# City Makers and the Politics of Urban Diversity Governance. Comparative Approaches from Europe and Asia

Jeremie Molho, Marie Gibert-Flutre, Kong Chong Ho

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Jeremie Molho, Marie Gibert-Flutre, Kong Chong Ho. City Makers and the Politics of Urban Diversity Governance. Comparative Approaches from Europe and Asia. Springer Nature Switzerland, 2026, IMISCOE Research Series, 978-3-032-00423-9. 10.1007/978-3-032-00423-9. hal-05325186

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Jeremie Molho

Marie Gibert-Flutre

Kong Chong Ho Editors

# City Makers and the Politics of Urban Diversity Governance

## Comparative Approaches from Europe and Asia

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IMISCOE Research Series
This series is the official book series of IMISCOE, the largest network of excellence on migration and diversity in the world. It comprises publications which present empirical and theoretical research on different aspects of international migration. The authors are all specialists, and the publications a rich source of information for researchers and others involved in international migration studies. The series is published under the editorial supervision of the IMISCOE Editorial Committee which includes leading scholars from all over Europe. The series, which contains more than eighty titles already, is internationally peer reviewed which ensures that the book published in this series continue to present excellent academic standards and scholarly quality. Most of the books are available open access.
Jeremie Molho • Marie Gibert-Flutre
Kong Chong Ho

Editors

City Makers and the Politics
of Urban Diversity
Governance

Comparative Approaches
from Europe and Asia

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

Springer
Editors

Jeremie Molho
Toronto Metropolitan University
Toronto, ON, Canada

Marie Gibert-Flutre
Department of East Asia Studies
Université Paris Cité
Paris, France

Kong Chong Ho
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
National University of Singapore
Singapore, Singapore

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

ISSN 2364-4087

ISSN 2364-4095 (electronic)

IMISCOE Research Series

ISBN 978-3-032-00422-2

ISBN 978-3-032-00423-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-00423-9

This work was supported by IMISCOE

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2026. This book is an open access publication.

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Acknowledgments

This publication is the result of the Joint Research Project *Governing Diverse Cities in Europe and Asia*, which was made possible through the generous support of the grant ANR-18-IDEX-0001, as part of the partnership between Université Paris Cité and the National University of Singapore.

We extend our sincere gratitude to the teams at the Asia Research Institute and Université Paris Cité, whose support was instrumental in organizing the two workshops that laid the foundation for this book.

We would also like to express our deep appreciation to Delphine Pagès El Karoui and Camille Schmoll, who served as co-Principal Investigators of this project. Their insights and dedication greatly contributed to shaping its various orientations and ensuring its successful implementation. Special thanks go to Hélène Thiollet, whose reflections played a key role in conceptualizing this book project.

Our heartfelt thanks also go to the IMISCOE-Springer Research series editors, Anna Triandafyllidou and Irina Isaakyan, for their invaluable support and feedback throughout the production process. We are equally grateful to the three anonymous reviewers, whose thoughtful and constructive comments significantly strengthened the final manuscript.

Finally, we would like to acknowledge all the colleagues, collaborators, and participants who contributed in different ways to the discussions and reflections that shaped this work.
# Contents

1 City Makers and Diversity Governance: The Roles of Urban Leaders, Migrants, and Civil Society 1
Jeremie Molho, Marie Gibert-Flutre, and Kong Chong Ho

## Part I City Leaders in the Policies and Politics of Urban Diversity

2 Making the “Diverse City” Between Europe and East Asia: Comparative Perspectives on Diversity Governance in Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and Ansan 21
Beniamino Peruzzi Castellani

3 The Policy of Refugee Reception and the Policing of Public Space in Paris 41
Marco Cremaschi and Tommaso Vitale

4 Cosmopolitan Diversity, Tech Migrants and Everyday Racisms in Singapore 65
Daniel P. S. Goh and Shai-Ann Koh

5 Entrepreneurial Urbanism Meets Migrant Businesses: Critical Perspectives from Silk Road Paris (Tremblay-en-France) 85
Marie Gibert-Flutre

6 A Refuge for Whom? Orders of Legitimacy, Contradictions and Paradoxes of a Self-Labeled ‘welcoming city’ 103
Camille Schmoll and Catherine Lejeune

## Part II The Migrant as City Maker

7 International Student Diversity Experiences in Their Host Cities... 123
Rochelle Yun Ge and Kong Chong Ho
8 Janitors of Portuguese Origin in Paris: A Specific Mode of Incorporation into a European Metropolis. 137
Dominique Vidal

9 Becoming an Urban Citizen? Social Relationships and the Self-Development of Internal Migrants in Guangzhou, China. 153
Samantha Shu Fang Lim and Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho

10 Garment Wholesale Markets in Contemporary Global Cities: Urban Spaces to Build Personalised Business Relationships: Paris (France) vs Guangzhou (China) 171
Gilles Guiheux and Lulu Fan

Part III Civil Societies: Imagining New Forms of Urban Diversity Management

11 Ethnic Exclusion Through Inclusive Cultural Policies: Hui Muslims and the Silk Road-Based Urban Development in Xi'an, China 189
Yang Yang

12 Organising the Reception of Exiles in the Centre of Paris: Between Visible Solidarity, Temporary Arrangements, and Discretionary Policies 207
Léa Réville

13 Culture in the Global Urban Margins: Cultural Policymaking with Migrant Workers in Doha and Singapore 225
Jeremie Molho

14 Religious City Makers and Actors of Urban Diversity Governance: Hindus in Paris and Singapore 247
Natalie Lang

15 Comparing Urban Diversity Governance: A Transregional and Relational Perspective. 265
Jeremie Molho, Marie Gibert-Flutre, and Kong Chong Ho
# About the Editors and Contributors

## About the Editors

**Jérémie Molho** is Senior Research Associate at the Canada Excellence Chair in Migration and Integration Program at Toronto Metropolitan University. His research focuses on the intersections of migration, urban change, and cultural governance in global cities. From 2023 to 2025, he has been Principal Investigator of *Fostering Integration Through the Arts*, a project exploring how community arts support newcomer integration in Toronto. Since 2024, he also has been leading *Highly Skilled Migration in Global Cities*, a SSHRC-funded study of the evolving motivations and experiences of hypermobile professionals across diverse urban contexts such as Istanbul, Doha, Singapore, and Toronto. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Angers and has held research positions at the European University Institute in Florence and the National University of Singapore. jeremie.molho@torontomu.ca

**Marie Gibert-Flutre** is Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of East Asia Studies (LCAO)/CESSMA at the Université Paris Cité. Her research deals with the dynamics of public and private spaces in the production and appropriation of urban space in Asia. By critically exploring “global Asia” from ordinary public spaces and neighborhoods, she turns in particular the traditional approach to “global cities” upside down and contributes to a renewed conception of metropolization as a highly situated process, where forces at play locally are both intertwined and labile. As Principal Investigator, she currently manages the Ho Chi Minh City case study of the International SEANNET 2 (Southeast Asia Neighborhoods Network) research program: Communities of Learning, Research and Teaching Collaborative (funded by the Henry Luce Foundation). She has recently published the following books: *Les envers de la métropolisation: Les ruelles de Ho Chi Minh Ville (Vietnam)* (CNRS Edition, 2019) and *Asian Alleyways: An Urban Vernacular in Times of Globalization* (Amsterdam University Press, 2020), co-edited with Heide Imai. marie.gibert@u-paris.fr
**Kong Chong Ho** is currently Head of Urban Studies at the Yale-NUS College, National University of Singapore. Trained as an urban sociologist at the University of Chicago, his research interests are in the political economy of cities, higher education, and youth. Recent higher education studies publications include “Internationalization and Education-Related Mobility in Asia-Pacific Universities” *Oxford Handbook of Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific Region* 2023, (first author), “Student mobilities in a contagion: (Im)mobilising higher education?” *Geographical Research*, 2021 (Ravinder Sidhu as first author), and “Conceptualizing the second education circuit for China’s doctoral students in Asia,” *International Journal of Chinese Education*, 2020 (Yun GE as first author). ho_kc@yale-nus.edu.sg

## About the Contributors

**Beniamino Peruzzi Castellani** is a fourth-year PhD Candidate in “Transnational Governance” (Department of Political Sciences and Sociology) at the Scuola Normale Superiore and at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Florence, Italy). His research focuses on the diffusion of models, policies, and practices of diversity governance at the city level, comparing cases in Europe, Japan, and South Korea. He has an interdisciplinary academic background, with BA degrees in Philosophy and Art History, and MA degrees in Political Philosophy and Sociology of Religion (University of Pavia / Istituto Universitario Studi Superiori). He had international academic and working experiences in Germany, France, England, Spain, Morocco, China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. Among others, he has been a visiting student at the University of Cambridge during his MA and a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo and at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona during his PhD. Since 2015, he has been organizing and coordinating teaching programs, training courses, and workshops aimed at promoting intercultural/inter-religious dialogue and social inclusion in the city of Florence. In 2020, he founded—and is currently President of—“Confluenze,” an Association for Social Promotion working in the field of social inclusion. He is currently coordinating the project “Florentine religious experiences: Our living cultural heritage,” which is aimed at carrying out the first systematic research on the history and experiences of the Florentine religious communities in order to create tools enabling to know the city’s religious pluralism, deconstruct stereotypes and prejudices, and enhance the rights of religious minorities. beniamino.peruzzi@sns.it

**Camille Schmoll** completed a doctoral thesis at the University of Paris Nanterre (2004) and a Marie Curie post-doctorate at the European University Institute, Florence (2005–2007). She was a junior fellow of Institut Universitaire de France and an associate professor in geography at the University of Paris Diderot. She is now Directrice d'Etudes at EHESS, a member of the CNRS team “Géographie-cités,” and a fellow of Institut Convergences Migrations. Her research topics include
international migration; gender and space; urban approaches to migration patterns; cosmopolitanism and borders; gender generation and the family in international migration; and qualitative approaches to migration. Recently, she engaged in a plu-ridisciplinary research program on the trajectories and welcoming policies of Ukranian migrants in Paris, in collaboration with Catherine Lejeune.

