How Urban Actors Respond to Diversity

Urban immigrant integration policies are a much discussed topic. However, both a changing reality and some gaps in the existing literature call for a new approach. This paper presents first results from a project that investigates the responses of urban actors to diversity in Germany and France. We are particularly interested in active interventions, not only rhetoric, and in explicit as well as implicit diversity policies. We assume that there are new challenges to urban governance, first in terms of the diversification of urban populations, both in terms of the presence of large immigrant and ethnic minority populations as well as the pluralisation of forms of life (e.g. family forms, household arrangements). We hypothesize that the national-level move towards accepting diversity or even defining it as a positive force for societal development will be reflected in urban agendas. Based on a survey of key urban actors in about 20-30 big cities, we discuss in what ways they see diversity as a development urban governance should respond to. How do they define the cities’ priorities and scope of action? Do the responses differ systematically across cities, e.g. according to the size of the minority population or their integration in the global economy? Or are differences according to groups of actors (e.g. business, welfare organisations, minority organisations etc.) more pronounced? Who are the key actors pushing for active interventions into structures of diversity, how are they incorporated into governance structures?