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Planning Theory & Practice
ISSN: 1464-9357 (Print) 1470-000X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rptp20
Challenges and Opportunities for Planning inthe Ethno-culturally Diverse City: A Collection ofPapers--Introduction
Katherine Pestieau & MARCIA WALLACE
To cite this article: Katherine Pestieau & MARCIA WALLACE (2003) Challenges andOpportunities for Planning in the Ethno-culturally Diverse City: A Collection of Papers--Introduction, Planning Theory & Practice, 4:3, 253-258, DOI: 10.1080/1464935032000118625
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1464935032000118625
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Planning Theory & Practice, Vol. 4, No. 3, 253–258, September 2003
Challenges and Opportunities forPlanning in the Ethno-culturallyDiverse City: A Collection ofPapers—IntroductionKATHERINE PESTIEAU & MARCIA WALLACE
The Context
This collection of papers explores the connections between ethno-cultural diversity andcontemporary planning practice. The need for pluralism and managing ethno-culturaldifferences has become more salient with the global migration trends of the pastdecades. Immigration is an increasingly important economic and social factor in urbandevelopment, and one that is affecting both the physical form and social composition ofthe world’s most economically competitive cities. Immigration is transforming thesecities, and presenting important challenges in how planners and municipal administra-tors manage growth and change. At its best, urban planning both shapes the form andextent of development in a city, and is a reflection of the values, goals and priorities ofa local population. Growing ethno-cultural diversity is forcing a debate in many citiesabout the appropriate balance between respecting diversity and defending technicalplanning norms in urban development.
The impacts of immigration, however, are not generically felt by cities. Each city facesa unique set of circumstances influenced by (among other factors): the ethno-culturalcomposition of past and current immigrant population; the barriers or challenges tosettlement present for newcomers; the mixture of subsequent generations that make upthe new host society; and the political, historical and social context. Despite thesedifferences, ethno-cultural diversity is intersecting with city planning internationallyover the same issues—community services and facilities, land use and zoning, economicdevelopment, architecture and urban design. This reality begs a closer examination ofthe challenges ethno-cultural diversity are presenting for growing cities and the assump-tions the planning profession is influenced by in ‘managing’ this diversity.
The three papers that follow in this issue of Planning Theory & Practice draw upon theexperiences of planning practitioners and researchers from cities in Canada, the USAand Australia. These countries have ethno-culturally diverse populations as a result oftheir significant numbers of indigenous peoples and of being, both currently andhistorically, major immigrant-receiving nations. Their largest cities continue to be(re)defined by ethno-cultural diversity as they grapple with the local realities ofmulticulturalism. The papers provide examples of conflicts over land use that are
Katherine Pestieau, Selection Branch, Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Email: [email protected] Wallace, Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
1464-9357 Print/1470-000X On-line/03/030253-06 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1464935032000118625
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influenced by cultural difference, and point to the tools and strategies planners have, orneed, to cope with these new challenges.
The impetus for this collection of papers comes out of the themes raised in a workshopwe organized on planning, immigration and diversity at the Fifth International Metrop-olis Conference in Vancouver, Canada in November 2000. Fulfilling the MetropolisProject’s1 objective of fostering better policy and programmes development throughdialogue among researchers, policy makers and practitioners, the workshop broughttogether those involved in or studying planning from a variety of cities around theworld to discuss the common challenges practitioners face when planning in anethno-culturally diverse city. The reality of an ethno-cultural city, we argued, wasincreasingly becoming relevant for planners internationally given global economic andmigration trends. We were interested in the approaches, perspectives and tools plannerswould bring to address these challenges that reflected unique local histories, institutionsand political contexts.
