusion regarding the impact of ethnic configurations on urban governance processes. He finds that the challenge of creating diversity capital is more complex in places with greater levels of diversity – like St. Petersburg – than in cities with two main ethnic groups such as Kazan. As he describes his finding, Kazan is a city that is more or less equally divided between two core ethnic and confessional communities – Islamic Tatars and Orthodox Christian Rus sians – so that the negotiation of positive accommodation, the foundation for diversity capital formation, has become an essentially bimodal process. Historically, St. Petersburg has remained an overwhelmingly Russian city despite the presence of numerous minorities. The large number and diversity of St. Petersburg’s various communities, as well as their varied historical presence in the city, makes the negotiation of positive accommodation a more complex challenge with more actors and multiple levels of engagement.
According to Ruble, a simpler, two-part ethnic configuration allows for elite accommodation whereas a complexly diverse city must rely on interventions that involve broader participation. Newcomers in cities can arrive in an environment in which there are multiple linguistic or national groups. In this case, a key question becomes which language to adopt and which community to integrate into. This question is especially important given that one of these national communities might view immigrants as a threat to their position in the city, or even to their survival. In these circumstances linguistic insecurities can at times create a backlash or resentment against immigrants. Moreover, as shown by Yoann Veny and Dirk Jacobs, the presence of different national communities may also entail different conceptions of the best approach to integrate immigrants. In their chapter on Brussels, Veny and Jacobs contrast the Flemish Dutch multicultural approach to the Francophone assimilationist republican model in Wallonia. However, as they indicate, it has yet to be demonstrated whether or not such different models have different effects with regard to immigrant integration. While the presence of different models can create tensions and difficulties, Veny and Jacobs argue that they may also encourage new types of political opportunities and political voice, as
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immigrants go “shopping” for funding or influence in either the Flemish or Francophone community. Due to the peculiarity of Brussels’ party and electoral systems, competition to attract immigrant support has contributed to a significant increase in the proportion of non–European Union–origin elected politicians in the local and regional elections of the Brussels-Capital Region. Interestingly, non-Belgian EU citizens are “politically invisible” in the EU’s capital city. While the presence of different national and linguistic groups impacts the process of immigrant integration, the increasing presence of immigrants also affects nationalist conflicts in cities. In the Brussels case, Veny and Jacobs consider the increasing presence of immigrants to have both accentuated and attenuated the city’s long-entrenched linguistic conflict. On the one hand, the struggle of Francophone and Flemish groups to increase their power in the city by integrating immigrants to their particular community furthers existing conflict between these two communities. On the other hand, “immigrants tend to attenuate the linguistic struggle because they develop identities independent of the Flemish-Francophone division.” They have become, in many ways, the defenders of a distinctively Brussels and/or Belgian identity in the face of competing substate nationalist movements. Urban Institutions and Multilevel Urban Interventions
There is no doubt that municipal institutions can have a positive or a negative role in fostering harmonious intergroup relationships. The policies of local governments are particularly important. Those policies can be numerous – as Ruble demonstrates in his account of St. Petersburg – ranging from the funding of local ethnic associations to the introduction of a tolerance curriculum by local school boards. Similarly, Yu and Li point to the importance of having local officials, especially policemen and policewomen, who can speak the language of the minority group. At the same time, as demonstrated both by Walks in his discussion of Toronto and McDonald in his discussion of Cape Town, the absence of municipal services can be an impediment to the integration of immigrants. Policies certainly matter, but so do mechanisms of power sharing and political incorporation. In what Bollens calls nationalistic cities, power-sharing mechanisms have often been put in place guaranteeing different communities their say in the management of city affairs through vetoes or guaranteed representation. According to Bollens, such power-sharing mechanisms have worked successfully in some cities but not in others. In the case of
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Brussels, as shown both by Bollens and by Veny and Jacobs, mechanisms have been put in place to guarantee the political representation of the Flemish community and the delivery of services in Flemish. Key to the success of the city, however, has been the ability to modify governing arrangements to accommodate new needs and circumstances; in this case, existing political institutions have been flexible enough to adapt to the significant growth in the city’s immigrant population. Conflicts have arisen in other nationalistic cities, however, when governing mechanisms have failed to adapt to important demographic changes. This is certainly the case in Beirut, where local governance has become “fossilized,” as local institutions usually mirror the distribution of power at the national level despite the fact that spatial and demographic fluidity have resulted in important changes in the Beirut region, thus contributing to grievances on the part of groups that have come to be significantly underrepresented, over time, in municipal institutions in proportion to their population. Although flexibility in municipal institutions and boundaries is often seen as a virtue, the Brussels case demonstrates that guarantees of institutional stability could be more important in situations of multinational coexistence. This case additionally demonstrates a more general point in this volume – that city-level institutional accommodations must be viewed through a multilevel and multiscalar lens. More specifically regarding Brussels, the case to extend its local boundaries into Flemish territory as the city expands must be considered within the context of a pre-existing settlement of boundaries that, if questioned, could inflame linguistic tensions. Besides power-sharing mechanisms and institutions, political parties and electoral systems can also facilitate the political incorporation of immigrants and deepen intercommunity alliances. The proportional representation system facilitates the election of immigrants in Brussels by providing the flexibility for parties to more easily engineer the election of a greater number of foreign-born citizens than in a ward or first-past-the-post system. Never theless, leaving political incorporation up to parties can also lead to exclusion if the incentives of the electoral system and their voter base do not support incorporation in a straightforward way. First-past-the-post systems in Anglo-democracies like the United States coupled with ethnic concentration have provided strong incentives for the political incorporation of minorities. Whereas the American ethnic urban machines of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century are now associated with patronage and
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corruption, they also constituted instruments of political incorporation. While such an era is long gone, there is no doubt that certain parties have been more efficient at courting the vote of newcomers or attracting and electing foreign-born or minority candidates. In their chapter on political incorporation in London, Clarke and Stokes demonstrate that the Labour Party boasted the greatest number of minority councillors. However, Clarke and Stokes also suggest that competitive boroughs may also encourage the political incorporation of ethnic and religious minorities, in that the single member plurality electoral system rewards small gains (Linzer 2012); under such conditions, parties are encouraged to compete for the votes of minority constituents. That being said, greater political integration at the national level, via political parties, may not be matched at the local level, where electoral and other institutions often differ – a point made in recent work on immigrant political incorporation in Canadian cities (Andrew et al. 2008). It is also clear that national political debates and interventions can affect ethnolinguistic relationships in a city. In particular, models of citizenship and identity promoted by the national government might encourage ethnic conflicts either directly or indirectly. Bollens argues that in the case of Johannesburg, “a key reason for success was that deliberations on local governance reform occurred concurrently with significant national political transformation, thus taking advantage of the opportunity and momentum associated with historical change.” Similarly, in his discussion of Nigeria and Cameroon, Eyoh shows that national elites’ promotion of ethnic identity over shared citizenship has at times had very negative consequences in cities in which members of different groups fight over limited resources. Rule by upper levels of government, or direct rule, has often been viewed as the best way to depoliticize local decision making and reduce inter community tensions. However, such control by upper levels of government has at times backfired. Bollens’s chapter shows that Belfast councillors’ lack of power under direct rule led to extreme interactions with government and to further emphasis on “division, conflict, and a single ethnic identity.” Finally, international actors, governmental and nongovernmental, can also play an important role in the management of diversity in cities, although not always successfully. For example, Bollens demonstrates that international community involvement in Sarajevo did not necessarily lead to more harmonious ethnic relations. International governance of the city, the preferred solution of international actors, gave way to the reality of ethnic politics and to the gradual exclusion from governance arrangements of
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the Croat and Serb minorities. In his discussion of the Jerusalem Old City Initiative, Cameron outlines the positive role nongovernmental international initiatives can play in helping cities with diverse populations. Such initiatives work best when they have a limited focus and are directed by disinterested outsiders who are understood to be neutral and are able to sustain consultation with key people in the region. Conclusion