She recently published Les damnées de la mer. Femmes et frontières en Méditerranée (La Découverte, 2020). She published several articles in the field, in journals such as *Identities. Global Studies in Culture and Power*, *Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies*, *Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales*, *Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies*, *Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society*, and *International Journal of Migration and Border Studies*. She co-edited the following books: *Méditerranée. Frontières à la dérive* (2018, Le Passager Clandestin), *Migrations en Méditerranée* (with Catherine Wihtol de Wenden and Hélène Thiollet, 2015, CNRS Publisher), *Gender Generations and the Family within International Migration* (with Eleonore Kofman, Albert Kraler, and Martin Kohli, 2011, Amsterdam University Press), and more recently *Migration, Urbanity and Cosmopolitanism in a Globalized World* (Springer) with Hélène Thiollet, Catherine Lejeune, and Delphine Pages El Karoui. camilleschmoll@yahoo.fr

**Catherine Lejeune** is associate professor of American studies at University Paris Cité. She holds a PhD in Ethnic and Migration Studies from Université Paris Cité. Her interests have included US immigration law and policy. She has explored the ways in which local actors in US cities respond to immigration, and she has inves-tigated the emergence of local-level policy-making in the absence of US national immigration reform. While her former research lied with the determinants of irregu-lar migration in a comparative perspective (North America-Europe), her more recent interests focus on undocumented migrants in global cities, primarily US immigrant youths, and their lives as almost ordinary city residents in a highly diverse context and as emergent political subjects. She is currently investigating new forms of urban citizenship from a wider perspective. In the multidisciplinary program *Sociétés Plurielles* (USPC, 2014–2018), she coordinated with D. Pagès-El Karoui the research axis “World-cities: a comparative approach to Cosmopolitanism and Migration.” Catherine Lejeune’s latest related publications include “The Fabric of Irregular Labor Migration in 20th Century Western Europe and North America: a Comparative Approach,” *Labor History*, Vol. 56, 2015, Iss 5; *Migration, Urbanity and Cosmopolitanism in a Globalized World*, with D. Pagès-El Karoui, C. Schmoll, & H. Thiollet, eds. Chapter 1 “Introduction” and Chapter 11 “Cosmopolitanism in US Sanctuary Cities: Dreamers Claiming Urban Citizenship,” IMISCOE Research Series, Springer, 2021. lejeunec@univ-paris-diderot.fr

**Daniel P. S. Goh** is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education) at the National University of Singapore. He is a comparative-historical sociologist who studies state formation, postcolonialisms, race and multiculturalism, urbanisms, and religion. His recent edited volumes include *Worlding Multiculturalisms: The Politics of Inter-Asian*
*Dwelling* (Routledge, 2015), *Precarious Belongings: Affect and Nationalism in Asia* (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), *Urban Asias: Essays on Futurity Past and Present* (JOVIS Verlag, 2018), and *Regulating Religion in Asia* (Cambridge, 2019). He has published over 50 articles in journals and books, including “Super-diversity and the Bio-politics of Migrant Worker Exclusion in Singapore,” *Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power*, 2019, 26 (3): 356–73. socgohd@nus.edu.sg

**Dominique Vidal** is Professor of Sociology at the Université Paris Cité and researcher at the Migrations and Society Research Unit (URMIS, https://www.urmis.fr and https://www.urmis.fr/dominique-vidal/). His work examines the dynamics between ordinary social relations and the political context or, to put it differently, the way in which ordinary social relations shape the political context and the political context shapes ordinary social relations. For a long time, his research has focused on countries that had recently adopted democratic institutions, specifically Brazil and South Africa. He is particularly interested in the relations between democratic ideals and the hard reality of everyday life. Within this framework, he has studied internal migrations and international migrations in big cities, the access of domestic workers to labor laws in Rio de Janeiro (most of these domestic workers are internal migrants from Northeast Brazil), the experience of Mozambican migrants in post-apartheid Johannesburg, and the Bolivian garment workers in São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently involved in two research projects: (1) on Portuguese migrants in the Paris region, and, more specifically, the Parisian janitors (roughly 75% Portuguese migrants or from Portuguese ascent), and (2) on Brazilian migrants in Maputo (Mozambique). dominique.vidal@u-paris.fr

**Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho** is Professor at the Department of Geography and Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore. Her research explores the geographies of citizenship, currently focusing on multidirectional migration and diasporas and on transnationalism, aging, and care. elaine.ho@nus.edu.sg

**Gilles Guiheux** is Professor at Université Paris Cité (France) and a researcher at the Centre for Social Sciences Studies on the African, American, and Asian Worlds (CESSMA). He is a senior fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF). He received his PhD from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). A China specialist, he specializes in economic sociology and sociology of labor. He has published numerous articles and contributions on enterprises and entrepreneurs, more recently, on industrial workers. His most recent book is a general history of contemporary China (Contemporary China: 1949 to the Present, London, Polity Press, 2023). He has recently co-edited a special issue of Le Mouvement social on China's labour regimes (2023/4). His upcoming book is titled *Comparing Labor in Contemporary China and in Postwar Japan and France. Precariousness in High-Growth Economies*, co-edited with Bernard Thomann (Amsterdam University Press, 2025). gilles.guiheux@u-paris.fr
**Léa Réville** is a second-year doctoral student on a CIFRE contract at the City of Paris in the Housing and Habitat Department. She is registered at the EHESS doctoral school (ED 286) and is attached to the Géographie-cités laboratory (UMR 8504). Her research combines urban geography and sociology of migration through the study of reception and integration structures for exiled people in Paris. After writing a master’s thesis in Political Studies about the Halte humanitaire of Paris-Centre, she is currently working on a thesis directed by Camille Schmoll and entitled “The refuge city through the lens of temporary urbanism: analysis of a political initiative to open up public buildings to exiled populations in Paris.” lea.reville@gmail.com

**Lulu Fan** is an associate professor of the School of Public Administration at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, China. She obtained her Ph.D. in Sociology from the Department of Applied Social Sciences at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her primary research areas encompass the platform economy, informal employment, and the impact of artificial intelligence on work, among others. Her scholarly articles have been published in journals such as China Perspectives, China Information, Development and Change, and China Review.

**Marco Cremaschi** PhD Urban Planning, an expert in Urban Policies, is a professor at the Urban School, Sciences Po, Paris, and a fellow of the Institut Convergence Migration, Paris. His research consists of a comparative approach to large urban projects in cities and the reception of refugees. He has been working on the relocation of refugees and migrants in small Italian municipalities (2016-17 Lampedusa and Thessaloniki; 2013-16, Italian Ministry of Research) and the interaction of the informal housing sector and the arrival of migrants and refugees (Rome, Buenos Aires, and Calcutta, but also Amman and Khartoum). Other research interests include the financialization of housing (ANR-ORA, 2019-22 Co-Investigator); the implication of the representation of the crisis for policies, in particular, immigration and local development (RECRIRE, 2015-18 Horizon 2020); and the competition between regions and metropolitan bodies in Italy and France (Ecole Française de Rome). His recent publications include *Regulation and Planning: Practices, Institutions, Agency*, London: Routledge (2021), Yvonne Rydin, Robert Beauregard, Marco Cremaschi, Laura Lieto eds.); *Culture and policy-making. Pluralism, Performativity, and Semiotic Capital*, Cham: Springer (2021), M. Cremaschi, C. Fioretti, T. Mannarini, S. Salvatore); and *Réparer la ville: les workshops du Cycle pour un urbanisme des transitions: Lampedusa, Salonique, Buenos Aires et Berlin*, Planum. The Journal of Urbanism, suppl. n. 40, I Sem. (2020 dir., M. Cremaschi, Baratier, J.). marco.cremaschi@sciencespo.fr

**Natalie Lang** is Research Fellow at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), University of Göttingen. Her research interests include the anthropology of religion, migration, and cities. She was Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asian Urbanisms Cluster and the Religion and Globalisation Cluster at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore (NUS), and Associated Junior Fellow at the Max
Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt. She is also affiliated to the Centre d'études et de recherches sur l'Inde, l'Asie du Sud et sa diaspora Université du Québec à Montréal (CERIAS-UQAM). Her doctoral thesis in anthropology received the Frobenius Research Award 2019. Natalie Lang is the author of *Religion and Pride: Hindus in Search of Recognition in La Réunion* (Berghahn Books, 2021). She co-edits the research blog CoronAsur: Religion and Covid-19, and she co-edited *CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age* (University of Hawai'i Press, 2023). natalie.lang@cemis.uni-goettingen.de

**Rochelle Yun Ge** (Rochelle) obtained her PhD in Sociology from the National University of Singapore. She was a Harvard Yenching visiting fellow and currently the Dean of School of Education at the University of Saint Joseph, Macau SAR China. She works from a cross-disciplinary angle, integrating sociological perspectives into the research and teaching about education and social development. Her current research interests include student mobilities, internationalization of higher education, and regional development. Her work can be found in Routledge *Handbook of Asian Migrations, Asia Pacific Education Review, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Journal of Population Research*, and so on. rochelle.ge@usj.edu.mo

**Samantha Shu Fang Lim** obtained her PhD in Comparative Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore (NUS), and she is currently Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Geography in NUS. Her research focuses on different housing communities in urban Asia, the everyday lives of ordinary individuals, and their social networks. Her current research project explores the lives of seniors living in different neighborhoods in Singapore and their social networks. samsfl@nus.edu.sg

**Shai-Ann Koh** is a former research assistant investigating topics under multiculturalism, urbanism, and Asian Christianities. She is currently serving as a coordinator for global study trip experiences at NUS College.

**Tommaso Vitale** Sociologist and Dean of the Sciences Po Urban School, teaches both Urban Sociology and Urban Policy Analysis.