Ethno-cultural Diversity and Urban Governance
The city is the site of countless interactions and transactions among city residents.For those cities that are attracting immigrants, these exchanges are taking on anethno-cultural character. Cities around the world are increasingly diverse in their ethnic,cultural, racial, linguistic and religious make-up (a notion we try to capture with theterm ‘ethno-cultural diversity’). To a large extent it is the accelerated rate of internationalmigration to economically competitive centres that fuels this diversity. Yet whether afunction of personal choice, dominant transportation routes, the presence of family andcultural networks of contacts, the availability of support systems or some combinationof these, immigrants continue to settle in large urban centres. For cities in countries thathave long attracted immigrants, this ethno-cultural diversity is reflected in the intersec-tion of cultural groups within society, and the layered impacts of difference on builtform over time, particularly in the last 50 years. Ethno-culturally diverse cities point toa possible future for those centres with populations that are much more recently beingcharacterized by ethnic, cultural and/or racial difference.
The responsibility for managing this diversity often falls on higher-level governments,expressed in policies and programmes addressing immigration, culture or housing forexample. Depending on the intergovernmental structure present in a given country,cities may or may not have the political jurisdiction or financial resources to meetsettlement needs for immigrants. Regardless of their authority, however, larger cities arerealizing they cannot abdicate a role in addressing the impact of ethno-cultural diversityor immigration.
Ethno-cultural diversity is expressed in the physical form of the city, for examplecultural centres, places of worship or commercial buildings. As the papers that followidentify, city planners and municipal administrators are increasingly interested inunderstanding this force of change in their community, as they are pushed and pulledinto managing the political conflicts that may arise from the proliferation of culturaldifference and the cumulative affect such diversity has on the physical shape of the city.However, as Germain & Gagnon suggest in their paper, it is not administrators andplanners but rather elected officials and community actors that may be better positionedto address these challenges.
Ethno-cultural diversity also challenges the assumptions planners and municipaladministrators may have about the social composition of the community they serve.
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Planning in the Ethno-culturally Diverse City 255
Ultimately, cities are responsible for delivering local services to the entire population,including immigrants and members of minority communities. As communities becomemore diverse, this may require new institutions or rules governing urban life. Forexample, a multicultural city may choose to use its diversity as a branding tool. At theservice delivery level, cities may be forced to create new programmes, adapt existingservices, or (re)create public spaces. In facing these challenges, planners and administra-tors struggle to reconcile competing expectations about municipal services and patternsof urban growth.
Ethno-cultural Diversity and Urban Planning
Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the implications of immigration andethno-cultural diversity for local planning. There is a wide gap between planningpractice, in the broadest definition, and the important contribution that planning theoryhas made to our understanding of cultural diversity. There is an emerging literatureabout how urban planning should respond to ethno-cultural diversity (Burayidi, 2000;Qadeer, 1997, 2000; Sandercock, 1998, 2000; Sandercock & Kliger, 1998; Thomas, 2000;Thomas & Krishnarayan, 1994; Thomas & Ritzdorf, 1997) that is part of a largerdiscussion around negotiating the challenges of making a multicultural society work ingeneral (Kymlicka, 1995; Parekh, 2000; Pestieau, 1999). With some notable exceptions(Edgington & Hutton, 2002; Moore Milroy & Wallace, 2001; Thompson et al., 1998;Wallace & Moore Milroy, 1999) there is far less literature that explains how these insightsshould be put into practice, or identifies innovative strategies that practitioners haveimplemented. As both a discipline of study and as a municipal service, urban planninghas been very slow in recognizing the significance of ethno-cultural minority popula-tions (Burayidi, 2000; Moore Milroy & Wallace, 2001; Sandercock 1998, 2000; Sandercock& Kliger, 1998). Our workshop in 2000 confirmed that, internationally, there are fewdocumented examples of planners taking diversity into account in the practice of theirprofession. This is difficult to justify in light of current demographic trends in theworld’s most economically competitive cities.