In this volume, we examined three key factors that influence the capacity of cities to act as vectors of integration and dialogue rather than conflict and segmentation in an era of profound social and economic change: the political economy of cities, the ethnolinguistic configuration of cities, and the institutionally patterned governance of cities. By outlining the impact of such factors in cities as different as Toronto, Beijing, and Cape Town, this volume also outlined the potential benefits of cross-national comparisons that transcend the study of urban politics in specific geographical areas. A great deal of urban research remains countryspecific, and much of the comparative urban research employs “most similar systems designs” that focus on comparing similar countries. This volume as a whole, and chapters such as Yu and Li’s comparison of ethnoburbs in the United States and China, implicitly adopt a “most different systems design.” As this volume attests, comparing very different cities allows the researcher to isolate the similarities in the cases and, therefore, to isolate the factors responsible for an observed outcome. This approach has the benefit of not only providing greater leverage in asserting the importance of certain variables, but also expanding our range of cases so that they better represent the global scope of urban contexts. This, in turn, may help us develop theories with a greater level of generality. As this volume and Saskia Sassen’s seminal The Global City (1991) demonstrate, most different systems designs are particularly useful to highlight how a broad structural force such as changes in the global political economy can lead to similar changes in outcomes in otherwise distinctive cases. Although shaped in many complex and intersecting ways by the particularities of their local contexts, by placing contributions that cover a wide geographical scope together, this volume shows that cities are changing in similar ways that reflect the impact of globalization and neoliberal ideas of urbanization and the state. As we discuss further below, due to differences in organizational design and the unintended consequences of institutional rules and past policies, institutional analysis often highlights differences in
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outcomes. However, changes in the global economy have also resulted in similar institutional and policy trends that have created challenges in ethnic relations in cities across the global North and South. For instance, many scholars have documented similar policy changes informed by neoliberal ideas including the effects of cuts in social programs, which are seen in cities across the globe and have impacted ethnic relations in negative ways (see, for instance, Jones-Correa 2001), a finding that is confirmed by several contributions to this volume. In other contributions to the volume, we also see evidence that the global economy has impacted governance in similar ways by, for instance, creating the conditions for a convergence of interests among those who support migration and the business community. A most different systems research strategy is not without its challenges. Conducting research in very different countries, with different languages, requires unique skills and significant resources. The obvious way around these challenges is to adopt a multidisciplinary team-based approach as we have in this book, taking advantage of our contributors’ extensive expertise in very different regions and countries. The work of many has helped us to both extend the range of our theoretical analyses and the scope and depth of our empirical coverage. Like all books, ours raises as many questions as it contributes to answering. In our view, several such questions and insights call out for further research. In particular, Walks’s innovative notion of isoburbs in his discussion of Toronto calls out for cross-national application as does Yu and Li’s finding that an ethnoburb has emerged in China. Similarly, Bollens’s and Cameron’s focus on the role of international actors in promoting cooperation in divided cities deserves more attention, especially among urbanists who have largely neglected relevant insights from the international relations subfield of political science (Carment, James, and Taydas 2009). And in light of Ley’s discussion of the Vancouver case, we clearly need to better delineate the respective influence of class and ethnicity, or at the very least, explore how they mutually reinforce one another. Here, urban scholars might usefully draw from feminist theories of intersectionality (McCall 2005) and work on boundary formation in studies of class, race, ethnicity, and nationalism (Lamont and Molnár 2002; Brubaker 2009). Our book also raises questions about the consequences of existing “deep” cultural differences for immigrants and for relations among entrenched linguistic and “racial” groups. For instance, how generalizable is Veny and Jacob’s suggestion that multinationalism may impel both sides to seek the support of immigrants, thus contributing to their integration? Good’s (forthcoming)
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recent analysis of Moncton, New Brunswick, also suggests that “competition” for immigrant identification between distinct language communities may contribute to a positive local reception of immigrants in a very different multinational urban context. More specifically, in Moncton, the Frenchspeaking Acadian community has developed its own model of integration that involves nurturing social connections among Francophone immigrants and the existing Francophone Acadian community to ensure that they integrate both into the majority English-speaking economy and society and also into minority French-speaking social networks. Sanjay Jeram’s (2012) work on Basque nationalists’ efforts to craft an immigrant-friendly multiculturalism in opposition to what they see as an assimilationist approach taken by the Spanish state is also germane to this discussion. In short, comparing responses to immigration in very different multinational cities may provide us with new insights into the logic of nationalism as it regards immigration and immigrant integration. However, as we discussed in the Introduction, such a positive dynamic is not always the case in multinational cities that are host to large numbers of immigrants. The findings here also raise questions about the persistence of structural racism in many cities across the global North and South as well as how these structures intersect with changes in ethnic composition driven by immigration. McDonald’s contribution, which highlights how immigration can serve to reinforce existing processes and structures of racialization of blacks in Cape Town, along with existing research on American cities, suggests that comparative studies of “race” ought to be at the centre of research on segmentation in cities across the globe. Ley’s contribution suggests that such an agenda ought to be informed by multilevel and historical analysis. Despite its limitations, this volume provides important lessons for policy makers. While cities that have successfully managed ethnolinguistic diversity have doubtlessly benefited from favourable economic conditions, supportive upper levels of government and distinctive settlement patterns have also been key factors. Moreover, policy can make a difference, by providing newcomers with much needed supports for navigating local institutions, securing employment, and contributing to the political life of their community. Policymakers can also play a role in preserving and enhancing institutions that have worked well in the past. As Walks points out, rather than “promoting gentrification through social housing redevelopment, condominium infill, and the redevelopment and remaking of artist communities and trendy downtown neighbourhoods, public policy interventions at multiple institutional scales should instead seek to limit the spread and
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extent of gentrification … to preserve both the immigrant-reception function of the inner city where access to public transit, jobs, and amenities help improve the quality of life for new immigrants.” A number of authors also argue that improving the linguistic and cultural capacity of police forces and other municipal institutions assists in facilitating the incorporation of newcomers. Several contributors make the case that the promotion of tolerance and the management of ethnolinguistic diversity, whether at the local or the national level, are not solely the responsibility of the state. Whereas Ruble has shown that business leaders can play a key role in promoting a climate of tolerance, Cameron makes the case that international nongovernmental actors can play a constructive role devising new approaches to entrenched conflicts. Many solutions rely on the development of unique partnerships and governance arrangements attuned to the specific characteristics of a city. As demonstrated by the cases considered, general solutions must have the capacity to incorporate context-specific factors. While cities are crucial players in ethnic conflict and cooperation, their role in this regard varies. Different histories, institutional configurations, and economic and political dynamics prompt distinctive modes of ethnic politics across urban contexts. Future research must take this point into consideration to avoid trading a methodological nationalism for a fetishism of the decontextualized local. Never theless, this book makes clear that, more than ever, it is a crime to ignore cities’ influence and role, particularly in the management and mismanagement of ethnolinguistic diversity. Works Cited
Andrew, Caroline. 2000-1. “The Shame of (Ignoring) the Cities.” Journal of Canadian Studies 35 (4): 100-10. Andrew, Caroline, John Biles, Myer Siemiatycki, and Erin Tolley, eds. 2008. Electing a Diverse Canada: The Representation of Immigrants, Minorities, and Women. Vancouver: UBC Press. Brubaker, Rogers. 2009. “Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism.” Annual Review of Sociology 35: 21-42. Carment, David, Patrick James, and Zeynep Taydas. 2009. “The Internationalization of Ethnic Conflict: State, Society, and Synthesis.” International Studies Review 11(1): 63-86. Eidelman, Gabriel, and Zack Taylor. 2010. “Canadian Urban Politics: Another ‘Black Hole’?” Journal of Urban Affairs 32 (3): 305-20. Florida, Richard. 2003. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.
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Good, Kristin. 2009. Municipalities and Multiculturalism: The Politics of Immi gration in Toronto and Vancouver. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. –. Forthcoming. “The Politics and Governance of Immigrant Attraction and Retention in Halifax and Moncton: Do Linguistic Divisions Impede Cooperation?” In Comparing Canada: Citizens, Government and Policy, edited by Martin Papillon, Luc Turgeon, Jenn Wallner, and Steve White. Vancouver: UBC Press. Jeram, Sanjay. 2012. “Immigrants and the Basque Nation: Diversity as a New Marker of Identity.” Ethnic and Racial Studies. doi: 10.1080/01419870.2012.664281. Jones-Correa, Michael. 2001. Structural Shifts and Institutional Capacity: Pos sibilities for Ethnic Cooperation and Conflict in Urban Settings. In Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict, edited by Michael Jones-Correa, 183-209. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Lamont, Michèle, and Virág Molnár. 2002. “The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences.” Annual Review of Sociology 28: 167-95. Linzer, Drew A. 2012. “The Relationship between Seats and Votes in Multiparty Systems.” Political Analysis 20: 400-16. McCall, Leslie. 2005. “The Complexity of Intersectionality.” Signs 30 (3): 1771-800. Sassen, Saskia. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Saunders, Doug. 2011. Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World. Toronto: Vintage Canada.