He got an MA in Political Science (1999—University of Milan), a PhD in Sociology (2003—University of Milan), a Certificate of Advanced Study in Comparative Institutional Analysis and Design (2004—Indiana University, Bloomington), and an HDR in Sociology (2023, Sciences Po). He is Researcher at Centre d'études européennes et de politique comparée, where he co-coordinates with V. Guiraudon the research program Cities, Borders and (Im)Mobility. He also coordinates the research seminar “Cities Are Back in Town.” He is a member of the Editorial Boards of PArtecipazione e COnflitto—The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies and of Sociologica—International Journal for Sociological Debate. His empirical research has been organized around a main theoretical framework: a neo-structural sociology, not deterministic but attentive to structural contexts of opport
tunities at different scales, to explore the relationship between social and spatial
factors influencing forms of “community action.” Having been trained within a
Weberian theoretical framework giving the city a generative role in structuring
social, political, and economic interactions, his research looks at community action
not as a form of solidarity but as a form of collective action not requiring a common
identity. This framework irrigates his three research programs:1) Roma agency,
integration, and upward social mobility; 2) the political sociology of associations
and NGOs in urban societies; and 3) the impact of urban social and spatial structure
on electoral behavior. He has published articles in the *Journal of Ethnic and
Migration Studies, Journal of Public Policy, Journal of European Public Policy,
Journal of Urban Affairs, Social Science Information, Scientometrics, Sociologie,
and others. tommaso.vitale@sciencespo.fr*

**Yang Yang** is a research fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. She received her PhD in Human Geography from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her research focuses on transnational religious networks and the politics of ethno-religious identity in northwestern China. Her dissertation thus adopts an ethnographic approach to analyzing the impacts of Hui Muslims' grassroots connections to non-Chinese Muslim communities in Southeast Asia and the Middle East in the Hui's everyday lives in Xi'an, China. Her current research examines how the Hui diaspora in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributes to grassroots connections between China and Malaysia, and how Malaysia becomes Hui's new Muslim role model through serving as their preferred destination for halal tourism and their style references for Muslim fashion. Notably, this project analyzes how ethno-religious identities and mobility intersect in the contexts of migration and the recentering of Islamic teachings in both cultural and political contexts on a global scale. Her recent publications include a special Issue in Political Geography on "China's Belt and Road Initiative: Views from the Ground" (2020), co-authored with G. Oliveira, G. Murton, A. Rippa, and T. Harlan; "Travelling to the Past: Xi'an and Its Revived Tang Imperial City," co-authored with Zhu, Y. In White, L. (eds.) Commercial Nationalism. Bristol, United Kingdom: Channel View Publications in 2017; and *Making Cultural Cities in Asia: Mobility, Assemblage, and the Politics of Aspirational Urbanism*. London & New York: Routledge, co-edited with T. Oakes and J. Wang, in 2016. ariyang@nus.edu.sg
List of Figures

<table><tr><td>Fig. 3.1</td><td>The metropolitan area (a) and travel-to-work areas (b) in Île-de-France</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 3.2</td><td>The MGP (metropolitan body) and the EPTs (second tiers institutions)</td><td>46</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 3.3</td><td>Foreign-born population per municipalities and case study areas in the MGP</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 6.1</td><td>Some of the support services provided by the municipality in Porte de Versailles reception facility</td><td>112</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 6.2</td><td>Children drawings in the Paris reception centre</td><td>112</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 6.3</td><td>At the entrance of the Porte de Versailles facility, the presence of highly visible signposts exemplifies the misleading message that the city of Paris alone manages support and reception</td><td>114</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 6.4</td><td>“Ordinary” homeless individuals set up their Quechua tents outside the Porte de Versailles facility exclusively reserved for Ukrainian people</td><td>116</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 7.1</td><td>Growth in International or Foreign Enrolment in Tertiary Education Worldwide (1998 to 2019). Number of international or foreign students enrolled in OECD and non-OECD countries, in millions</td><td>125</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 9.1</td><td>One of the entrances into Shipai village</td><td>159</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 9.2</td><td>A large banner on the wall around Xian village which reads “new journey for Xian village, happiness is around the corner”</td><td>164</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 10.1</td><td>Paris successive garment districts</td><td>173</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 10.2</td><td>Guangzhou 3 major garment wholesale markets districts</td><td>176</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 11.1</td><td>One of the Persian merchants featured in the group sculpture of the Silk Road in Xi’an, China</td><td>196</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td>Fig. 11.2</td><td>A Hui chef from the Muslim Quarter in Xi'an in "A Bite of China"</td><td>197</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 13.1</td><td>Tuas South Dormitory</td><td>234</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 13.2</td><td>A recreation Center near Tuas South</td><td>235</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 13.3</td><td>Asian City Gate, Doha</td><td>236</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 13.4</td><td>Asian Town on a Friday</td><td>236</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 14.1</td><td>Hinduism among the 10 exhibited religions at the Harmony in Diversity Gallery, Singapore, 2022</td><td>252</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 14.2</td><td>(a, b) The previous (left) and actual (right) Ganesh temple in La Chapelle, Paris, 2010</td><td>255</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 14.3</td><td>(a, b) Sri Muthumariamman temple before its disappearance in La Chapelle, Paris, 2010 (left) and Sri Ayyappan temple in La Chapelle, Paris, 2019 (right)</td><td>255</td></tr><tr><td>Fig. 14.4</td><td>(a, b) Sri Mariamman temple in Chinatown, Singapore 2018 (left) and Murugan Hill Temple in Singapore, 2019 (right)</td><td>255</td></tr></table>
List of Tables

<table><tr><td>Table 3.1</td><td>Migrants in the region by geographical scale</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>Table 3.2</td><td>Non-national residents per country of birth in the four departments corresponding to the MGP</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>Table 3.3</td><td>Migrants in the metropolitan region of Paris per EPT</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>Table 7.1</td><td>Student diversity of on-campus housing</td><td>127</td></tr><tr><td>Table 7.2</td><td>Location where the close friendship formed</td><td>128</td></tr><tr><td>Table 7.3</td><td>ANOVA result of Top-7 close friends' nationality of int'l students</td><td>129</td></tr><tr><td>Table 7.4</td><td>Activities on- and outside campus</td><td>129</td></tr><tr><td>Table 7.5</td><td>International students' satisfaction towards mixing at host society (ANOVA test)</td><td>130</td></tr><tr><td>Table 7.6</td><td>Correlation between number of friends and intention of work location</td><td>131</td></tr><tr><td>Table 10.1</td><td>Guangzhou textile and clothing wholesale market business districts</td><td>176</td></tr></table>
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

# Chapter 1
## City Makers and Diversity Governance: The Roles of Urban Leaders, Migrants, and Civil Society

Jeremie Molho, Marie Gibert-Flutre, and Kong Chong Ho

### 1.1 Introduction

The rise of “superdiverse cities” has put traditional diversity governance frameworks to the test: “long-standing understandings and patterns of social and cultural difference” (Vertovec, 2015: 6) are faced with complexifying migration flows and rising identity claims. These challenges manifest not only through the global rise of nationalist discourses that stigmatize migrants and minorities (Triandafyllidou, 2017), but also through the multifaceted critiques of the dominant approaches to managing difference, such as assimilation and multiculturalism (Bloemraad et al., 2008). The city, which has long been seen as a key site to observe the relationship between migration and social transformations, is increasingly put forward as the driver of emerging diversity management models (Uitermark et al., 2005; Çağlar & Glick Schiller, 2018; Caponio et al., 2019). Cities are not only spaces of everyday life and encounters for individuals of different backgrounds, origins, values, and religions (Wessendorf, 2013). They have also emerged as sites for political actors that operate on multiple scales and form transnational networks of knowledge exchange, mutual assistance, and advocacy (Ho, 2008).

J. Molho (✉)

Canada Excellence Chair in Migration and Integration Program, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, ON, Canada
e-mail: jeremie.molho@torontomu.ca

M. Gibert-Flutre

Department of East Asia Studies, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France
e-mail: marie.gibert@u-paris.fr

K. C. Ho

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
e-mail: ho_kc@yale-nus.edu.sg
Urban governance is a complex process, involving various types of actors such as states, local governments, private interests, and civil societies who collectively shape the decision-making and resource allocation in urban spaces (Le Galès, 1998). Following from this premise, diversity governance refers not only to the management of policy challenges arising from increasingly heterogeneous societies but also to the production and contestation of discourses on identity and belonging. It encompasses the formal and informal mechanisms through which different social groups—defined by race, ethnicity, gender, and other markers of difference—are organized, recognized, and integrated into the public life of the city (Levitt, 2015; Dines et al., 2021). In practice, diversity governance interrogates how distinctive identities are articulated and valued in the public sphere, the rights and opportunities accorded to various groups, and the degree to which their uniqueness is celebrated or marginalized (Garbaye, 2008).

In order to advance the analysis of emerging urban diversity processes, this book looks at how different kinds of city makers drive the politics of diversity governance by pushing forward their visions, values, and interests. City makers can designate economic and political elites that drive the transformation of global cities (Yamamura, 2022). However, marginalized communities can also be referred to as city makers in order to recognize and affirm their agency (Hunter, 2013). City makers contribute materially and symbolically to the production of urban space (Lefebvre, 1974). By approaching urban diversity governance through the lens of city makers, we intend to move away from the understanding of diversity governance as a fixed, top-down, and nation-centric framework, and approach it as a dynamic system generated by a range of urban actors that contribute to the fabric of the city.