In those centres that attract diverse immigration in large numbers, the most visibleimpact of the inflow of individuals from diverse backgrounds is seen at the neighbour-hood scale. In neighbourhoods, newcomers present new demands for commercialamenities, social and cultural institutions, residential housing forms and municipalservices. This shift may change a neighbourhood’s ethno-cultural and socio-economicprofile. While the implications of ethno-cultural diversity may be hard to define at thenational level, they are very real at the local level and reflect the negotiation that takesplace as communities grow with diversity. These negotiations are the territory of urbanplanning.
Practical Lessons
Urban planning is about making decisions on how to share public goods and what usesresidents can make of public and private properties (a building site, a park, a street andneighbourhood). By extension, it is also about managing conflicts over how those publicgoods are shared, or how land is used. Planning is, in many ways then, central to theinteractions among city residents, whatever their origins. Experiences involving plan-ning and ethno-cultural minorities are as broad as the application of planning itself. Itmay be granting a building permit for a place of worship, determining the type of sport
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children can play in a public park or including ethnic businesses in an economicdevelopment strategy.
The papers in this collection point to some of the best practices in planning withincurrent municipal administrative structures. Burayidi’s paper introduces the relevance ofapproaching planning from a multicultural perspective, drawing on several cases fromthe USA involving indigenous peoples and immigrant communities. He argues thataddressing culture is necessary to the notion of good planning. His examples are takenfrom planning practice in land use, housing and historical preservation, and in each casehe describes the conflicts that arise from clashes between dominant and minoritycultures. Burayidi believes that these conflicts can be avoided through the practice of‘multicultural planning’, depending in large part on the presence of proactive culturallysensitive planners.
Supported by a large survey of Australian municipalities, Thompson similarly arguesfor a culturally aware and inclusive planner. While acknowledging how difficult it is toachieve in practice, she likewise recommends a proactive planning approach based onactions that have proven feasible in the Australian planning context. Thompson drawson the initiatives from two suburban municipalities to the west of Sydney, which have“institutionalized (their) commitment to multicultural service provision”. She advocatesthe importance of progressive policy documents, but also challenges planners’ pro-fessional biases and assumptions in order to develop the necessary planning tools to becapable of ‘planning for all’.
Germain & Gagnon draw their examples from the Greater Montreal context, and focuson two contentious cases involving religion as the point where ethno-cultural diversityintersects with planning practice. They unpack the theoretical and practical issues thatcome into play with minority religious groups attempting to establish their religiousspaces in the city. In particular, Germain & Gagnon describe the various players thatmost influenced the outcomes in these cases—civil society, the minority religiouscommunities, and local politicians—and note that planners and municipal administra-tors played a minor role in the final outcomes. Ultimately, the two cases illustrate thatthe way in which public space is defined arises through the ways municipalities attemptto better ‘manage diversity’ and accept the other.
New Tools, New Approaches?
Many planners continue to believe that they do not need to consider the ethno-culturalcharacter of the population they serve or the existence of immigrants within thispopulation. Some argue that to do so would bias the process of planning, which hasbeen described as a neutral, technical activity. Good planning, from this perspective,must accommodate future users of a site or building, and not be wedded to the needsof any particular user group. This argument does have considerable merit—planning bydefinition is an exercise with a view to the long term. The problem, however, is whensuch an argument is used to avoid a serious examination of the assumptions alreadyembedded in ‘neutral’ planning processes.
What then, does it mean to plan amidst ethno-cultural diversity? The answer isstill being refined in international planning practice, as the papers in this specialissue demonstrate. The authors emphasize the importance of local history and institu-tional context in shaping planning responses to ethno-cultural diversity. Given thevarious impacts immigration and diversity have on the physical form and social mix ofa particular city, context should be remembered when comparing lessons learned in
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Planning in the Ethno-culturally Diverse City 257
other countries. Nevertheless, the papers also identify very similar points of conflict andnegotiation that planners and municipal administrators face when attempting to addressthe challenges of ethno-cultural diversity.