Contributors
Scott Bollens is a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Irvine, where he holds the Warmington Chair in Peace and International Cooperation. He studies urbanism in polarized cities and is author of City and Soul in Divided Societies (Routledge, 2012), Cities, Nationalism, and Democratization (Routledge, 2007), On Narrow Ground (State University of New York, 2000), and Urban Peace-Building in Divided Societies (West view, 1999). David Cameron, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is chair and professor of political science at the University of Toronto. His professional career has been divided between public service – in Ottawa and at Queen’s Park, Ontario – and academic life. A long-time student of Canadian federalism and Quebec nationalism, he has turned his attention to constitution making in conflict and post-conflict situations in Sri Lanka, Iraq, Somalia, the Western Sahara, and Jerusalem. Susan E. Clarke is a professor of political science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, USA. She co-authored The Work of Cities (with Gary L. Gaile), co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Urban Politics (with Karen Mossberger and Peter John), and currently is an editor of Urban Affairs Review.
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Dickson Eyoh is an associate professor of political science and African studies at the University of Toronto. His publications include Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa (2004, edited with Bruce Berman and Will Kymlicka), Decentralization and the Politics of Urban Development in West Africa (2008, edited with Richard Stren), and “Urban Migrants and the Claims of Citizenship in Postcolonial Africa” in Immigration and Integration Urban Communities: Renegotiating the City (2008, L. Handley, B. Ruble, and A. Garland, editors). Kristin R. Good is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University. Her primary research interests are city politics and governance, ethnic relations, immigration policy, and Canada’s model of ethnocultural and linguistic pluralism. Her recent book Munici palities and Multiculturalism: The Politics of Immigration in Toronto and Vancouver (2009) examines the municipal role in immigration and multiculturalism initiatives in urban and suburban municipalities in Toronto and Vancouver and was awarded the Canadian Political Science Association’s Donald Smiley Prize for the best English-language book published on Canadian politics in 2009. Her current research, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, examines how growth rates and ethnolinguistic configurations influence the ways in which the politics and governance of immigrant and multinational diversity intersect in different city contexts in Canada. Dirk Jacobs is a professor of sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His principal fields of research are minority rights, identity politics, and school inequalities. In 2011, he obtained a European Research Council starting grant with a project concerning equal opportunities for migrant youth in highly segregated school systems. His most recent article is “The Impact of the Conflict in Gaza on Antisemitism in Belgium” (coauthored, in Patterns of Prejudice, 2011). David Ley is Canada Research Chair in Geography at the University of British Columbia where his research and teaching consider the social geography of large cities. His research interests include gentrification and housing markets, social polarization and neighbourhood change, and im migration, particularly transnational migration from East Asia to metropolitan Canada. His most recent book is Millionaire Migrants: Trans-Pacific
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Life Lines (2010). He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and emeritus fellow of the Trudeau Foundation. Wei Li is a professor of Asian Pacific American studies and geography, holding a joint appointment at the School of Social Transformation and the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. She specializes in international migration and integration in the Pacific Rim, and in transnational connections. She has co-authored or co-edited four scholarly books, including Immigrant Geographies in North American Cities (co-edited with C. Teixeira and A. Kobayashi, Oxford University Press, 2011) and Ethnoburb: The New Ethnic Community in Urban America (awarded the Association for Asian American Studies’ 2009 Book Award in Social Science, University of Hawaii Press, 2009), and two special issues of journals as well as eighty other academic publications. David McDonald is a professor of global development studies at Queen’s University, Canada, and co-director of the Municipal Services Project. His publications include World City Syndrome: Neoliberalism and Inequality in Cape Town (Routledge, New York, 2008); Electric Capitalism: Recolonizing Africa on the Power Grid (editor, Earthscan, London, 2009); Alternatives to Privatization: Public Options for Essential Services in the Global South (co-edited with Greg Ruiters, Routledge, New York, 2012). Blair A. Ruble is director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Comparative Urban Studies Project in Washington, DC. He has written a number of book-length studies of Russian cities and has edited several volumes on urban affairs. His most recent publications include Creating Diversity Capital (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) and Washington’s U Street: A Biography (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). Keeley Wynne Stokes holds an MA in equality studies from University College Dublin, Ireland, a PhD in political science from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is a research assistant at Spark Policy Institute. Recent projects in Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda were funded by the Gates Foundation, Catholic Relief Services, and Kimetrica International. Triadafilos (Phil) Triadafilopoulos is an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the School of Public
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Contributors
Policy and Governance. He is the author of Becoming Multicultural: Immigration and the Politics of Membership in Canada and Germany (UBC Press, 2012). His current research explores the politics of immigrant integration policy making in Europe and North America, particularly regarding the accommodation of religious minorities. Luc Turgeon is an assistant professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. His main research interests are in the fields of social policy, nationalism, and federalism in Canada and in Western Europe. He has published articles in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Regional and Federal Studies, the Revista d’Estudis Autonomics, the Revue française d’admnistration publique, and the Journal of Commonwealth and Com parative Politics. He is currently working on a book (with Alain-G. Gagnon) on the representation of linguistic groups within the federal bureaucracies of Belgium, Canada, and Switzerland. Yoann Veny is a doctoral researcher in sociology and political sciences at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, in the Group for Research on Ethnic Relations, Migration and Equality (GERME). He currently has a doctoral grant from the Fond National pour la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS). His principal research interests include discourse analysis and social network analysis. He co-authored (Dirk Jacobs et al. 2011) “The Impact of the Conflict in Gaza on Antisemitism in Belgium,” published in Patterns of Prejudice. Alan Walks is an associate professor of urban geography and planning at the University of Toronto. His research is concerned with understanding the causes and consequences of neighbourhood change and neighbourhood effects on life chances, social attitudes, and ideology. Wan Yu is a PhD student in the School of Geographical Science and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. Her studies focus on highly skilled migration, especially Asian highly skilled migrants in the United States. Her current research is on international students in the United States’ higher education sector.
