Just for Starters: Commercial Gentrification by Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Amsterdam and Rotterdam Neighbourhoods

Many large European cities are now displaying clear social, ethnic and spatial divisions. These different types of cleavages tend to overlap. Governments try to chase away this spectre of an increasingly divided city by embarking on various policies. These policies generally neglect the (potential) role of immigrant entrepreneurs in improving neighbourhoods. In this contribution, we have focused on the immigrant business start-ups in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Neighbourhoods with high shares of immigrants indeed turn out to show relatively higher rates of immigrant businesses than other neighbourhoods in these two cities. Immigrant entrepreneurs, may, therefore, strengthen the local economy of these neighbourhoods and offer not only specific goods and services but also jobs, nodes of information and role models. Urban policies should, hence, explicitly target their policies to this kind of immigrant-driven process of commercial gentrification by creating cheap commercial properties in these neighbourhoods.     

Ethnic minority concentration: A source of productivity growth for Italian provinces?

This paper aims at assessing the contribution of ethnic minorities to the (total and sectoral) productivity of Italian provinces. We consider the first ten nationalities by numbers of legal immigrants at the provincial level (NUTS 3) 2003–2011. We estimate a spatial panel model to capture both direct and indirect effects of foreign communities on local productivity at the province level, accounting for spatial spillovers. Our findings show that two communities out of the ten considered have a direct positive impact on aggregate labour productivity. Other foreign groups have significant indirect effects: these groups do not affect productivity of provinces where they live, but mainly of the neighbouring provinces, likely because of commuting.     

Unstable Immigrant Concentrations in Amsterdam: Spatial Segregation and Integration of Newcomers

Watching the profound changes in the last decades in virtually any big city in Western Europe in the field of migration, minority and ethnicity, many national and urban governments in Europe fear for large spatial concentrations of immigrants who originate from non-industrialised countries. The basic assumption behind that attitude seems to be that large concentrations of (ethnic) immigrants would prevent their full integration and thus participation in society. Such a risk of insufficient integration would particularly be great when the immigrant population occupies the lower positions of the socio-economic ladder. However, two things should be investigated with care. First, what are the actual explanations for the social and spatial divisions that are encountered in cities? What does that imply for the (spatial) inequality in Dutch cities? Second, what can be said about the effects of recent changes that can be observed with respect to the explanatory dimensions in the Dutch context? How do these compare to the actual size and stability over recent years of the spatial patterns of immigrants? Popular images of the processes of immigration describe the development of 'ethnic ghettos'. These would particularly develop where state intervention in the spheres of housing and in many other spheres is small or, as in the Netherlands, is declining. This paper investigates whether that view does justice to the actual development, applying micro-level data on immigrant settlement patterns in the city of Amsterdam over the period 1994-99. It is argued that ethnic residential concentrations tend not to be stable and are just growing areal units, but many changes can be shown, which may reflect processes of housing careers and of integration in society.     

THE ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF IMMIGRANTS AND REGIONAL RESILIENCE

This article explores variation in the economic integration of immigrants across U.S. metropolitan areas and tests a basic hypothesis that greater economic integration promotes regional resilience. Here we construct two quantitative indexes of occupational diversity as primary indicators of economic integration and develop a conceptual framework of social, economic, and spatial factors that are likely to shape occupational diversity at the regional scale. We conduct an exploratory quantitative analysis in two steps. First, we model labor market diversity in 2000 with metro level data drawn primarily from the Building Resilient Regions (BRR) database. Next, we use the occupational diversity indexes as dependent variables and assess whether greater occupational diversity among immigrants led to greater economic resilience between 2000 and 2010, as measured by changes in unemployment rate and real wage growth. We find some evidence that immigrants in regions that have more broadly integrated immigrants (across occupations) were relatively more resilient in the face of the economic shocks of the Great Recession.     

International immigration and domestic out-migrants: are domestic migrants moving to new jobs or away from immigrants?