Recent developments in Europe and Asia have put the national models of diversity governance to the test and shown the necessity for a renewed reflection. In Europe, the last decade has been marked by a series of refugee crises and the emergence of extreme right movements that have put at risk the values of openness and human rights at the core of the European project (Krzyżanowski et al., 2018). In Asia, in recent years, countries like India and Myanmar, known as models of multicultural coexistence where citizens of multiple religions and cultural backgrounds have lived side-by-side for centuries, inter-ethnic tensions, nationalist rhetoric, and violence have put the social fabric at risk (Lie, 2019; Roy Chowdhury, 2020). Cities in both regions are going through a number of dilemmas and challenges. Asian cities are characterized by a drive to attract labor to boost their growth (Yeoh & Lam, 2016). They have been confronted with rising patterns of urban exclusion and have had to come up with new tools for urban inclusion (Ye, 2019). European cities, despite their long tradition of welcoming and integration, are confronted with new challenges as they host populations from an ever-increasing diversity of cultures, with highly differentiated statuses and needs (Crul, 2016). European cities, which have traditionally approached urban diversity governance through the lens of assimilating foreigners within a uniform national culture, have had to reinvent themselves as spaces of intercultural interactions (Zapata-Barrero, 2015).
## 1.2 Objectives of This Book

The literature on diversity governance is often segmented along geographic lines, which prevents thinking about the contrasts and convergences across different contexts. This book proposes using global and cross-regional urban comparisons as a method to critically examine the politics of diversity governance in European and Asian cities. It builds on a collaboration between the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Université Paris Cité (UPCité) that brought scholars from Asia and Europe together to explore the challenges of governing increasingly diverse cities across the two continents comparatively.<fnref n="1" /> Through two workshops held in Singapore and Paris, scholars in migration studies, urban studies, political science, sociology, geography, and other relevant disciplines came together to discuss emerging challenges and patterns of diversity governance in European and Asian cities.

In this volume, Europe and Asia are not treated as monolithic entities, and we do not intend to offer a comprehensive conceptualization of urban diversity governance for either entire region. Rather, we focus on the connections and interactions across what are conventionally considered separate regional segments in a globalized world. By bringing together rich empirical work from a limited set of cities such as Paris, Singapore, Barcelona, Guangzhou, Doha, and Hamamatsu, we aim to promote a transregional perspective, and emphasize that it is both useful and legitimate to think across regional boundaries rather than remain confined to the scale of a single region.

This book pursues two interrelated objectives:

1. Rethinking urban diversity governance through the lens of city makers. To move beyond the traditional view of diversity governance as an overarching framework conceived at the national level, our book redefines it as the product of actions taken by multiple city makers: from urban leaders branding their city's diversity to tourists and investors, to individual migrants and civil society activists combatting racism and exclusion. Each contribution reflects on the role of specific city makers while situating them within the broader urban diversity governance system. By employing the concept of city-makers to frame diversity governance, this book places agency at its center. This approach integrates various perspectives from the literature. First, it deciphers the role of the city within multiscalar diversity governance by analyzing how urban leaders mobilize resources and devise actions despite constraining institutional structures. Second, it highlights the ways in which migrants and minorities define their own strategies and navigate the city in the face of obstacles. Third, it emphasizes the crucial role of civil society actors in the politics of urban diversity, challenging traditional diversity management frameworks to advance alternative visions.

<footnote n="1">¹We are grateful to the UPC-NUS Committee for the grant ANR-18-IDEX-0001 awarded to our project titled “Governing Diverse Cities in Europe and Asia” (1 January 2021 to 30 June 2023).</footnote>
2. Advancing a cross-regional and translocal comparative approach to analyze the politics of urban diversity in contemporary cities. The book mobilizes comparison as both a theoretical and empirical approach to situate local diversity governance in global processes. The cross-regional comparison of cities in Europe and Asia aims to situate our reflections on urban diversity governance in their geographic context while discussing global shifts. The contributions of the book also mobilize translocal comparisons as a method to think about the city relationally in order to develop grounded theoretical tools that capture processes across different socio-political, economic, and cultural contexts. Our objective is not to produce an exhaustive analysis of European or Asian urban diversity governance, but to demonstrate that a transregional approach yields fresh insights into the dynamics of urban diversity in a globalized world. The volume's particular focus on cities like Paris and Singapore allows for in-depth and multifaceted explorations of these cases while linking them to wider transregional debates. In Paris, for instance, we examine the central urban dynamics of refugee reception and public space management, as well as processes of urban restructuring in the suburbs. In Singapore, the contributions address various dimensions of diversity governance, including housing, cultural policy, higher education, and religious diversity management.

## 1.3 Exploring Processes of Urban Diversity Governance

Traditional perspectives on diversity governance tend to either conceive it as the product of stable national frameworks or to interpret its mutations as the effects of the diffusion of neoliberalism (Zukin, 1998; Hatziprokopiou et al., 2016). While we acknowledge that these path-dependent frameworks and hegemonic movements are significant in shaping diversity governance, this book repositions the debate by emphasizing the dynamic agency of city makers. Instead of seeing urban diversity as a fixed, top-down construct, we argue that it is continuously navigated, negotiated and reinvented by local actors. This process-oriented approach reveals how urban diversity governance evolves in response to shifting local contexts, offering a more fluid understanding than traditional frameworks allow while remaining firmly grounded in the empirical realities observed through urban research and engagement with local stakeholders.

The first theoretical pillar dominating reflections on how diversity is governed centers on frameworks: models that are often enshrined in constitutions and legal apparatus, and that underpin the organization of social relations among people of different cultures and identities. The centrality of this approach is linked to the critical role that diversity governance plays in the formation and sustaining of the nation-state (Goh, 2008). Historically, the ability of empires to incorporate and manage diverse peoples has been deemed essential to their durability and influence (Sinopoli, 1994). With the rise of nation-states, the elaboration of national narratives to generate a common identity has led to the establishment of diversity
governance frameworks conceived as stable modes of regulating difference within a given territory (Castles, 1995). These frameworks, whether confined to abstract political thought or adopted as official stances by governments, tend to suggest that such theoretical constructs capture the essence of how diversity is managed across wide spaces, often at the expense of acknowledging heterogeneity, chaos, and the state's limited capacity to impose uniform visions on such complex matters.

Following this framework-driven focus, scholars have attempted international comparisons that emphasize how unique historical trajectories give rise to contrast-ing national models (Kymlicka, 2000). However, categorizing countries into clear-cut models can limit our understanding of complex variations. At the local level, researchers have deployed this framework approach to reflect on how models like assimilation or multiculturalism impact issues such as interethnic tensions and dis-crimination (Silberman et al., 2007; Chua, 2009; Matejskova & Leitner, 2011; Fincher et al., 2014). Yet, contradictions inevitably emerge at the local scale: the promises made in the abstract by national frameworks often do not materialize on the ground. Globalization has further challenged this framework approach, which is too narrowly focused on nation-state boundaries. The proliferation of transnational connections generates plural allegiances and questions the nation-state's dominance as the primary sphere of allegiance (Appadurai, 1996). Consequently, traditional national diversity governance frameworks are increasingly critiqued for restricting the cultural rights of migrants and minorities and for generating fragmentation and discrimination (Rodríguez-García, 2010).

Hence, our call for an agent-centric approach is driven by a desire to move beyond the generalized emphasis on stable, nationally defined institutional systems. The framework approach tends to overlook the dynamic and contested nature of diversity governance. Although it captures large-scale controversies surrounding diversity governance, it often sidelines the subtle forms of contestation and the diverse array of local actors that continuously navigate, negotiate, and sometimes subvert these established frameworks. This book, therefore, foregrounds an actor-centered approach that captures both the production of diversity governance embedded in multiscalar networks of power and the everyday practices through which local agents reframe and reshape it.

The second pillar dominating reflections on diversity governance is the critical lens that links the widespread adoption of new diversity management models with the global diffusion of neoliberal governance (Mayer, 2007; Saeys et al., 2019). These models, propagated through corporate and consulting discourses, promote human diversity as a resource to be tapped. In this context, the focus has shifted from ethno-racial differences to include dimensions such as disability, age, and sexual orientation. Proponents argue that diversity fuels urban vitality, fosters vibrant communities, and drives cosmopolitan urban spaces (Bolzoni, 2022), while also serving as an economic asset that contributes to innovation and urban regeneration (Ottaviano & Peri, 2006; Landry & Wood, 2012). However, critical scholars contend that neoliberal diversity management leads to a selective and elitist understanding of urban diversity, ultimately depoliticizing diversity governance (MacLeavy, 2008; Raco & Tasan-Kok, 2019).
While acknowledging these insights, our aim is not to reduce all diversity governance processes to a single dominant force (Roy & Ong, 2011; Parnell & Robinson, 2012). Instead, we seek to decipher the complex local processes through which urban diversity is managed and contested. Our approach foregrounds the agency of local actors, including civic groups and community organizations, that mobilize to challenge or offer counter-narratives to prevailing diversity management models.

Building on the critique of methodological nationalism, this volume reconceptualizes the city as an arena embedded in multiple, multiscalar networks (Brenner, 2004; Glick Schiller & Çağlar, 2016) and as the locus where urban diversity is produced, contested, and redefined. In this view, the city is not a passive recipient of dominant diversity management scripts but a space where various actors advance divergent interpretations and practices of diversity. This perspective is operationalized by focusing on three key processes that are essential for deciphering diversity governance: 1) Spatial processes: These capture the physical and symbolic transformation of urban space. Space is not only a backdrop for identity politics and the assertion of cultural belonging but also a site where inclusion and exclusion are materially and symbolically produced. The shaping of neighborhoods, public spaces, and symbolic landmarks is thus integral to understanding how urban identities are articulated and contested. 2) Policy-making processes: These reveal the organizational and institutional dynamics that govern the conception and implementation of urban policies such as housing, education, and cultural policies, that directly or indirectly influence how diversity is experienced and understood. They are driven by coalitions of local actors and interest groups, who coalesce around specific policy goals and sectors. 3) Transnational circulation processes: These highlight the connection between local diversity issues and translocal networks, characterized by the circulation and exchange of ideas, models. It suggests that urban diversity policies are not confined to local or national levels but are shaped through cross-city comparisons, competitions, and collaborations. By adopting this process-oriented approach, our volume seeks to capture the fluid and complex dynamics of urban diversity governance.

