Or, rather, cities learning from each other.
As we welcome the world to Toronto next week for our DiverseCity onBoard Learning Exchange, we are also sharing Good Ideas in immigrant integration from around the world.
Maytree’s Cities of Migration staff are in Baltimore at the National Immigrant Integration Conference (NIIC). This year, they brought copies of our latest publication, Good Ideas from Successful Cities: Municipal Leadership in Immigrant Integration.
Compiling nearly 40 international good practices from cities across Canada, the US, Europe and Australasia, Good Ideas showcases why municipal leadership on integration matters.
We’re sharing these good ideas for a simple and compelling reason. They’re examples of integration done well. They help fuel economic growth, spur innovation and talent renewal, create new knowledge, and promote an open, richer and more inclusive social fabric. Through ideas such as these, new forms of social, economic, cultural and political capital create benefits for thriving urban communities globally.
As Alan Broadbent, Chairman of Maytree, writes:
“Cities know and feel both urbanization and immigration profoundly. At the national and sub-national levels, urbanization and immigration are policy issues. At worst, they become xenophobic political issues as politicians stir fear of immigrants. At the municipal level, though, they are primary lived experience. And at the city level is where we find the political and community voices that embrace immigrants, knowing they bring strength, vitality, and innovation. So at the municipal level, in our cities and urban regions, managing the settlement and inclusion of newcomers is vital.”
Ratna Omidvar has spoken frequently about the essential and unique role cities have to play in the welcoming and successful integration of newcomers. As she says, “Cities are uniquely positioned to learn from each other and to import, replicate, adapt ideas… Done well, integration creates great benefits.”
The city government that understands this will ensure local, regional and national prosperity.
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