Domestic migrant responses to geographically concentrated immigration flows play central roles in determining the local economic impacts of immigration and the geography of the ethnic composition of the population. Possible motivations for domestic migrant responses include: increased labor market competition associated with new immigrants and ethnic or cultural avoidance. We use US annual state-to-state migration flows from the Internal Revenue Service to assess the existence and nature of the link between geographically concentrated immigration and domestic migration. We find some evidence of a domestic migrant response to immigrants, particularly to greater cumulative shares of the foreign born, which we interpret as providing some support of the ethnic or cultural avoidance hypothesis.     

基于生态基础设施的城市空间发展格局——“反规划”之台州案例

以浙江省台州市为例,系统地介绍了城市物质空间的“反规划”途径,通过建立保障土地生命系统完整性和地域特色的生态基础设施(EI),在宏观、中观和微观三个尺度上来定义城市空间发展格局和形态。宏观尺度上,首先建立洪水安全格局、生物多样性保护安全格局、文化遗产安全格局和游憩景观安全格局等,并整合这些安全格局而形成区域EI,以引导和框限城市总体空间发展格局;在中观尺度上,通过对EI元素的控制,完善城市EI,并作为城市内部空间结构的基本框架;在微观尺度上,通过地段设计,将区域EI的生态服务功能导引入城市肌理,并以此为基础,形成独特的城市土地利用模式。研究表明,人地关系的协调不仅是一个量的问题,更重要的是一种空间关系和格局的协调。     

Identifying local determinants of destination choices of international immigrants to the Madrid metropolitan area

We examine the local determinants of destination choices of foreign immigrants to the Madrid metro area using data for 2005 and 2009 from the Spanish annual municipal‐level registers of inhabitants. Taking advantage of the equivalence relation between conditional logit and Poisson, we estimate a location‐choice model using the Poisson fixed‐effects estimator. Origin‐destination fixed effects are incorporated to account for the persistent spatial structure of the immigrants' settlement patterns and to control for potential violations of the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) assumption. The Poisson regression model is estimated for seven different groups of immigrants according to world regions or countries of origin. Our modelling strategy has important empirical implications, with magnitudes and/or signs of the estimated coefficients changing in the expected directions. It is found that newly arriving immigrants tend to settle in low‐to‐middle‐income locations in the suburban reaches of the Madrid metro area. Moreover, the effects of the size of local communities of established immigrants are found to be insignificant and even negative in several instances, reflecting hetero‐local settlement preferences and/or the saturation of local networks causing in‐group job rivalry, respectively.     

A Different Path to Homeownership: The Case of Taiwanese Immigrants in Los Angeles

Taiwanese immigrants in Los Angeles stand in contrast to the well-documented homeownership deficit among immigrants. Despite the tremendous growth in Taiwanese immigrants during the 1980s, the Taiwanese homeownership rate was not only among the highest of all ethnic groups in 1990, but also recorded a phenomenal increase of 16 percentage points between 1980 and 1990. This paper examines this trend and assesses the contributing factors. It reveals that (1) education and wealth were contributors to Taiwanese high homeownership; (2) Chinese immigrants in general and Taiwanese immigrants in particular had endowment-adjusted homeownership rates well above that of non-Hispanic whites, while the ways in which ethnic Chinese immigrants achieve high homeownership were reflective of their distinctive paths of immigration; (3) surprisingly, higher English proficiency, an indicator of acculturation, was negatively associated with Taiwanese homeownership; (4) the large rise in Taiwanese homeownership in the 1980s was largely contributed to by young, highly educated, newly arrived Taiwanese with a low level of income and a high level of wealth. Findings refute the hypothesis that immigrants are always plagued by homeownership deficits. Well-off immigrants, such as the Taiwanese, may have followed a path of assimilation not yet documented in the literature; acculturation and social adaptation may no longer be preconditions for their economic integration. The arrival of well-off immigrants has a significant potential to bolster regional demand for owner-occupied housing.     