Firstly, the contributions in this volume analyze urban diversity governance by tracing how the management of urban space shapes the understanding and experience of diversity. This approach draws on urban studies scholarship, which has long discussed the way in which changing urban demographics transform cities, generating multiple political debates (Sandercock, 2003; Fainstein, 2005; Bunnell, 2008; Zukin et al., 2015; Molho, 2020). Deciphering the processes underpinning the material and symbolic transformation of urban space is key to understanding urban diversity governance: from assessing the impact of city planning on social groups to examining image-making strategies that selectively include or exclude particular identities. These processes involve a broad range of city-makers: policy-makers and developers who build, promote, and design urban spaces, as well as ordinary citizens whose daily actions and interactions both influence and are affected by urban change. Tracing the roles, interests, and identities of these city-makers is thus essential for understanding how urban diversity is governed.
Secondly, our inquiry into urban diversity governance examines the construction of various urban policies that directly or indirectly target or affect migrants and minorities. Many contributions in this volume analyze how the institutions and stakeholders responsible for urban services address the challenges of increasingly diverse cities. For instance, educational policies have to accommodate a plurality of values and worldviews, while employment policies need to be recalibrated to address the unique challenges faced by migrants, refugees, and disadvantaged minorities in the labor market (Spencer, 2009; Grzymala-Kazlowska & Phillimore, 2018). In addition, cities have implemented a diverse array of social and cultural policies aimed at enhancing residents' sense of belonging, fostering intercultural dialogue, ranging from refugee educational programs to festivals celebrating the diverse traditions of migrant populations (Collins & Friesen, 2011; Watson, 2019; Molho et al., 2020). These various urban policies involve a wide range of city-makers—from civil servants, educators, and private businesses to agencies promoting the city. Each policy sector is shaped by a constellation of professionals, interest groups, and users who, under the constraints of uneven power dynamics and resources, collectively decide the extent to which inclusion or exclusion will prevail. Tracing how these policies are constructed and implemented is key to deciphering urban diversity governance.

Thirdly, the contributions in this volume do not treat cities as closed entities or view city-makers as operating solely at the local scale. Instead, they draw on transnational studies to embrace the multiple connections in which diverse city-makers are embedded and examine how these networks affect diversity governance. Recent years have witnessed cities actively positioning themselves as welcoming spaces for refugees and migrants, even in contexts where national politics are adverse (Majka & Longazel, 2017; Mescoli, 2023; Bhabha, 2015; Abe & Katsaura, 2016). A range of transnational processes are involved. On one hand, formal city networks are formed to promote open and welcoming urban spaces, such as Arrival Cities, Solidarity Cities in Europe, or the Asia Pacific Cities Coalition of Cities against Discrimination (Dahiya & Das, 2020; Wonders & Fernández-Bessa, 2021). Attending to the multiple transnational networks in which cities are embedded is key to deciphering diversity governance. Transnationally connected city-makers harness their capacity to connect local resources with distant locales (Levitt, 2020). They range from charismatic mayors engaging in city diplomacy and architects circulating professional urban knowledge, to transnational entrepreneurs, traders, religious leaders, and ordinary urban dwellers sustaining multiple global connections.

By tracing spatial, policy-making, and transnational processes, we explore how urban diversity is continuously produced and reconfigured by a wide range of actors. This agent-centered perspective offers an alternative to static models of diversity governance, emphasizing the fluid, processual, and interconnected nature of contemporary city-making. Rather than reducing diversity to the outcomes of fixed institutional frameworks, we illuminate the everyday practices, strategic negotiations, and contested political arenas through which diversity is continuously reimagined and reconfigured.
## 1.4 City Makers and Diversity Governance

The book is organized into three sections, each emphasizing a distinct type of city maker and exploring their role in diversity governance. Approaching diversity governance through the lens of city makers acknowledges the agency of a wide range of urban actors, from civic leaders, to economic elites, grassroots organizations, migrant communities, and cultural activists, who, despite their differing resources, actively shape both the urban environment and its diversity narratives. The chapters examine how these actors transform the physical and symbolic landscapes of their cities while revealing the power dynamics that continuously reconfigure practices of inclusion and exclusion.

Throughout our exploration, we encounter contrasting visions of the city advanced by different city makers. The first section presents the city as a battleground of power struggles, where actors assert their visions through coalition-building and urban policy implementation. It analyzes the alliances that bind various urban leaders in promoting their diversity agendas, from coalitions championing diversity to state apparatuses policing public spaces and enforcing order over those seeking refuge. The second section shifts focus to the ordinary city, shaped by migrants as everyday city-makers whose influence derives not from formal economic or political authority but from the social resources they mobilize as they navigate daily life. These actors work to establish homes, secure livelihoods, and build better futures for themselves and their families. Finally, the third section explores the city as a space of hope, where civil society actors strive to advance a more inclusive urban vision. Rather than engaging in direct confrontation, these actors employ pragmatic strategies to co-produce a pluralistic discourse on urban diversity.

### 1.4.1 Urban Leaders as Diverse City-Makers

The first section examines the city as a space of power by focusing on how dominant city makers such as urban policymakers, economic elites, and developers, shape the urban landscape. This perspective builds on a tradition of analyzing the city as a contested arena where various interests and forms of power manifest. For instance, Göran Therborn's (2017) work in *Cities of Power* illustrates how national, popular, and global forces converge to shape urban spaces, arguing that cities remain deeply intertwined with nation-state agendas even amidst globalization. Similarly, the work of Glick-Schiller and Çağlar (2016) informs our approach by emphasizing how diverse forms of power impact migrants and other urban actors. Drawing on these theoretical traditions, this section unpacks the power struggles underpinning urban diversity governance by deconstructing top-down strategies that mobilize, instrumentalize, and reshape diversity in the city. By examining the actions of city makers and the collective processes they drive as they project their visions and transform their cities both symbolically and physically, we move beyond the view of diversity governance frameworks as stable, universal models. Instead, we reveal
the contingent and complex modalities of their formation, as well as the discrepancies between the top-down discourse promoted by dominant city makers and the on-the-ground effects experienced by those it affects.

The analysis of coalitions of powerful city makers who transform their cities to promote diversity is a recurring theme in several contributions in this book. These studies examine how urban coalitions mobilize identity to enhance a city's attractiveness, viewing diversity as a resource to secure investment and legitimize policy agendas. For instance, Beniamino Peruzzi Castellani's investigation of the Intercultural Cities network in Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and Ansan explores how heterogeneous coalitions leverage intercultural discourses as tools for economic growth and political legitimacy. Castellani argues that diverse city-making is not merely a localized process but operates within a framework of multiscalar interconnections. Emblematic strategies such as Barcelona's Intercultural City Plans, Hamamatsu's Intercultural City Visions, and Ansan's Multicultural Village Plan are implemented through the involvement of civil society and the business sector, both to empower cultural minorities and to elevate the city's stature in the global landscape of diversity governance.

Further extending our understanding of how growth coalitions harness urban diversity to promote a city's image, Marie Gibert-Flutre's analysis of the Silk Road wholesale market in Paris highlights the role of a new class of Chinese entrepreneurs in the economic restructuring of the Parisian suburbs. Traditionally viewed as peripheral actors in urban development, these migrant entrepreneurs have emerged as key city makers, shaping and reimagining urban space. Their strategic positioning has been crucial in transforming Chinese-run marketplaces from obscure urban enclaves into global showcases, thereby enhancing Paris's international status.

The contributions in this section underscore the inherently contested nature of top-down diversity governance. Marco Cremaschi and Tommaso Vitale, for instance, show how city-makers forge coalitions among actors with divergent visions to shape urban diversity governance on the ground. Their analysis of a temporary refugee reception center in Paris reveals the tension between the city's progressive, humanitarian approach and the restrictive policies promoted by the national government. Although Paris, in collaboration with NGOs and local organizations, sought to provide individualized support and demonstrate a commitment to human rights, pressure from the Ministry of the Interior forced the shelter to evolve into a space governed by contractual obligations. With this transformation, the promise of unconditional hospitality was compromised by requirements such as police visits and integration into the formal asylum system. This case illustrates the tensions that can arise when local initiatives must reconcile with restrictive state policies.

Other contributions in this volume deconstruct top-down models by examining how these discourses are experienced on the ground. For instance, Daniel Goh and Shai-Ann Koh's study of Singapore's Punggol public housing project highlights the contrast between the projected image of a technology-driven, cosmopolitan urban space and the daily experiences of xenophobic microaggressions faced by new immigrants. Their work uncovers how urban leaders reimagine the city as a cosmopolitan hub: policymakers, architects, and engineers have conceived and branded
Punggol as a digital district to attract global talent. Yet, by delving into the daily lives of Indian skilled immigrant families, the chapter demonstrates that these cosmopolitan aspirations are continually challenged by xenophobic attitudes and microaggressions. Despite the state's efforts to cultivate a cosmopolitan ethos, skilled migrants find themselves engaged in a daily process of community-building that navigates and confronts local xenophobia.

Our exploration of how diversity governance systems operate and affect urban residents is further enriched by examining the contrasting receptions of Ukrainian and other asylum seekers in Paris. In their chapter, Camille Schmoll and Catherine Lejeune analyze a multi-level approach to welcoming Ukrainian refugees in France. Alongside the French state, which plays a central role in orchestrating the reception of Ukrainian refugees, municipalities actively contribute to these efforts, utilizing municipal properties to create temporary shelters and children's playgrounds, and mobilizing municipal workers to help refugees navigate the welfare and protection systems. The chapter contrasts the experiences of Ukrainians with those of other migrants who have arrived in Paris since 2015 from countries such as Tunisia, Afghanistan, Syria, and Sudan. Unlike the Ukrainians, these migrants often lack official protection or assistance and face harsher urban realities, including homelessness and police hostility. Yet, supported by collectives, local NGOs, and community networks, these migrants actively participate in creating and sustaining communities, thereby influencing the social fabric of the city despite their marginalized status.