Index
Note: numbers in italics indicate a table or figure. Aboriginal peoples (Canada), poverty and unemployment among, 86. See also indigenous peoples Acadian people (Canada), 290 Adams, Michael, 85, 109 Africa: cities, as epicentres of mobilization against authoritarian rule, 70; citizenship, national vs. ethnic, 60, 61, 63, 65-66; ethnic conflict, and colonialism, 61-65; ethnic politics, about distribution of power and resources, 12, 60, 61, 70; internal migration, and transformation of cities, 2, 3; neoliberal globalization, and urbanization without development, 12, 61; neoliberal structural adjustment, and survivalist economic strategies, 69-70; neoliberalism, and demise of nation-building efforts after independence, 71, 76; pan-ethnic identities, and vernacular literacy, 63; postcolonial, incorporation of ethno regional communities into statecentred networks of power, 66-68; postcolonial, regression to colonial-
style authoritarian rule for most countries, 67; urbanization, employment in informal economy and identity-based networks, 68-69; urbanization, population estimates (1950-2005) for selected primary cities, 68. See also Cape Town (South Africa); colonial cities (Africa); Durban (South Africa); Johannesburg (South Africa) African Americans: competition with immigrants for economic resources, 11, 15, 16; Miami, Cuban influence viewed as disenfranchising of, 16 African Union, 150 Ahidjo, Ahmadu, 73-74 Andrew, Caroline, 277 Arab-Israeli War (1967), 209 Arafat, Yasser, 215 Area Boys (Lagos, Nigeria), 73 Arel, Dominique, 18 Arewa Peoples Congress (Nigeria), 73 Armenian people (Russian Federation): in Kazan, 47; in Rostov-na-Donu, 44; in St. Petersburg, 50
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Armstrong, Karen, 205 Asselin, Oliver, 6 Association of Koreans in Beijing, 123, 124 Australia, as traditional migrantreceiving country, 3, 115 Azeri people (Russian Federation): in Kazan, 44, 47; in St. Petersburg, 49 Bakassa Boys (Nigeria), 73 Balfour Declaration (1917), 208 Bamilekes people (Cameroon), 74, 75 Barak, Ehud, 215 Barcelona (Spain), changing demographics, and nationalist conflict, 18 Bashkir people, in Kazan (Russian Federation), 46, 47 Basque people (France), 290 Beijing (China), Korean ethnoburb. See Wangjing District, Beijing (China) Korean ethnoburb Beirut (Lebanon): governance, as mirror of distribution of power at national level, 235; governance, fossilized by power-sharing requirements, 243, 286; governance, voting system not representative of current population, 236-37; static consociational system as cause of sectarian conflict, 237, 242, 286 Belfast (Northern Ireland): as focal point of unresolved nationalistic ethnic conflict, 17, 234; legacy of direct rule, as weakening capacity of local government, 233-34, 243, 287; local governance, as emergent and untested, 242; “peace” walls, 233, 234; power sharing, under Belfast Agreement (1998), 234-35; territorial segregation, as exacerbating sectarian conflict, 233, 283 Belfast Agreement (Northern Ireland, 1998), 232 Belgium: citizenship, jus sanguinis and jus soli, 190; federal system, based on
Index
territorial and linguistic logic, 182, 184-85; immigrants, competition for votes by Flemish and Francophone communities, 195-99; immigrants, diverging views of Flemish and Francophones, 190-95; immigrants, percentage of population, 189; multinational federalism, and response to immigrant concerns, 24-25; political parties, 185; population, Flemish (Dutch) and Francophone, 228-29; stages in power sharing between Flemish (Dutch) and Francophones, 230. See also Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium) Bell, John, 214 Bell, Michael, 214 Ben Gurion, David, 208 Benton-Short, Lisa, 2 Berlinquette, Roy, 218 Birmingham (Britain), political incorporation of minorities into local governance, 23 Biya, Paul, 74 Brampton (Canada), 105 Brenner, Neil, 10, 27-28 Britain: African colonies, citizenship not extended to subjects, 64; African colonies, direct rule of, 64; Commis sion on Integration and Cohesion (2007), 252; ethnic minorities, political incorporation in borough governments, 254; ethnic relations, conflict contested at urban level, 252; immigrants, citizenship under Nationality Act (1948), 251; immigrants, restrictions under Common wealth Immigrants Act (1962), 251; integration, emphasis after terrorist acts (2005), 252; Local Government Act (2000), 253, 254; multiculturalism policy, and Race Relations Act (1976, 2000), 251-52; population mix (2002), 253. See also Birmingham (Britain); London (Britain); Northern Ireland
Index
Browning, Rufus P., 23, 255, 258 Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium): Flemish (Dutch), multicultural approach to immigrants and visible minorities, 284; Flemish (Dutch) min ority, protected through equal power sharing, 228-29; foreign residents, low- and highly skilled, 189; Franco phone majority, 228; Francophones, assimilationist approach to immigrants and visible minorities, 284; governance, continued adaptation and evolution, 230, 286; governance, institutions, 186-88; governance, representation and autonomy along linguistic lines, 228-30; immigrant voters, increase in non-EU-origin politicians elected, 198, 199, 200, 285-86; immigrant voters, support for Francophone parties, 197-98; immigrants, as accentuating longentrenched linguistic conflicts, 5, 18-19, 183-84, 199-200, 285; immigrants, Flemish (Dutch) and Franco phone policies of integration, 21, 191-92; as officially bilingual, 229, 230; role in multinational Flemish and Francophone state, 183-84, 185-88; stabilization, through power sharing and forms of transitional democratization, 242, 243, 244; stages of power sharing between Flemish (Dutch) and Francophones, 230. See also Belgium Buganda Accords, 64 business: gentrification, in central business districts (CBDs) of global cities, 82; promotion of policies to improve quality of life, 37, 39-40 Cameroon: alienation of young unemployed men, contributing to prodemocracy or ethnoregional movements, 280; authoritarian rule under Ahidjo, 73-74; ethnic succession of migrants, outnumbering indigenous
299
population, 19; politicization of ethnicity, by urban-based elites, 77, 278, 287; return to multiparty politics, and ethnic political power, 74-76 Campbell, Gordon, 177 Canada: multiculturalism, 10, 22; narratives on immigration and visible minorities, 85; neoliberalism, and free trade movements, 177; as traditional migrant-receiving country, 3, 115; urban governance responses to immigrants’ concerns, 22, 25-26. See also Montreal (Canada); Toronto (Canada); Vancouver (Canada) Cape Town (South Africa): African migrants, as underpaid labour, 282; African migrants, cross-border, 14851; African migrants, lack of facilities and services, 147-48, 153, 154, 285; African migrants, skill levels, 147, 14849; African migrants, undocumented, 148-49, 153; Africanization and deAfricanization, tension between, 16, 144-45, 160, 161; Africanization, through internal migration, 144, 14546, 147-48; Africanization, through population growth, 3, 146; Africans, complaint that foreigners are “stealing jobs,” 282; AIDS deaths, among Africans, 146-47; and apartheid legacy, 25, 145, 146; colonial history, 145-46; coloured population, 145, 146, 156-57; global city, efforts to become, 143-44; map, 152; neo liberal policies, for control and containment of African migrants, 16, 160; neoliberalism, as deepening income-related inequities and spatial segregation, 144, 153; presentation as white, English-speaking city, 11, 16, 282; racism, 144, 154-57, 280; as segregated city, 16, 143, 144, 145, 149, 151-53, 159; slavery, history of, 145; unemployment rate, 147; utilities, privatization of, 144; white
300
immigrants, 146, 159-60; xenophobia, 144, 157-59, 280 Chechen people, in Rostov-na-Donu (Russian Federation), 44 Chicago (US), 168 China: assimilation of ethnic minorities into Han Chinese culture, 131; as emerging immigrant-receiving country, 3, 4, 118, 128, 131; growth through globalization, 130; open door policy and economic reform, as factors in Korean immigration, 131-32; and US, interconnected economic and strategic relationship, 130. See also Wangjing District, Beijing (China) Korean ethnoburb Chinatown, Toronto (Canada), 104 Chinese ethnoburbs, in Los Angeles (US). See San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles (US) Chinese ethnoburbs Chinese people, in Yekaterinburg (Russian Federation), 52 Christianity: Africa, evangelization and schooling, 63; Jerusalem, as central to sacred geography of, 205, 206; Kazan (Russian Federation), Orthodox Christian Russians, 45, 46, 47 Chu, Dr. Judy, 129 Chuvash people, in Kazan (Russian Federation), 44, 46 cities: benefits of cross-national comparisons, 288; central role in ethnic and nationalist conflicts, 278; changing demographic balance, as source of conflicts, 18; “competitive,” 8; divided, role of international actors in promoting cooperation, 289; “entrepreneurial,” 8; global cities, 8; globalization and neoliberalism, similarities in effects of, 288-89; integration of immigrants and visible minorities, factors in, 278, 288; lack of attention paid by policy makers and social scientists, 277; service economy, 7, 8, 10, 11; as sites of multinational diversity, 4; as