The Emerging Dominance of Immigrants in the US Housing Market 1970-2000

The article summarizes growth trends in occupied housing in the USA and in five individual states with the largest immigrant populations—California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois. The analysis covers the decades between 1970 and 2000 and documents the explosive growth of immigrant housing demand. Foreign-born households constitute increasingly large shares of total households in the USA (11 percent in 2000), especially in renter-occupied housing (17 percent in 2000). In particular, immigrants constitute much of the growth in demand and are emerging as a dominant force in the US housing market. In the 1990s, they accounted for 32 percent of all household growth and 67 percent of all rental growth nationwide. In California and New York, immigrants accounted for 100 percent of all rental growth and over half of all growth in owner-occupied housing. The article also addresses the surprisingly steep upward trajectories into homeownership as immigrants settle longer in the USA. This upward mobility occurs equally in all the gateway states for immigrant settlement.     

Spatial assimilation? The development in immigrants’ residential career with duration of stay in Denmark

Many studies have shown that immigrants’ residential situation differs from that of natives and that factors other than housing needs and financial situation influence immigrants’ options and choices concerning housing and neighbourhood. Research has indicated that immigrants might have a stronger preference for renting due to insecurity about their future situation and that especially newly arrived immigrants tend to live in immigrant-dense, so-called multi-ethnic, neighbourhoods. However, the spatial assimilation theory claims that in the course of time immigrants will move to other kinds of housing and neighbourhoods. In this paper, the residential careers of immigrants in the first years after their arrival are examined and compared with Danes. The hypothesis tested is that over time the housing situation of immigrants gets closer to the comparable one for Danes. It is a longitudinal study based on data from 1985 to 2008 on non-Western immigrants in Denmark. The results show that non-Western immigrants steadily increased their presence in social housing and multi-ethnic neighbourhoods during their first 10 years of stay; then, their presence stagnates; and after 15 years, it declines. Part of the initial increase in the frequency of living in multi-ethnic neighbourhoods was not due to individual choices among immigrants but could be ascribed to the increasing number of multi-ethnic neighbourhoods over time. The study confirms spatial assimilation, also when controlling for degree of economic integration, but the change was not dramatic over the 24 years covered by the study.     

Spatial Assimilation in Denmark? Why do Immigrants Move to and from Multi-ethnic Neighbourhoods?

In most European countries ethnic minorities have had a tendency to settle in certain parts of cities—and often in social housing—together with other immigrants in so-called multi-ethnic neighbourhoods. An explanation for this could be low income combined with lack of knowledge of the housing market and discrimination, which limits the housing possibilities for ethnic minorities. Another explanation could be that for different reasons immigrants choose to settle in so-called ethnic enclaves where they can find an ethnic social network, which can support them in their new country. In traditional research literature about immigration it has been shown that for many immigrants living in enclaves has been a temporary situation. The ‘spatial assimilation theory’ says that this situation ends when the family has become more integrated in the new society and then moves to another part of the city. This paper provides evidence to support both explanations of why ethnic minorities move to and from multi-ethnic neighbourhoods.     

A latent class model of residential choice behaviour and ethnic segregation preferences

The nature of ethnic residential clustering involves diverse population segments which through their location decisions influence the spatial patterns of ethnic settlements. While residential location is in part determined by outside constraints, choice plays a role too, making the study of preferences an important research topic. Along with differences in socio-economic characteristics, literature often emphasizes the role of unobserved (behavioural) elements in the formation of preferences for ethnic neighbourhood composition. This paper tests the potential of latent class choice models to examine both observed and unobserved heterogeneity in residential choices across ethnic groups. The empirical example is estimated on stated preferences data from Lugano, Switzerland. The results indicate different ethnic attributes as key choice drivers for households belonging to three latent classes, where the origin of households is the best predictor of class membership. Swiss citizens are mainly concerned about high shares of foreigners, advantaged foreigners favour their co-nationals, while disadvantaged foreigners hold both of such preferences.     

Residential Patterns and Housing Choices of Ghanaian Immigrants in Toronto,Canada

This study examines the spatial distribution, intra-urban mobility, and housing choices of Ghanaians in Toronto, to illustrate the residential behaviour of a recent group of African immigrants to Canada. The study finds that the majority of Ghanaian immigrants live in the older and newer suburban districts of the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), with relatively few in the central cities. This finding is consistent with those of recent studies which indicate that the suburbs have become the primary reception areas for new immigrants to Canada. Within the suburbs, Ghanaians exhibit a high degree of concentration in specific areas and even in individual multi-family buildings. Analysis shows that this suburban emphasis as well as the intense local concentration is largely due to their need for affordable housing, the channelling effects of chain migration, the desire for proximity to fellow Ghanaians, and a housing search process that relies heavily on information and help from friends and relatives.     