This section suggests that a relational, actor-based framework for understanding urban diversity must account for the logics behind the formation of cross-sector coalitions, whether these coalitions aim to inclusively harness diversity or strategically exclude certain groups. This approach yields empirical insights into how competing visions of diversity are continuously enacted and transformed in urban contexts. Furthermore, the contributions contrasting top-down diversity governance with the grassroots actions of migrants invite further exploration into how migrants can act as city-makers in their own rights, despite the restrictions they face in urban environments.

## 1.4.2 Migrants as Ordinary City Makers

The second section of the book shifts the analytical focus from top-down strategies to the everyday practices of migrant communities, to the ordinary acts of inhabiting, working, and leisure that cumulatively drive the transformation of the city. Through daily interactions and deliberate initiatives, migrants and minorities actively shape urban landscapes (Isin & Siemiatycki, 2002; Ehrkamp, 2005). As they redefine commercial districts to meet culturally specific needs, establish spaces for social and spiritual gatherings, they imprint their mark in the urban space. This section examines how these collective activities influence not just the physical fabric of cities but also their socio-political dynamics.
In contrast to top-down efforts that promote diversity as a hallmark of modernity and development, this section analyses urban diversity governance through the lens of the ordinary city (Robinson, 2013). Drawing on Robinson's seminal critique of urban thinking of modernity and development as a model diffusing from developed to "underdeveloped" regions, we take distance from the wide-spread efforts of global or aspiring global cities to present themselves as beacons of progress through elite-led efforts to construct themselves as inclusive models. Shifting the focus to the ordinary city emphasizes how diversity is produced and experienced in everyday life. This approach foregrounds the agency of ordinary citizens, positioning migrants and minorities not as exceptional outliers but as integral parts of the urban fabric (Dahinden, 2016).

The contributions in this section offer a rich array of perspectives by examining different types of migrants. One chapter focuses on international students, who, while often considered temporary residents, act as highly mobile cultural brokers. Another chapter analyzes the experiences of internal migrants in China, highlighting how individuals with precarious legal status navigate significant challenges to establish themselves in rapidly transforming urban environments. Additionally, several studies explore diaspora communities, revealing the strategic positions that these groups occupy within urban economic networks. This diversity of perspectives enriches our understanding of how migrants and minorities constitute powerful agents in urban life.

The chapters in the second section illustrate how migrants navigate the city to fulfill their aspirations by building adaptive social networks. Whether forming ethnic niches in the labor market, establishing ethnic neighborhoods, or creating informal community spaces, these networks emerge as responses to material hardships, administrative restrictions, and pervasive racism. Although such conditions often force migrants to cope with exclusionary power structures, they also catalyze innovative forms of ordinary city-making. For example, the work of Samantha Lim and Elaine Ho shows that rural migrants in Guangzhou, despite significant constraints imposed by their residence status, actively navigate and reshape their urban environment through strategies rooted in solidarity and mutual aid. Their study underscores that, despite systemic barriers that exclude them from fundamental social benefits, these migrants exercise agency by mobilizing social networks and adaptive strategies to pursue their aspirations. The chapter also details the physical manifestation of rural migrant settlements in Guangzhou: urban villages characterized by distinct shapes and high densities. These informal housing settlements provide low-cost options for internal migrants and are shaped by the migrants' needs, while the local government's tolerance of these villages, despite their non-compliance with city planning regulations, acknowledges the essential economic role these migrants play in the city.

Similarly, Dominique Vidal's study of Portuguese janitors in Paris reveals how this community mobilizes informal networks to pursue aspirations of social mobility and become integral to the urban fabric. The prominence of Portuguese-origin concierges in Paris's private housing sector is a striking example of how migrant communities can become closely associated with specific occupations. This
demographic dominance illustrates how the Portuguese have not only adapted to but also shaped the urban economy of Paris. Through their ascent in this profession, they have emerged as key city makers. Their work extends beyond routine maintenance to encompass social connections both within and outside the buildings they manage. Portuguese janitors play multifaceted roles in safeguarding public health, contributing to violence prevention, disseminating real estate information, and participating in electoral campaigns. Their active involvement underscores their essential role in shaping the urban environment. The janitors' presence is integral to the daily routines of Parisians, facilitating interaction, mediating neighborly disputes, and reinforcing civic guidelines.

Other contributions in this section extend the analysis to translocal networks, showing that the construction of a city's international status is not solely the result of top-down branding efforts but also emerges from the ordinary, transnational circulations of migrants and diasporas. For example, Gilles Guiheux and Lulu Fan explore how the Chinese diaspora engages in trade networks to fulfill their social mobility aspirations, linking local practices to broader inter-city economic flows. Through industriousness and skill acquisition, garment industry migrant workers climb the economic hierarchy by building networks of suppliers and customers and establishing modest businesses. This manifests in the city through workshops, dormitories, and specialized clusters, marking these migrants as key contributors to the urban economy. Moreover, as they leverage transnational networks, they position the city within global and regional economic flows. In this way, the chapter portrays migrant garment workers as city-makers who contribute not only to the urban economy but also to socio-economic networks that transcend geographical boundaries.

Similarly, Rochelle Ge and Kong Chong Ho's analysis of student social networks highlights how international students serve as cultural brokers, bridging diverse social groups and circulating transnationally. By comparing the experiences of students in Singapore, Seoul and Beijing, this chapter argues that international students, often perceived merely as transient city-users, are indeed active participants in shaping the urban cultural landscape. Their academic pursuits and extracurricular engagements position students as cultural brokers, able to facilitate cross-cultural understanding and interaction within their host cities. Through sports, religious affiliations, and other communal activities, these students foster meaningful exchanges with local societies. The chapter further examines the multi-level implications of student mobility. Even as they forge friendships within their host cities, international students maintain connections with their home countries. Upon returning, they often continue to engage with their host city, retaining socio-economic ties and friendships. This illustrates international students' place as city-makers across global urban landscapes.

Together, these chapters illustrate that urban diversity governance is shaped not only by top-down urban strategies but also by the everyday agency of migrants. Their aspirations and the informal and transnational networks they build provide a counterpoint to elite-driven narratives, demonstrating that the ordinary acts of city-making are a potent force in reconfiguring urban diversity. The contributions in this
section illustrate that the governance of urban diversity can be understood as a series of mundane yet politically charged acts. By bringing these everyday processes to the forefront, this section underscores that beyond grand political discourses, cities are also shaped by the ordinary and incremental acts of city-making.

### 1.4.3 Civil Society as Progressive City Makers

In the third section, we turn our attention to the role of civil society actors in shaping urban diversity governance. The contributions in this section examine how these actors challenge exclusion and marginalization while forging new spaces for inter-cultural dialogue and participation. This perspective enables us to conceive of the city as a space of hope, echoing David Harvey's (2000) call for citizens to become architects of more just and livable environments. It also resonates with recent reflections on progressive cities (Douglass et al., 2019), which emphasize the potential of urban centers to foster participatory governance and expand the right to the city.

The chapters of the third section show that by building coalitions and engaging in pragmatic negotiations, civil society actors can reshape urban diversity governance. They can reconfigure urban narratives so that diverse individuals are recognized as integral members of the urban fabric. Civil society organizations are not merely conceived as social movements that rise to contest existing norms; rather, they actively negotiate with state and local authorities, residents, and other urban stakeholders to promote inclusion within the city. Throughout these contributions, the mediating role of various civil society actors emerges as key to advancing a more pluralistic form of urban governance.

The contributions in this section trace how different civil society actors strive to promote a more inclusive city while resisting institutional and popular hostilities toward migrants and minorities. For example, Léa Réville's study of Paris's Halte Humanitaire documents a coalition between municipal bodies and civil society activists that led to the creation of a refugee shelter in a heritage building in the heart of Paris. This initiative not only increased the visibility of exiles but also brought the issue of housing precariousness to the forefront. However, establishing such a shelter in a prestigious neighborhood has elicited ambivalent reactions from local residents and businesses. In this context, the shelter operators serve as mediators, working to integrate the facility into the local urban landscape. Réville shows how Halte workers foster understanding, mitigate tensions within the community, and strive to create an atmosphere of tranquility within the shelter. Ultimately, their work shifts local perceptions from rejection toward tolerance and can even inspire some residents to become active supporters of the shelter.

Other contributions in this section further develop the notion of civil society as a mediator for more inclusive diversity governance by exploring how actors from minority communities represent their interests and engage with urban authorities. For instance, Natalie Lang's chapter addresses the sensitive issue of religious
minorities' cultural expression in public spaces. Her work illustrates how religious leaders and practitioners among Hindus in both Singapore and Paris negotiate the city's religious diversity management framework. In these cities, Hindus express their religiosity in material and social terms, by establishing temples, organizing festivals, and maintaining a visible presence in public spaces. Lang's chapter highlights the crucial role of civil society leaders in representing their communities and engaging with local authorities to define the conditions under which their identities may be publicly expressed. It demonstrates how Hindus, despite constraints, craft subtle forms of self-governance that balance the need for public expression with prevailing secular norms. Ultimately, the presence and plurality of cults in the urban landscape depend on the mediating efforts of these actors. By navigating rules, understanding norms, and engaging with authorities, these mediators defend their communities' interests while operating within the regulatory framework of the host city.

Other contributions in this volume reflect on how the social position of certain community members can favor their emergence as mediators. This dynamic is evident in Xi'an, where elite Hui Muslims play a key role in incorporating their community into the Silk Road narrative. Yang Yang's chapter examines both the physical transformation of Xi'an's Muslim Quarter and the symbolic construction of the city as a Silk Road hub, celebrated as a model of peaceful intercultural relations in China. She shows that elite members of the Hui community act as symbolic brokers, actively participating in city-making by negotiating and reshaping the central narrative to their advantage. As elite actors, they can align this narrative with the state's strategy of promoting Xi'an as a Silk Road center while also mediating the interests and values of their community.