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sites of nationalist conflicts, 17-18. See also colonial cities; gentrification; global cities; governance, urban; place; suburbanization; urbanization; names of specific cities Civil Rights Act (US, 1964), 25 Clinton, Bill, 215 colonial cities (Africa): British, spatial segregation of ethnic groups and migrants, 64-65; ethnic networks, growth of, 62; growth, driven by migration, 62; segregated by race, class and ethnic groups, 62; urbanization patterns, based on colonial extractive economies, 61-62 colonialism (Africa): anticolonial nationalist movements, 65, 66; British citizenship, not extended to colonial subjects, 64; British colonies, governance based on ethnic differences, 64-65; British indirect rule, through use of traditional authorities, 63, 64; French and Portuguese citizenship, available to colonial subjects, 64; French and Portuguese direct rule, 63-64; national vs. ethnic identities, 60, 61, 63, 65-66. See also colonial cities (Africa) Coloureds (South Africa): preference for, in Cape Town, 145, 156; racism of, against black Africans, 156 conflict management: methods for managing differences, 227-28; national-level models, implications for urban governance, 227, 277. See also group conflict theory consociation. See power sharing (consociation) contact theory: on attitudes towards diversity, 14; compared with group conflict theory, 14-15; conditions for positive effects of contact, 14; limited contact with unfamiliar others, as likely to contribute to negative attitudes, 283
Index
Crane, Mary, 14 De Chastelain, John, 218 Di Rupo, Elio, 185 diversity: and challenge of creating diversity capital, 284; and gentrification, 93-104; multiplier effect, and rapid social change, 279; “new” immigrant diversity, 5; nurturing, through zones of urban contact, 41-42; “old” diversity, rooted in Europe, 5; and urban social sustainability, 40-42. See also conflict management; ethnic composition, of cities; global cities; group conflict theory; names of specific ethnic groups Douala (Cameroon), 75 Druze Progressive Social Party, 237 Duncan, James, 167, 169 Duncan, Nancy, 167 Durban (South Africa), 143 Dutch (Flemish) speakers (Belgium). See Belgium; Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium) Elon, Amos, 207 England. See Britain Erickson, Arthur, 176-77 ethnic composition, of cities: altered by internal and external migration, 2; as fostering political incorporation, 283-84; and group conflict theory, 15; importance of class and gender, 279; influence on local government’s approach to diversity, 17; marketed as tourist attraction, 282; and “social sustainability,” 4; “superdiversity,” 2. See also diversity; ethnoburbs; iso burbs; names of specific cities and ethnic groups; visible minorities Ethnicity and Democratic Governance (EDG) series, ix, x ethnoburbs: advantages of, for new immigrants, 117-18; challenges, 134-35; compared with isoburbs, 104-5, 106-
301
7, 281, 283; definition, 86, 104, 106, 116, 117; demographic mix, 117; as distinguished from urban ghettos and enclaves, 118; effect of changes in international economy on, 281; factors in development of, 117, 131; and globalization, 130, 132-34, 281; as pattern of urban development, 13-14; self-segregation of, 108; as springboard for immigrant integration, 135, 280, 283; as subject for further research, 289. See also isoburbs Europe, as immigrant continent, 3. See also names of specific countries Ewondo people (Cameroon), 74 Fainstein, Susan S.: on benefits to upper-income earners in global cities, 10; on complex relationship between low income and ethnic or minority status, 11 federalism, multination federalism theory, 19 Filipino residents, in San Gabriel Valley, California (US) ethnoburbs, 119 Flemish (Dutch) speakers (Belgium). See Belgium; Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium) Forbes, Donald, 14 France: African colonies, indirect rule of, 64; assimilatory approach to immigrant naturalization, 21; French citizenship available to African colonial subjects, 64 Francophone speakers (Belgium). See Belgium; Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium) Friedmann, John, 7 Front National (FN) Party (France), 14 Galabuzi, Grace-Edward, 85, 109 Garbaye, Romain, 23 Geneva Initiative, 217, 220 gentrification: as altering immigrantreception function of urban cores, 13,
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82, 84, 107; associated with greater social polarization, 13, 100, 107-8; Canadian cities, waves of, 91, 92; and change in income profiles of residents, 90, 100-4, 107; classic stage models, 88-89, 107; and the “creative class,” 82; definition, 81-82, 91; and exclusionary displacement of immigrants, 93; as exclusionary, not fostering neighbourhood diversity and social mix, 82-83, 88-90; foreign-born and visible minorities, in central Canadian cities, 95-96; forms of, complete, 9192; forms of, incomplete, 91, 100; and globalization, 81; location quotients, for foreign-born by neighbourhood type in central Canadian cities (19712006), 97; location quotients, illustrating impact of, 97-99; and loss of ethnic diversity, illustrated by Simpson Diversity Index, 99-100; and neo liberalism, 82; policy implications, for retention of ethnic and income mix, 98, 108, 290-91; “whitening” effect, with racialized communities moving to suburbs, 13, 104. See also Montreal (Canada); suburbanization; Toronto (Canada); Vancouver (Canada) Georgian people, in Kazan (Russian Federation), 47 German people, in Kazan (Russian Federation), 47 Germany: exclusion of guest workers from citizenship, 20-21; “foreignborn” residents, 43; immigrant integration, spearheaded by cities, 22 Geschiere, Peter, 71 global cities: characterized by gentrification and high levels of immigration, 107; dependence on international migration for cheap labour, 150; disconnection from national contexts, 27; formation, 10; global city theory, 27-28; and international migration, 2; and social polarization, 10-12; and
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“superdiversity,” 2. See also diversity; ethnic composition, of cities Global Cities Reader (Brenner and Keil), 28 The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Sassen), 8, 27, 288 global South, international migration to, 3 globalization: and debates on integration of immigrants, 115-16; demographic crisis in global North, and demand for workers, 282; economic, as shaping immigrant flows, 116; as fostering segmentation or integration, 280; and gentrification, 81; and neoliberalism, debates on ethnolinguistic diversity, 279; and neoliberalism, impact on cities, 288-89; and neoliberalism, and transformation of labour market, 130, 280; neoliberalism in Africa, and urbanization without development, 61; and “newly industrialized countries,” 130; and pro-growth coalitions, promoting greater tolerance, 28182; and rescaling of politics of immigration and ethnic relations, 9; and transnational families, 134; and urbanization, 1-2, 7-14. See also diversity; ethnoburbs; gentrification; global cities; isoburbs; scale (geographical); suburbanization; urbanization Good, Kristin, 17 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 51 governance, urban: as contributing to intergroup tolerance, 22, 242; depoliticization of local decison making, through direct rule by upper levels of government, 287; factors in translatiing ethnic concentration into political incorporation, 23-24; majoritarian concepts of democracy, and protection of minority rights, 227; methods, influence on ethnic relations, 229; multilevel, and effect on urban ethnic relations, 25-26; patterns, and global
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political economy, 8-9; power sharing in polarized cities, 226, 228; power sharing by identity groups, requirements for successful arrangements, 244. See also institutions; names of specific cities; power sharing (consociation) Great Britain. See Britain Green, Jim, 177 Group Areas Act (South Africa, 1950), 151, 155 group conflict theory: compared with contact theory, 14-15; economic perspective of, 14-15; increasing immigration and declining economic conditions, as creating intolerance towards immigrants and visible minorities, 282; social identity approach, 15-16. See also conflict management Hausa-Fulani people (Nigeria), 63, 64, 71 Herzl, Theodore, 208 Hezbollah Party, and sectarian conflict in Beirut (Lebanon), 237 Hirsch, Moshe, 212, 213-14 historical institutionalism, and path dependency analysis, 24 Holy Basin Project. See Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI) Hong Kong, growth through globalization, 130 The Hong Kong Connection (film), 174 Housen-Couriel, Deborah, 212, 213-14 Hughes, Arthur, 218, 219 “hyperdiversity.” See “superdiversity” Igbo people (Nigeria), 71 Ijaw Youth Congress (Nigeria), 73 immigrants: attitudes towards, and group conflict theory, 14-15; attraction/ retention as economic development strategy, 9-10; as cause of social unrest, 10; changing demographics, viewed as threat to cultural identity,