Planners internationally and the professional bodies regulating them should considerthe set of tools professional planners are equipped with to address these conflicts. Theprofessional training planners receive appears to be key to the transformation requiredto be a “culturally sensitive planner” as Burayidi suggests, or a “culturally inclusiveplanner” as Thompson advocates.
However, the challenge that Germain & Gagnon describe as “not a set of principlesone starts with, but actually a compromise on coexistence …” will not be achievablethrough the actions of planners alone. Germain & Gagnon and Thompson discuss theneed for commitment from elected officials and the city as a corporate entity to manageethno-cultural diversity. This may come in the form of city policy documents with clearguidelines on the conduct of municipal departments and agencies, institutional changesto ensure inclusive language and outreach to diverse groups, and an examination ofassumptions in existing programmes and services.
What seems obvious is that there is an inevitable need for planners and municipaladministrators to address these challenges and recognize they are governing an ethno-culturally diverse city, if the hopes of creating and maintaining a socially cohesive andsustainable urban environment can be fulfilled.
Acknowledgement
Views or opinions expressed here are solely the authors’ and do not imply anyendorsement by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada nor by theMinistry of Municipal Affairs and Housing of the Province of Ontario.
Note
1. The Metropolis Project is an international forum for comparative research and public policy developmentabout population migration, cultural diversity and the challenges of immigrant integration in cities� www.metropolis.net � .
References
Burayidi, M.A. (2000) Urban Planning in a Multicultural Society (Westport, CT, Praeger).Edgington, D.W. & Hutton, T.A. (2002) Multiculturalism and local government in Greater Vancouver. RIIM
Working Paper Series No. 02–06, Vancouver. Available at � http://riim.metropolis.net/research-policy/research-policy2/papers e4.html � .
Kymlicka, W. (1995) Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (New York, Oxford UniversityPress).
Moore Milroy, B. & Wallace, M. (2001) Ethnoracial Diversity and Planning Practices in the Greater Toronto Area.Report funded by the Centre of Excellence for Research in Immigration and Settlement (CERIS), Toronto,July.
Parekh, B. (2000) Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (Cambridge, MA, HarvardUniversity Press).
Pestieau, J. (1999) Les Citoyens au Bazar: Mondialisation, Nations et Minorites (Laval, Les Presses de l’UniversiteLaval).
Qadeer, M. (1997) Pluralistic planning for multicultural cities: Canadian practice, Journal of the AmericanPlanning Association, 63(4), pp. 481–494.
Qadeer, M. (2000) Urban planning and multiculturalism: beyond sensitivity, Plan Canada, 40(4), p. 37.
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Sandercock, L. (1998) Towards Cosmopolis: Planning for Multicultural Cities (Chichester, John Wiley and Sons).Sandercock, L. (2000) Cities of (in)difference and the challenge for planning, DISP, 140(1), pp. 7–5.Sandercock, L. & Kliger, B. (1998) Multiculturalism and the planning system, Australian Planner, 35(3),
pp. 127–132.Thomas, H. (2000) Race and Planning: The UK Experience (London, UCL Press).Thomas, H. & Krishnarayan, V. (Eds) (1994) Race, Equality and Planning: Policies and Procedures (Aldershot,
Avebury).Thomas, J.M. & Ritzdorf, M. (1997) Urban Planning and the African Community: In the Shadows (Thousand Oaks,
CA, Sage).Thompson, S., Dunn, K., Burnley, I., Murphy, P. & Hanna, B. (1998) Multiculturalism and Local Governance: A
National Perspective (New South Wales, New South Wales Department of Local Government, Ethnic AffairsCommission of New South Wales and the University of New South Wales, September).
Wallace, M. & Moore Milroy, B. (1999) Intersecting claims: possibilities for planning in Canada’s multiculturalcities, in: T. Fenster (Ed.) Gender, Planning and Human Rights, pp. 55–73 (London, Routledge).
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