Similarly, Jeremie Molho's contribution examines how civil society actors empower marginalized migrants in Doha and Singapore through culture. These cultural city makers, who are themselves migrants occupy an intermediary position that enables them to negotiate with official narratives. Challenging cultural policy frameworks that structurally exclude migrants, these civil society actors carve out civic spaces that empower migrants and redefine their roles in the city, portraying them not merely as a labor force but as writers, artists, and community activists. By creating platforms that both address welfare needs and amplify migrant voices, these cultural city makers challenge exclusionary cultural policies. They navigate political restrictions with creativity, employing metaphor and allegory to express ideas that might otherwise be censored, and create a space to integrate a group traditionally marginalized and rendered invisible.

Together, these contributions illustrate that civil society actors play a key role in shaping urban diversity governance. They challenge conventional narratives and forge alternative visions of the city in which migrants and minorities are recognized as legitimate and vital contributors to urban life. This perspective enriches our understanding of urban diversity governance by bridging the gap between top-down urban strategies and bottom-up everyday practices of migrants and minorities.
## 1.5 An Agent-Centered Approach to Urban Diversity

In sum, this book mobilizes the notion of city makers to position agency at the center of the analysis of the governance of urban diversity. Rather than treating diversity as the outcome of fixed, top-down institutional frameworks, the chapters in this volume show that urban diversity is continuously produced, contested, and reconfigured through a multiplicity of processes. Firstly, they illuminate the role of urban leaders as pivotal actors within the multi-layered network of diversity governance, showcasing their ability to mobilize resources and enact change, even within the confines of restrictive institutional structures. Secondly, they shine a light on the often-overlooked agency of migrants and minorities who, despite systemic barriers, craft their own pathways and leave indelible marks on the urban landscape. Finally, they highlight the indispensable contributions of civil society actors who, through their mediating position, foster the emergence of more inclusive urban futures.

In conclusion, this volume does not seek to offer a single, unified theory of urban diversity governance. Instead, it suggests that the dynamic and complex nature of city-making is best understood by exploring the multiple, interwoven processes that collectively shape urban identities and landscapes. Through a rich set of case studies and cross-regional comparisons, the book invites us to appreciate the multiple forms of governance that define contemporary urban diversity.

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Part I

City Leaders in the Policies and Politics of
Urban Diversity
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

# Chapter 2

## Making the “Diverse City” Between Europe and East Asia: Comparative Perspectives on Diversity Governance in Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and Ansan

Beniamino Peruzzi Castellani

### 2.1 Introduction

Until the second half of the twentieth century, cultural homogeneity was traditionally regarded as fundamental to the formation and survival of nation-states (e.g., Salzborn, 2021; Dalle Mulle et al., 2023). Accordingly, eradicating or controlling cultural differences was not just deemed acceptable but often considered necessary. However, beginning in the 1960s, a growing number of societies worldwide started challenging the longstanding ideal of homogeneity, instead embracing cultural pluralism as integral to their social foundations. The rapid spread of what has been labeled the “differentialist turn” (Brubaker, 2001) suggests that structural forces – transcending country-specific circumstances – are at play.

These forces include the “human rights revolution” (Iriye et al., 2012) and the worldwide shift toward democratization (Guo & Stradiotto, 2014). Both developments helped limit state authority over individuals and encouraged mobilization and advocacy for minority recognition (Kymlicka, 2007). In parallel, globalization ushered in a new era of migration, further reinforcing cultural pluralism, particularly in developed countries. Early sociological theories predicting the natural erosion of cultural differences over subsequent generations (for a review, see Alba & Nee, 2003) lost ground to the enduring cultural resilience of minority groups. Consequently, contemporary societies must now identify ways to structure communal life in diverse contexts. Under the broad banner of multiculturalism, a range of debates, policies, and practices have aimed to accommodate minority needs and demands without undermining majority interests.

<footnote>B. P. Castellani (✉)
Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy</footnote>

<footnote>Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy
e-mail: beniamino.peruzzi@sns.it</footnote>
By the turn of the millennium, the differentialist turn intersected with another noteworthy trend: the growing significance of cities in a multifaceted system of multiscale governance (Bache & Flinders, 2004; Piattoni, 2010; Fernández de Losada & Abdullah, 2019). This shift reflects broad structural factors, notably the diffusion of neoliberalism, which has triggered the decentralization of national responsibilities and promoted entrepreneurialism among cities (Harvey, 1989, 2005; Hall & Hubbard, 1998; Brenner & Theodore, 2002). Consequently, a “local turn” has taken root, both in scholarly inquiry and in policy development related to diversity governance, positioning cities as “entry points” for understanding how diversity transforms social life (Glick-Schiller & Çağlar, 2018) and as key actors advancing the differentialist turn (Caponio et al., 2019; Pisarevskaya & Scholten, 2022).

Despite extensive research on the relationship between cities and diversity, we still lack comprehensive views of how theoretical and practical approaches to diversity governance take root and evolve. Existing studies mostly limit themselves to “nested” analyses within local or regional contexts, overlooking broader governance scales (Glick-Schiller & Çağlar, 2018). Furthermore, much of the existing literature is Western-centric, with a predominant focus on Europe and North America.

This chapter takes some initial steps to address these shortcomings by delving into the emergence of diversity governance and the role of cities in advancing the differentialist turn in Europe, Japan, and South Korea. A central concept here is the *diverse city*, which I define as an urban context that not only hosts isolated multicultural initiatives but also formally integrates diversity into its brand and long-term vision, actively sustaining diversity governance. In such contexts, certain key policies or practices – what I call the *core* of the diverse city – are foundational, while the stakeholders who actively shape them may be referred to as *diverse-city makers*. The process through which these efforts unfold is *diverse-city making*.

Naturally, diverse-city making is not merely a local endeavor. It is deeply embedded in “multiscalar” networks (Glick-Schiller & Çağlar, 2018) that span local, national, and transnational contexts. Consequently, diverse cities often function as crucial junctures where local, national, and transnational diversity strategies converge and take concrete form. Their role becomes particularly salient when they participate in networks with other diverse cities, exchanging best practices and engaging in coordinated lobbying across multiple layers of governance. This multi-scalar perspective offers fresh insights into how diversity governance unfolds and how the differentialist turn operates both within individual nations and across international contexts.

Guided by these methodological considerations, I looked for cities in Europe and East Asia best known for their sustained commitment to diversity governance. This case selection was informed by an analysis of leading migration-focused city networks and, in particular, the Intercultural Cities (ICC) Network. Established in 2008 as a joint pilot project of the Council of Europe and the European Commission, the ICC has evolved into a prominent long-term program, supporting member cities in crafting intercultural strategies. It now stands as one of the largest and most influential platforms dedicated to cultural diversity and its governance.
Based on this analysis, three cities were chosen: Barcelona (Spain), Hamamatsu (Japan), and Ansan (South Korea). Barcelona exemplifies a European intercultural city. Unlike many European ICC participants, which tend to engage sporadically, Barcelona is recognized for its longstanding dedication to interculturalism and for shaping broader European intercultural policy. In fact, the city pioneered intercultural strategies in 1997 and has maintained close ties with the ICC while also establishing its own network within Spain.

The case selection for the East-Asian context was easier as only four cities are currently members of the ICC Network – one in Japan (Hamamatsu), and three in South Korea (Ansan, Guro-gu, and Asan). Among these, I selected Hamamatsu in Japan and Ansan in South Korea, representing, respectively, the first and second Asian members of the ICC. Both cities have relatively large migrant populations, a solid history of innovative diversity governance, and play crucial roles in forming national city networks that focus on multicultural or intercultural issues. Together, they offer valuable comparative insights into how diversity governance discourses arise and spread across distinct global regions.

This chapter compares certain aspects of diverse-city making in these three settings, focusing on (a) the origins and consolidation of their diverse-city frameworks, (b) the distinctive cores of their approaches and the ways in which diversity is conceptualized, and (c) the key stakeholders – diverse-city makers – who have been driving these initiatives. It also explores how these cities contribute to the differentialist turn in their respective national contexts. Special attention is paid to their promotion of interculturalism as members of the ICC Network. While a comprehensive discussion of this subject exceeds the scope of the chapter, the comparative perspectives and preliminary insights presented here aim to spark further in-depth examinations.

This study draws on secondary sources in English, Spanish, and Japanese, as well as qualitative fieldwork carried out in each city between 2021 and 2023. The fieldwork included interviews with political and administrative officials and representatives of civil society organizations, along with direct observation of initiatives designed to foster cultural diversity and inclusion. It is important to note that, while I am fluent in Spanish and Japanese, my limited proficiency in Korean presented challenges during fieldwork in South Korea. However, the widespread use of English by diverse-city makers in Ansan helped mitigate these constraints.

Following this introduction, the next section offers a concise overview of the differentialist turn in Europe, Japan, and South Korea. The rationale for focusing on one supranational region (Europe) and two national contexts (Japan and South Korea) is straightforward: while all these contexts are interwoven with broader multiscalar processes, debates about cultural diversity in Japan and South Korea remain largely framed in national terms, whereas Spain's discussion is more thoroughly integrated within the wider European dialogue, making it unproductive to isolate it at the national level. Section 2.3 then examines the processes of diverse-city making in Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and Ansan. The final section compares the trajectories of these diverse cities and their broader impact on the differentialist turn in their regions, outlining avenues for future research.
## 2.2 The Differentialist Turn in Europe, Japan, and South Korea

Contrary to common expectations, the onset of the differentialist turn in the European context did not significantly precede parallel developments in Japan and South Korea. While certain European countries, including the UK, Sweden, and Denmark, began experimenting with multicultural policies during the 1970s and 1980s, others – including Spain – initially resisted recasting themselves as immigrant-receiving, multicultural nations. The 1990s marked a turning point. Following the establishment of the European Union in 1992, its subsequent enlargement, the advance of the European integration project, and the continuous growth of migration flows brought the issue of cultural diversity to the center of the European discourse. These changes coincided with a broader crisis in traditional Western multiculturalism, creating space for the emergence of a *made-in-Europe* approach to cultural diversity: European *interculturalism*.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea, until recently, have shared the conviction to be *immune* from the globalization of labor migration. Yet, as a consequence of their impending population decline, rapidly aging society, and growing low-skilled labor demands, both these countries have progressively transformed into major destinations for migration flows in the Asian context. As a result of these transformations, multicultural discourses have gained increasing traction in their academic, social, and policy arenas.