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15-16; concentration in specific neighbourhoods or cities, 2, 116; as different from subnational groups and indigenous peoples, 5; displaced from inner cities by gentrification, 93-94; disproportionate in service jobs and informal economy, 11; elite, competition for, 9; and ethnic diversity of Canadian global cities, 84, 93; heterolocalism, connection maintenance via social or cyber networks, 116; migrant-receiving countries as increasing, 115; “millionaire migrants,” 12; poverty, and availability of lowcost housing, 116; recent, income gap compared with native-born, 85, 86. See also diversity; ethnic composition, of cities; ethnoburbs; globalization; integration; isoburbs; suburbanization; names of immigrant-receiving countries and cities Immigration Act (US, 1990), 117 Immigration and Nationality Act (US, 1965), 117 India, growth through globalization, 130 indigenous peoples: as different from immigrants, 5; migration to cities, 2 institutions: breakdown through crisis or transformation, as threat to social stability, 19; design, for post-conflict societies, 20; historical institutionalism, path dependency analysis, 24; as mechanism for channelling conduct of self-interested individuals and groups, 20; as moral or cognitive templates for interpretation and action, 20-21; political, incorporation of ethnic minorities, 22-23. See also governance, urban integration: Britain, emphasis on integration after terrorist acts (2005), 252; Brussels, variant Flemish (Dutch) and Francophone policies of integration of immigrants, 21, 191-92; Chinese in Los Angeles ethnoburbs, public
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concerns about self-isolation and lack of integration into mainstream society, 134; definition, 6; ethnoburbs, as springboard for immigrant integration, 135, 280, 283; Germany, immigrant integration spearheaded by cities, 22; globalization, debates on integration of immigrants, 115-16; immigrants and visible minorities, factors in integration in cities, 278, 288; Koreans in Beijing ethnoburb, public concerns about self-isolation and lack of integration into mainstream society, 134; Moncton (Can ada), competition for immigrant integration by Francophone Acadians and English speakers, 290; Toronto (Canada), absence of municipal services as impediment to integration of immigrants, 285. See also ethnic composition, of cities; ethnoburbs; governance, urban; immigrants; iso burbs; names of specific cities; racism Islam: Jerusalem, as central to sacred geography of, 205, 206; Kazan (Russian Federation), Sunni Muslims, 46, 47; Kazan (Russian Federation), Tatars, 44-45; Nigeria, Arewa Peoples Congress, 73; Nigeria, Muslim followers of President Ahidjo as core of regime, 74 isoburbs: compared with ethnoburbs, 104-5, 106-7, 108-9, 281, 283; created by gentrification, 107; definition, 105, 106; disadvantages of, 109; as fostering segmentation, rather than integration, 283; mixed ethnic populations, 105; not comparable to US or UK “ghettos,” 107, 109, 281; as replacement of traditional inner-city immigrant-reception neighbourhoods, 106; social problems, 105-6; as subject for further research, 289. See also ethnoburbs Israel: Arab-Israeli War (1967), 209; conflict, elements of differentiation
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between Israelis and Palestinians, 211-12; declared as state (1948), 208; establishment, and displacement of Palestinian Arabs, 211; population, as one-fifth Arab, 211; socioeconomic inequality between Israelis and Palestinians, 211; urban inequalities, supporting Jewish expansion and curtailing growth of Palestinian neighbourhoods, 240. See also Jerusalem; Judaism Jackman, Mary, 14 Jenkins, Roy, 252 Jeram, Sanjay, 290 Jerusalem (Elon), 207 Jerusalem (Israel): Borough Plan debate (1968-77), 241; conflict, between Israelis and Palestinians, 17, 206207, 211, 215, 278; declared capital of Israel, 209; as divided city, 207-8, 210; efforts to de-Palestinianize under “absentee property” law, 209210; governance, as major roadblock to larger national peace agreements, 242; governance, history, 208, 23940; governance, proposed options, 241-42; importance, as centre of three monotheistic religions, 205, 206; Israeli control of, since ArabIsraeli War (1967), 209, 240; as major immigrant destination, 3; modern history, and narrative of Jewish repossession, 208; municipal boundaries, extension of, 209; Old City, as a main impediment to peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, 18; Palestinians, considered residents but not Israeli citizens, 240; Palestinians, containment and displacement of, 240-41; partition walls, 240; population, Arab population on increase, 210; population, of Greater Jerusalem, 207; population, Old City, 207; socioeconomic inequality, as consequence
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of ethnic conflict, 280; sovereignty, as core issue of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, 212; sovereignty, proposals for handling conflict over, 213-14, 216. See also Christianity; Islam; Israel; Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI); Judaism Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI): and Chatham House Rule, 220; compared with Geneva Initiative (2003), 217, 220-21, 222; conception of, 21415; core elements, 215; documents produced, 218-19; governance approach, as part of comprehensive peace agreement, 21-22, 215-16; meeting sponsored by Middle East Institute (Washington, May 2010), 212; as positive role by nongovernmental international initiative, 288; proposed Old City police force, 217, 218; proposed Special Regime, 216-17; purpose, 220; sovereignty, as most difficult issue in negotiations over status of city, 212-13; as Track Two undertaking, 220; working methods, 218, 220, 221-22 Jerusalem Old City Initiative Security Assessment (JOCI, 2008), 218-19 Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (Armstrong), 205 Jewish people (Russian Federation): in Kazan, 44, 46, 47; in St. Petersburg, 49. See also Israel; Jerusalem (Israel); Judaism Johannesburg (South Africa): African migrants, lack of facilities and services, 154; apartheid, effects of, 231; creation of unified City of Johannes burg Metropolitan Municipality (2000), 232; deliberations on local governance reform, concurrent with significant national political transformation, 287; governance, power sharing as transitional device to majoritarian democracy, 230;
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Metropolitan Sub-Structures (MSSs), as means to integrate and transcend old local authority boundaries, 23132; not as physically polarized as Cape Town, 143; racism in, 14; stabilization, through power sharing and forms of transitional democratization, 242, 243-44 Jordan, control of Old City of Jerusalem and West Bank (1949-1967), 208-9 Judaism: Jerusalem, as central to sacred geography of, 205, 206; ultra-orthodox Jews, as growing population, 211. See also Israel; Jerusalem (Israel); Jewish people Kampala (Uganda), 64 Kaufmann, Karen, 15 Kazan (Russian Federation): business support of peaceful relations between ethnic and linguistically diverse groups, 44; diversity capital, reserves, 42; diversity capital, strategies used to promote, 53, 284; diversity initiatives, in education, 46-47; ethnic composition, 44-45, 46; governance structure, 46; history, 45-46; languages of instruction in school system, 46-47; pro-development coalitions to promote tolerance, 282; religious groups, 46, 47; research university, 51 Keil, Roger, 10, 28 Khoe/Khoi people (South Africa), 145 Kimhi, Israel, 240 Kir, Emir, 198 Klein, Menachem, 207-8, 210 Kollek, Teddy, 210 Korean people: in Rostov-na-Donu (Russian Federation), 44; in San Gabriel Valley, California (US) ethnoburbs, 119, 120; in Wangjing District, Beijing (China) ethnoburb, 122-25. See also Wangjing District, Beijing (China) Korean ethnoburb Kymlicka, Will, 5, 184
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Kyrgyz people, in Yekaterinburg (Russian Federation), 52 Laanan, Fadila, 198 labour market: Cape Town (South Africa), African migrants as underpaid labour, 282; global cities, dependence on international migration for cheap labour, 150; Russian Federation, labour market crisis, 38-40, 43; trans formation through globalization and neoliberalism, 130, 280 Labour Party (Britain), 23-24 Lam, David, 175 Landry, Charles, 40 language. See linguistic divisions, in cities Lapidoth, Ruth, 212, 213-14 Lebanon: Lebanese National Accord (1943), 235; Muslim majority, as challenge to Christian advantage enshrined in constitution, 236; political parties, 237; political power distribution on basis of confessionalism (religious affiliations), 235; power-sharing system originally designed as transitional, 237; Ta’if Agreement (Charter of Lebanese National Reconciliation) (1989), 235; voting system, not representative of urban population, 23637. See also Beirut (Lebanon) Levine, Marc, 18 Lille (France), political incorporation of minorities into local governance, 23 linguistic divisions, in cities: Brussels, immigrants as accentuating longentrenched linguistic conflicts, 5, 18-19, 183-84, 199-200, 285; and changing demographic balance, as source of conflict, 18-19; immigrants, as potential threat to existing multinational accommodations, 5; linguistic insecurity, potential for creating resentment against immigrants, 284; Moncton (Canada), competition for