IMMIGRATION AND THE NEW METROPOLITAN GEOGRAPHY

ABSTRACT: In this article, we argue for understanding immigrant suburbanization as one outcome of the mass migrations associated with economic globalization, a process that has coincided with and shaped the decentralization and reconfiguration of the American metropolis. We contend, as well, that economic differentiation among the foreign‐born translates into distinctive residential patterns that reflect the diversity of new metropolitan geographies. Using individual and tract‐level data from metropolitan Philadelphia since 1970, we describe the intersection of spatial differentiation (suburban variety) with both demographic diversity (ethnic and racial differentiation) and linked patterns of ethnic and racial population growth and decline. We highlight the importance of immigration to population and economic growth, the diversity among immigrants, the inability of “suburb” to capture the region's residential ecology, and the surprising links between the growth of immigrant and African‐American populations in the same places. We clearly show how the residential experience of African Americans differs from that of both immigrants and native‐born whites.     

ETHNICITY IN AN IMMIGRANT GATEWAY CITY: THE ASIAN CONDITION IN HOUSTON

The analysis explores the evolving condition of Houston's Chinese community into the early 21st century and its uncertain role within the local economy. Through a historical analysis, it examines Chinese immigration into Houston and the evolving and changing spatial settlements of Chinese immigrants in the city, showing the precarious nature of Houston Chinese neighborhoods. A quantitative analysis then examines whether disparities in economic prosperity are evident between Asian and White growth neighborhoods within Harris County between 1980 and 2000, when ethnic diversity was viewed as an important element of Houston's new economic development strategy. A principal components analysis (PCA) and a k‐means clustering technique are conducted on census tract data to identify neighborhood types and to analyze changes in neighborhood characteristics. The quantitative analysis reveals that the city's promotion and celebration of ethnic diversity, and the extensive investment by Houston's Asians into their neighborhoods, did not translate into improving economic prospects for Asian neighborhoods within Houston.     

Zipf’s and Gibrat’s laws for migrations

This paper analyses the evolution of the size distribution of the stock of immigrants in the period 1960–2000. In particular, we are interested in testing the validity of two empirical regularities: Zipf’s law, which postulates that the product between the rank and size of a population is constant; and Gibrat’s law, according to which the growth rate of a variable is independent of its initial size. We use parametric and nonparametric methods and apply them to absolute (stock of immigrants) and relative (migration density, defined as the quotient between the stock of immigrants of a country and its total population) measurements. We find that both the stock of immigrants and migration density follow similar size distributions to those of cities and of countries. Contrary to what traditional migrations models predict, growth in the stock of immigrants is independent of the initial stock. Moreover, the growth of migration density shows a divergent behaviour, which could be explained by the lower birth rates of host countries and the reduction in the cost of emigration produced by the presence of a previous stock of immigrants in the country.     

Settlement and housing experiences of recent immigrants in small- and mid-sized cities in the interior of British Columbia (Canada)

Relatively little is known about immigrants’ settlement experiences in small- and mid-sized Canadian cities, including their access to local services and their housing experiences and outcomes—both of which are key factors in successful integration. This study considered immigrants’ settlement experiences, including their access to local services and their housing experiences and outcomes, in the cities of Kelowna and Kamloops, with a focus on the housing rental market, and reliance on community services. The results of the study include recommendations for improving immigrants’ settlement and integration in urban areas in the interior of British Columbia. Survey data were gathered between April and August 2015 from 80 recent immigrant renters in the cities of Kelowna (40) and in Kamloops (40). Findings suggest that immigrants find their housing more difficult than anticipated, largely due to unexpectedly high costs and unfamiliarity with the Canadian housing system. Few immigrants in either city relied on local community organizations or government-sponsored ones to find a place to live and/or a job upon arrival in Kelowna or Kamloops, although those who did found them very helpful. Immigrants relied mostly on their family and friends for initial assistance, but would have preferred to have received more information prior to or on their arrival. They recommended that settlement and housing services offer more direct assistance to new immigrants. For policies to succeed in attracting and retaining immigrants to these cities in British Columbia’s interior depends on the presence of (a) more subsidized/affordable housing; (b) job opportunities that match immigrants’ qualifications and that offer an adequate income; and (c) quality services and programs to integrate new immigrants into the community.     

