Overview

All over the world immigration is one of the most urgent political issues, creating tensions and unrest as well as questions of justice and fairness. Academics as well as politicians have been relating to the question of how states should cope with immigrants; but 96% of immigrants end up in cities, and in Europe and the USA, two thirds of the immigrants settle in seven or eight cities. Indeed, most of us encounter with immigrants as city-zens, in our everyday life, rather than as citizens of states. So how should cities integrate immigrants? Should cities be allowed to design their autonomous integration policies? Could they issue visas and permits to immigrants? Should immigrants be granted voting rights in local elections before naturalization? And how do cities think about these issues? What can we learn from cities which are thought to be successful in integrating and assimilating immigrants? Is there a model of integration within the city which is best? The book discusses these questions both empirically and normatively. The book is based on hundreds of in depth discussions of these matters with city dwellers in San Francisco, New York, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Thessaloniki and Jerusalem. It shifts the discourse on immigration from 'thinking like a state' to 'thinking like a city' .

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9780198833215

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This timely book focuses on immigration policy, the rights of immigrants, and various models of immigrant integration in the context of cities rather than the nation-state. Throughout the text, the author provides examples of immigrant integration and public policy recommendations on how to create spaces so that newcomers can interact with native-born people to promote contact and mutual appreciation. A model of mutual assimilation is exemplified by Amsterdam, where immigrants assimilate to the new environment and the receiving community assimilates to the newcomers with positive results. Including a thorough review of the academic literature, this is a timely and valuable resource. * I. Coronado, University of Texas at El Paso, CHOICE *

Author Information

Avner de Shalit is the Max Kampleman Professor of Democracy and Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His publications include The Environment: Between Theory and Practice (OUP, 2000), Disadvantage (with Jonathan Wolff, OUP, 2007), and The Spirit of Cities (with Daniel Bell, Princeton University Press, second edition, 2011).

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