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immigrant integration by Franco phone Acadians and English speakers, 290 location quotients (LQs), in central Canadian cities: for foreign-born by neighbourhood type (1971-2006), 97; and impact of gentrification, 97-99; for visible minorities by neighbourhood type (1971-2006), 98 London (Britain): ethnic minorities, cluster analysis of BME results in borough elections (2002, 2006), 260270; ethnic minorities, factors asso ciated with variations in political incorporation, 258, 259, 261, 264, 27072; ethnic minorities, representational parity results in borough elections (2002, 2006), 23-24, 251, 255-58; ethnic minorities, spatial distribution of, 254; ethnic minorities, suburbanization in boroughs, 254-55, 259; as immigrant destination, 3; Labour Party, as having greatest number of minority councillors, 287; population mix (2002), 253; religious affiliations (2002), 253; “superdiversity” of, 2 Los Angeles (US) Chinese ethnoburbs. See San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles (US) Chinese ethnoburbs Luzhkov, Yuri, 42 Major Collaborative Research Initiative (MCRI), ix Mandaila, Gisèle, 198 Mandate Elements for the Old City Special Regime (JOCI, 2010), 219 Marii people, in Kazan (Russian Federation), 46 Markham (Canada), 105 Mayer, Nonna, 14 McGarry, John, 227-28 Metsketian people, in Rostov-na-Donu (Russian Federation), 44 Middle East, international migration to, 3
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migration: to cities, internal and external, 2; international, and “world cities,” 2; international, not restricted to traditional immigrant settlement countries, 3. See also immigrants Mississauga (Canada), 105 Molloy, Michael, 214 Moncton (Canada), 290 Monterey Park, California (US): as Chinese ethnoburb, 13, 118-19; racism, used as weapon to push through progrowth policies, 173 Montreal (Canada): changing demographics, and nationalist conflict, 5, 18; gentrification, and change in income profiles of residents, 100, 102; gentrification, and suburbanization, 13; gentrification, incomplete form, 93, 94; gentrification, neighbourhood proportions of foreign-born and visible minorities, 94, 95-96, 97; gentrification, waves of, 91, 92; as global city, 81; immigration, high rates of, 84; low income incidence, visible minorities and whites, 88 Mordovian people, in Kazan (Russian Federation), 46 Mori, Yoshiro, 54 Morris, Alaln, 14 Moscow (Russian Federation): as immigrant destination, 3; immigranthostile policies, 42, 44 Movement for the Survival of Ogoni Peoples (Nigeria), 73 multination federalism theory, 19 Muslims. See Islam nationalism, cities as sites of nationalist conflict, 17-18. See also names of specific cities neoliberalism: Africa, and migration to urban areas, 150; Africa, globalization and urbanization without development, 61; arguments for East Asian immigrants’ rights to build houses of
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their own preference in Shaughnessy (Vancouver), 171-72; Cape Town, as exacerbating racism and xenophobia, 153; and gentrification, 82; and globalization, and transformation of labour market, 280; and globalization, impact on cities, 288-89; and globalization, importance in debates on ethnolinguistic diversity, 279; possibility of fostering segmentation or integration, 280 Netherlands, cities’ demands for national funds to cope with challenges of immigration, 26 New Directions for Deliberation and Dialogue (JOCI, 2005), 218 New Flemish Alliance/Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (NV-A) (Belgium), 185 New Partnership for Africa’s Develop ment (NEPAD), 150 New York (US): gentrification, bypassing traditional stages, 89; immigrant income levels, compared with black Americans, 11; “superdiversity” of, 2 New Zealand, as traditional migrantreceiving country, 115 Nigeria: alienation of young unemployed men, as contributing to pro-democracy or ethnoregional movements, 280; Christian evangelization and schooling, 63; ethnicdriven politics, 71, 72, 76-77, 278, 287; Hausa people, domination of trade in cattle, 63; Ibo people, domination of trade in manufactured goods, 62-63; neoliberalism, and reactive pro-democracy and youth identity-based movements, 72-73 North York, Toronto (Canada), 105 Northern Ireland: Belfast Agreement (1998), transfer of governance from British direct rule to power sharing between Protestants and Catholics, 232-33. See also Belfast (Northern Ireland)
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NV-A (New Flemish Alliance/NieuwVlaamse Alliantie) (Belgium), 185 O’Leary, Brendan, 227-28 Oodua Peoples Congress (Nigeria), 73 Organization for Migration (IOM), 9, 10 Our Shared Future (Commission on Integration and Cohesion, Britain, 2007), 252 Palestine: and Balfour Declaration (1917), 208; citation of United Nations Security Council resolutions supporting claim to Jerusalem, 212; and Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI), 215; migration of Jews to, 208; property of indigenous Palestinian population of Jerusalem under threat of confiscation or expropriation by Israel, 209-210. See also Jerusalem (Israel) Paris (France): as immigrant destination, 3; no correlation between income and immigrant status, 11; “super diversity” of, 2 Parkdale (Toronto, Canada), 104 path dependency analysis, 24 Penninx, Rinus, 3 Perrineau, Pascal, 14 place, significance of, 6, 7. See also cities Polèse, Mario, 4, 40 police: importance of speaking language of minority group, 285; proposed Old City police force, by Jerusalem Old City Initiative (JOCI), 217, 218 Polish people, in Kazan (Russian Federa tion), 47 Portugal: African colonies, citizenship available to subjects, 64; African colonies, indirect rule of, 64 poverty: Chicago (US), W.J. Wilson’s study of Afro-American inner city of, 168; deprived neighbourhoods, effect of gentrification on, 82-83; as driving
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force of African migration, 160; racialization of, as increasing, 85-86. See also gentrification; isoburbs power sharing (consociation): consociational democracy theory, 19; municipal, as effective in some cities and not others, 285; municipal, primary characteristics of, 228. See also Beirut (Lebanon); Belfast (Northern Ireland); Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium); Jerusalem (Israel); Johannesburg (South Africa); Sarajevo (BosniaHerzegovina) Pratt, Mary Louise, 41 Price, Marie, 2 Protest is Not Enough (Browning et al), 23 PS (Socialist Party/Parti Socialiste) (Belgium), 185 Pulido, L., 154-55 Quebec (Canada), concern for cultural survival, and less positive attitudes towards immigrants, 15. See also Montreal (Canada) racism: Australia, studies on, 175; Canada, decline in, 175; in cities, 4-5; of Coloureds against black Africans, 156; definition, 154-55; and group conflict theory, 14-15; Shaughnessy, Vancouver (Canada), conflict between Shaughnessy residents and East Asian immigrants, 173-75, 179, 27980; structural, intersection with immigrant-driven changes in ethnic composition, 290; US, factors in whites’ attitudes towards blacks, 14; used as weapon to push through progrowth policies in Monterey Park, California (US), 173. See also Cape Town (South Africa); Johannesburg (South Africa); St. Petersburg (Russian Federation)
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Racism and the Dilemma of Changing Neighbourhoods ( Vancouver, 1986), 173 Reconquest of Montreal (Levine), 18 Regent Park, Toronto (Canada), 104 Rogers Marshall, Dale, 23, 255, 258 Romann, Michael, 208 Rostov-na-Donu (Russian Federation), ethnic composition, 44 Roulaix (France), political incorporation of minorities into local governance, 23 Russian Federation: as country of net in-migration, 3, 43; diversity and tolerance promotion, to promote economic growth, 9, 53-54, 282; diversity, in cities, 42-45; diversity, nurtured as form of capital, 54; ethnic divisions, in cities, 44-45; “foreignborn” residents, as mostly from other Soviet Union republics, 42-43; immigration, as offset to working-age population deficit, 39; industrialization, under Stalin, 46, 48, 50; labour market crisis, 38-40, 43; local govern ments, pro-immigrant policies of, 42; population decline (1991-2010), factors, 38-39; reform, under Yeltsin and Gorbachev, 51. See also Kazan (Russian Federation); St. Petersburg (Russian Federation); Yekaterinburg (Russian Federation) Ryzhkov, Nikolai, 51 San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles (US) Chinese ethnoburbs: businesses, 128; Chinese migration to, from downtown Chinatown, 118; communities, Alhambra, 119, 120; communities, Arcadia, 119, 120; communities, Ha cienda Heights, 119, 120; communities, Monterey Park, 118-19, 120, 132; communities, Rosemead, 119; communities, Rowland Heights, 119, 120;
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communities, San Gabriel, 119; communities, San Marino, 119; compared with Wangjing District, Beijing (China) Korean ethnoburb, 126-27, 128-32; composed of mix of economic levels, 120, 128; differences between established and emerging ethnoburbs, 120; diverse and vibrant ethnic economy, 128; geopolitical factors in growth of, 130-31; houses of worship, 120; housing prices and structures, 119, 129; as largest concentration of suburban Chinese in US, 129; as long-established prototypical American suburb, 134; marketed by local government as tourist attraction, 134; public concerns about self-isolation and lack of integration into mainstream society, 134; racial composition, 121 San people (South Africa), 145 Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina): current electoral system, proportional representation based on popular votes, 239; Dayton Accord (1995), empower ment of Muslim-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska, 238-39; ethnic homogenization and disappearance of multiculturalism due to international peace agreements, 243; international governance, replaced by ethnic politics and exclusion of Croat and Serb minorities, 287-88; Muslim majority, by end of Bosnian War (1992-95), 238; population, multicultural mix, 238; Protocol on the Organization of Sarajevo (1996), replaced by Election Law for Bosnia (2001), 239; Serbs, exodus (1996), 238-39; unstable local governance arrangements, 242 Sargsyan, Serzh, 50 Sassen, Saskia: on global cities, 7-8; on “global cities,” 27; on immigrant underclass in global cities, 11; on