EMPLOYMENT CONCENTRATION AND JOB QUALITY FOR LOW‐SKILLED LATINO IMMIGRANTS

ABSTRACT: This article examines the formation, determination, and quality of employment concentration for low‐skilled Latino immigrants. Comparative evidence is drawn from the three metropolitan areas of Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC. Using 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), gender‐specific ethnic niches where Latino immigrants disproportionately concentrate are identified and niche effects on wage earnings are analyzed. This study finds that while ethnic niches are evident in all three cities, they are most prevalent among women and newly arrived immigrants, and in the emerging gateway of Washington, D.C. Niche employment is almost uniformly characterized by earnings disadvantage as compared to non‐niche employment, with lower returns premium on workers’ human capital and work experience, especially for men. Niche effects on earnings vary across metropolitan areas in accordance with their economic structure as well as with the size and profile of immigrants.     

Immigration in gateway cities: Sydney and Vancouver in comparative perspective

Contemporary international migration shows points of departure from the immigration of the past. First, all continents are now significantly implicated in the transfers of populations. Second, there is immense diversity among immigrant characteristics and human capital, including both legal and illegal status, and ranging from the movement of well-resourced cosmopolitans to the flows of refugees who may well be poverty-stricken and without documentation. Third, the numbers of international migrants are at a very high level. Fourth, destinations are more concentrated than has been the case in recent history, focussed upon large metropolitan centres, or gateway cities, in advanced societies.These are contexts confronting planners on an everyday basis in multicultural gateway cities such as Sydney (Australia) and Vancouver (Canada). Both metropolitan areas share a common economic and cultural history, and their Pacific Rim location has recently strongly affected migration flows as legislative reform opened the boundaries of their nation states to new immigrant origins. While Sydney is a nationally primate city and twice the size of Vancouver, each metropolitan area displays similar processes of economic and cultural transformation.This volume addresses a number of intellectual and planning questions that have ensued. In Chapter 2 we ask to what extent contemporary immigration is reshaping urban spatial structure, requiring new concepts of urban form and new strategies for service provision. The housing dimension of immigrant settlement has been an important preoccupation of planners, and in Chapter 3 we consider such issues as tenure, affordability, house price inflation, land use conflicts, and the globalization of urban housing markets accompanying elevated immigration in gateway cities. The differential response to immigration among different family members has recently been identified, and Chapter 4 addresses the gendering of immigration and women's mobilisation to secure necessary services. An important institution in shaping attitudes about immigration is the media, and Chapter 5 considers its representation of minority groups, including two case studies of media coverage of land use conflicts between immigrants and the long-settled population. We argue that it is local government where immigrants typically encounter the state in the delivery of everyday services, and Chapter 6 considers the multicultural readiness of local governments in Sydney and Vancouver in serving a culturally diverse body of citizens. Finally, in Chapter 7 we offer some concluding remarks on the challenges of physical, social, and multicultural planning in gateway cities.     

Sanitation policy and spatial planning in urban East Africa: Diverging sanitation spaces and actor arrangements in Kampala and Kisumu

This paper discusses sanitation policies and spatial planning in Kampala (Uganda) and Kisumu (Kenya) from colonial times to date and their implications for the sitting of sanitation technologies and involving actors. During colonial times, a strict spatial duality was maintained between immigrants in townships and natives in peri-urban areas, with a sanitary divide between them. Also currently, different urban spaces support different sanitation technologies provided by different actors. Actor arrangements are often viewed as a combination of public, private and voluntary sectors, but households should be considered part of the arrangement. Information on spaces and actor arrangements is imperative for location of sanitation technologies and rebalancing them with actor arrangements.