310
impact of globalization and neo liberalism on cities, 288; on social polarization as consequence of global city formation, 10 SAWA (Nigeria), 75 scale (geographical): globalization, and global-local relationships, 166-67; integration of globalizing trends, with national and local issues, 178-79; intersectionality of multiple scales, 168, 176; scale effects, 167 Scarborough, Toronto (Canada), 105 Shaughnessy Heights Building Restric tion Act (BC, 1922), 169 Shaughnessy Heights Property Owners Association (SHPOA). See Shaugh nessy housing conflict (Vancouver, Canada) Shaughnessy housing conflict (Vancouver, Canada): accusations of racism by East Asian immigrants, 173-75, 179; and BC residents’ attitude to neo liberal free trade agreements, 178; building restrictions, 169-70; conflict between established residents’ and East Asian immigrants’ housing preferences, 165, 171-72; conflict resolution through housing and land use guidelines, 176; East Asian immigrants’ challenge of long-standing views on neighbourhood development, 281; East Asian immigrants’ housing preferences, 170; history of Shaughnessy area, 165, 169; intersectionality of globalizing trends, with national and local issues, 178-79; intersectionality of local preservationist ideals and global neoliberalism, 175, 176-78; landscape preservation attempts, 169-70; neighbourhood mobilization as expression of anti growth politics, not racism, 17, 279-80; neoliberal arguments for immigrants’ rights to build, 171-72; opposing ideologies also evident
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nationally and municipally, 177; visible minorities, prevalence of, 84 Shia Muslims, and sectarian conflict in Beirut (Lebanon), 237 Simpson Diversity Index, and gentrification, 99-100 Singapore, growth through globalization, 130 Social Democratic Front (Cameroon), 75 social mix: definition, 93, 100; and gentrification, 93-104. See also divers ity; ethnic composition, of cities; gentrification Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, x social sustainability, urban: definition, 4; urban, and diversity, 4, 40-42; and zones of urban contact, 41-42 Socialist Party/Parti Socialiste (PS) (Belgium), 185 Solidere company (Lebanon), 237 South Africa: commitment to African integration, 150; new African residents push to settle in peripheral parts of city, 281. See also Africa; Cape Town (South Africa); colonial cities (Africa); Durban (South Africa); Johannesburg (South Africa) South African Cities Network (SACN), 158 South African Local Government Association (SALGA), 158 South Korea, growth through globalization, 130 Southwest Elite Association (Nigeria), 75 A Special Regime for the Old City of Jerusalem (JOCI, 2008), 219 St. Jamestown, Toronto (Canada), 104 St. Petersburg (Russian Federation): campaigns to promote tolerance of ethnic diversity, 44, 45, 49-50, 282, 285; diversity, and racist attacks, 48, 49; diversity capital reserves, 42;
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diversity capital, strategies used to promote, 53, 284; diversity, increase in, 48; gay community, campaign against, 48-49; history, 47-48; as immigrant destination, 3; population decline (1988-2007), 47 Stalin, Joseph, and industrialization of USSR, 46, 48, 50 State of the World’s Cities 2010/2011: Bridging the Urban Divide (UN Habitat), 12-13 Stren, Richard, 4, 40 Stubbs, Paul, 25 suburbanization: as by-product of welloff immigrants moving to better neighbourhoods, 280; and gentrification, 13; as immigrant settlement trend, 12-13; London, growth of ethnic minority in London boroughs, 254. See also ethnoburbs; isoburbs; urbanization Sultanova, Khursheda, 48-49 Sunni Future Current Party (Lebanon), 237 “superdiversity”: definition, 5-6; in selected world cities, 2 sustainability, social. See social sustainability, urban Sweden, cities’ demands for national funds to cope with challenges of immigration, 26 Tabb, David H., 23, 255, 258 Tadzhik people. See Tajik people (Russian Federation) Taiwan: growth through globalization, 130; wealthy international migrants, in Vancouver (Canada), 170 Tajik people (Russian Federation): in St. Petersburg, 49; in Yekaterinburg, 52-53 Tatar people (Russian Federation): in Kazan, 44-45, 46, 53; in St. Peters burg, 49 Taylor, Marylee, 15
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“The Shame of (Ignoring) the Cities” (Andrew), 277 Toronto (Canada): absence of municipal services as impediment to integration of immigrants, 285; ethnoburbs, 105, 106; gentrification, and change in income profiles of residents, 100, 101; gentrification, and creation of isoburbs, 281; gentrification, and suburbanization, 13, 104-107, 281; gentrification, complete form, 93, 94; gentrification, incomplete form, 93; gentrification, neighbourhood proportions of foreign-born and visible minorities, 95; gentrification, proportion of neighbourhoods experiencing, 92, 104; gentrification, waves of, 91, 92; as global city, 81; immigration, high rates of, 81, 84; isoburbs, 105-7, 281; low income incidence, visible minorities and whites, 88; “super diversity” of, 2; visible minorities, prevalence of, 84 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Canada), 155 Udmurt people, in Kazan (Russian Federation), 46 Uganda: as British colony, 64; Kampala, administration under colonialism, 64-65 Ukrainian people (Russian Federation): in Kazan, 44, 47; in Rostov-na-Donu, 44 United Kingdom. See Britain United States: attitudes towards African Americans and immigrants, 14, 15, 16, 25; and China, interconnected economic and strategic relationship, 130; Chinese ethnoburbs in San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles, 118-22; ethnoburbs, immigration legislation as factors in development of, 117; immigration policies regarding wealthy and/or skilled international migrants,
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312
131; incentives for political incorporation of minorities, 286; restrictions on non-European immigrants (until 1965), 131; as traditional migrantreceiving country, 3, 115, 118, 128; workers, shedding of domestic workers and increase in overseas workers, 130. See also African Americans Uralmash works (Russian Federation), 50, 51 urbanization: Africa, urbanization without development, 61; and globalization, 1-2, 7-14; and transnational capital, 7. See also global cities; immigrants; suburbanization Uzbek people, in Yekaterinburg (Russian Federation), 52 Van Rompuy, Herman, 182 Vancouver (Canada): cultural identity issues, class and gender as important factors, 279, 289; gentrification, and change in income profiles of residents, 103; gentrification, and suburbanization, 13; gentrification, complete form, 93, 94; gentrification, neighbourhood proportions of foreign-born and visible minorities, 96; gentrification, proportion of neighbourhoods experiencing, 92; gentrification, waves of, 91, 92; as global city, 81; immigration, high rates of, 81, 84; politics, pro- and anti-growth factions, 11-12, 177. See also Shaughnessy housing conflict (Vancouver, Canada) Vertovec, Steve, 2 visible minorities: income, compared with whites, 87, 88; polarized employment experience, 86-87; racial diversity in gentrified neighbourhoods, 94; traditionally found in inner city, 87. See also ethnic composition, of cities Vladivostok (Russian Federation), population decline of, 43
Voting Rights Act (US, 1965), 25 Wangjing District, Beijing (China) Korean ethnoburb: and Association of Koreans in Beijing, 123, 124; businesses, 123, 124, 125, 128; close to other ethnic settlements, 129; compared with San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles (US) Chinese ethnoburbs, 126-27, 128-32; composed of middle or upper-class migrants, 123, 128; concerns about self-isolation and lack of integration into mainstream society, 134; decline of migration flow after 2008-9 economic downturn, 124-25; entrepreneurs, 123; as ethnoburb, 13, 16, 280; exodus to less expensive neighbourhoods, 125; General Plan and revisions, 122-23; geopolitical factors in growth of, 131, 134; high population density, 129; housing price increases, 123-24, 125, 129; influx of Korean migrants, factors in, 4, 123, 131-32; known as “Koreatown,” 123, 125; Koreans integrated with Han Chinese population, 124, 125; local government policies facilitating migration, 124; marketed by local government as tourist attraction, 134; neighbourhoods, 124; population fluctuation of South Korean migrants in China, 122, 281; self-selected by migrants, 125; students, 123, 124. See also China; Korean people Wasserstein, Bernard, 210 Weingrod, Alex, 208 West Side Builders’ Association, 173 Wilson, W.J., 168 Wood, Phil, 40 world cities. See global cities Yan dada (Kano, Nigeria), 73 Yekaterinburg (Russian Federation): diversity capital reserves, 42; diversity capital, strategies used to promote,
Index
53, 282; diversity, due to in-migration, 52; history, 50-51; immigrants, accommodation of, 45, 52; immigrants, registration for legal residence, 52; linkages between post-war research facilities and civilian manufacturing sector, 51; as major destination for
313
transient and permanent migrants, 51; national research university, 51 Yeltsin, Boris, 51 Yoruba people (Nigeria), 71, 73 Zionist Movement, 208