In this section, let us briefly explore how the differentialist turn has manifested in these three contexts – Europe, Japan, and South Korea – highlighting the key narratives and approaches that have emerged in each.

### 2.2.1 European Interculturalism

When the first European Community was established in 1952, cultural diversity received scant attention; indeed, the term *culture* itself did not appear in foundational agreements until the Maastricht Treaty founded the European Union in 1992. What has been referred to as the European “cultural turn” (Shore, 2006, 14) consolidated, in particular, during the 1990s, as the EU’s steady enlargement brought diverse nations and populations under a shared institutional umbrella, prompting calls for narratives embracing a unifying *European cultural identity*.

This coincided with another crucial phenomenon characterizing Western developed countries, which has often been referred to in terms of a general “retreat from multiculturalism” (Joppke, 2004) or “multicultural backlash” (Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010). This crisis of Western traditional multicultural approaches was triggered by a mix of social, economic, and political factors, including increasing minority riots, the post-2001 fear of cultural extremism and radicalization, the waves of global financial crises, and the politicization of migration amid rising
right-wing populism (Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010). This backdrop fostered a surge in identitarian concerns, pointing to the risks and costs of cultural differences. At the same time, traditional multiculturalism also became the target of *friendly fire* from those who did not oppose cultural pluralism but lamented the failure to ensure social cohesion and integration of cultural minorities (Joppke, 2017).

In response, a new multicultural approach was formulated at the European level, under the banner of a concept that had long been employed in European discourse: *intercultural dialogue*. Following a *mors tua, vita mea* logic, on the one hand, this new approach discursively transformed multiculturalism into the scapegoat for tensions and controversies related to cultural diversity (Kymlicka, 2010; Joppke, 2017). On the other hand, it promised to solve the failures of traditional multiculturalism both by addressing the need for integration and capitalizing on the opportunities represented by diversity. Borrowing a term previously used in Quebec in contrast to Canadian multiculturalism (Chiasson, 2012), European policymakers framed this new approach as *interculturalism*.

Strategically, the solid theoretical underpinnings of multiculturalism were not discarded but rather incorporated and reframed in the new approach. Indeed, like multiculturalism, interculturalism embraced human rights and the commitment to promoting equality and combating discrimination and exclusion. However, it significantly surpassed traditional multiculturalism in three key aspects. Firstly, it emphasized the narrative of diversity as a source of economic growth and social development, stressing the link between cultural diversity and the new *cool* concept of *creativity* (Landry, 2000; Florida, 2002). Secondly, it incorporated new crucial multicultural concepts such as “mainstreaming” (Hankivsky, 2005) and “super-diversity” (Vertovec, 2007), advocating for an intersectional approach in diversity governance that transcends the conventional binary of majority/minority and narrow interpretations of diversity limited to race, ethnicity, and nationality. Lastly, interculturalism pointed to a straightforward and intuitive method to mitigate tensions and conflicts among diverse cultural groups: namely, the promotion of *positive contact* among people from diverse cultural backgrounds. It is noteworthy that, despite some efforts (e.g. Zapata-Barrero, 2015), the exact nature of positive contact and its practical implementation remains somewhat elusive.

Though some remained skeptical about the revolutionary scope of interculturalism, and many criticized its theoretical foundation (e.g., Meer et al., 2016), this narrative quickly became the predominant framework for cultural diversity governance in Europe. By 2008, both EU institutions and the Council of Europe (CoE) enthusiastically embraced this approach, initially referred to in terms of *intercultural dialogue*: in that same year, the EU officially organized the *European Year of Intercultural Dialogue*, and, concurrently, the CoE published its famous *White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue* (Council of Europe, 2008). By the 2010s, the term *intercultural dialogue* was increasingly substituted by *interculturalism*.

As an approach grounded on the promotion of contact among individuals, the *natural habitat* of interculturalism is the local level. Accordingly, interculturalism became an additional resource for the EU and the CoE to strategically fortify their relationship with a category of actors identified as natural allies for advancing the
European integration project and overcoming the resistance of national powers: namely, cities, and especially the so-called *entrepreneurial* cities, whose strategic agenda is mainly oriented towards socio-economic development and the promotion of their sphere of influence both at the national and international levels. Owing to the intuitive appeal of its concepts and the support from supra-national entities, interculturalism quickly became the leading narrative for diversity governance in European cities.

In order to actively promote the diffusion and implementation of interculturalism in cities, in 2008, the CoE launched the “Inter-Cultural Cities” (ICC) Network, a platform aimed at providing technical support for developing intercultural strategies and fostering exchanges of experiences and best practices among cities. An Intercultural City Index was introduced to assess and compare the interculturality levels of cities using various indicators. Member cities agree to uphold intercultural principles and develop intercultural initiatives.

The network's rapid expansion testifies to the appeal of this framework: from an original cohort of 11 member cities, as of 2023, the ICC Network includes 142 municipalities worldwide, spanning North Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, Australia, and East Asia. Through its global events, the CoE reinforces both the ICC Network and interculturalism more generally, extending its international influence.

### 2.2.2 Japanese tabunka kyōsei

The emergence of multicultural discourses in Japan dates back to the early twentieth century, when some of the country's neglected and marginalized national minorities – such as Ainus, Burakumin, Okinawans, and *zainichi* Koreans – began advocating for their cultural and civil rights (Weiner, 2009). Their efforts gained ground after World War II as Japan moved toward democracy, yet the narrative of a homogeneous Japan still held sway, and tight immigration policies stifled the earliest signs of a differentialist turn.

The first signs of change emerged during Japan's postwar economic boom, which reawakened ambitions to assert its role on the global stage – no longer as an empire but as a global economic superpower. The Japanese government and elites were convinced that, to this aim, the country needed to transform into an international and *Western-like* state. This led to a top-down diffusion of a wide range of strategies framed under the new brand *kokusaika* (internationalization), promoting positive visions of a *globally engaged Japan* and a cosmopolitan mindset for the Japanese population. Yet, *kokusaika* initiatives did not challenge the prevailing ideal of homogeneity, nor did they lead to relaxing restrictions against migration.

The situation shifted in the late 1980s, when Japan's economy soared, and domestic labor shortages for low-wage jobs became glaring. In 1990, for the first time, democratic Japan engaged in reforming its immigration policies. However, in clear contradiction with domestic labor demands, Japan kept its doors shut to low-skilled workers, with only one exception: overseas Japanese who had emigrated in previous
decades and their descendants, known as *nikkeijin* – mainly from Brazil, Argentina, and Peru. This policy was driven by racial and ethnic preferences aimed at preserving homogeneity. Yet, the assumption that shared ancestry would ensure cultural integration quickly proved unrealistic: despite their Japanese ancestry, many of these individuals lacked Japanese language proficiency and familiarity with contemporary Japanese culture (Tsuda, 2003). Meanwhile, domestic demands for low-skilled labor remained unmet, prompting secondary channels like trainee programs that spurred arrivals from China, Korea, and the Philippines (Douglass & Roberts, 2000).

By the 1990s, Japan had effectively become an immigration country. It was at this point that new discourses advocating for the recognition of cultural minorities as part of Japanese society and challenging traditional assimilationist approaches started emerging. These discourses revolved around the key concept of *tabunka kyōsei* (multicultural coexistence/conviviality), which gained prominence, especially, after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake (see Peruzzi Castellani, 2023b). Indeed, the disaster highlighted the urgent need for aid and support for foreign residents who faced barriers in accessing information and assistance due to language and cultural differences.

The concept started spreading all over the country, embraced by both local and prefectural governments as an overarching framework for supporting migrant communities. In 2006, it gained national prominence when the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications included it in the *Regional Plan for the Promotion of Tabunka Kyōsei*. Despite this endorsement, the official focus remained largely on improving essential services for migrants rather than recognizing them as integral to a multicultural Japan.

### 2.2.3 South Korean damunhwa

Like Japan, South Korea constructed its identity as a modern nation by relying on narratives depicting a mono-ethnic and mono-cultural country. At the same time, this process was accompanied by the devaluation and dismissal of what was considered *non-Korean*. Particularly, during the authoritarian regime of Park Chung Hee (1963–1979), the government actively repressed the most visible minority group, Chinese-Koreans (Lie, 2014, 13–15).

However, by the 1980s, rapid economic growth triggered considerable change. As South Korea needed more workers, especially for low-skilled jobs, the country gradually opened its labor markets. Early policies resembled Japan's, limiting residency periods and primarily aimed at attracting ethnic Koreans from China, Central Asia, and the Americas.

Progressively, South Korea also became a prominent destination for female marriage migrants, particularly from China and Southeast Asia. These arrangements offered a solution to the shortage of prospective Korean brides in rural areas. By the early 2000s, more than a third of Korean male farmers were married to foreign nationals (*ivi*, 19).
Following the 1997 IMF crisis, President Kim Dae Jung (1998–2003) tried to reshape the role of South Korea in the international arena. Under the banner of *segyehwa* (internationalization/globalization) – the South Korean equivalent of the Japanese *kokusaika* – the government promoted international relations and exchanges and the expansion of Korean culture and business at the global level. The declared aim was a “Second Nation Building,” where citizens were called to become “active agents of national reform” and transform into “global citizens” (Kim, 1999). In this climate, activists, scholars, and media outlets began advocating *damunhwa* (multiculture).

Once a niche academic term, *damunhwa* rose to prominence in the early 2000s as a key concept to frame claims for recognition of migrants and other cultural minorities. Eventually, *damunhwa* was embraced by the central government: after including it to frame the *Multicultural* [*damunwha*] *Family Support Act* in 2008, the term became a key concept for South Korea’s migrant-related policies and initiatives.

Initially, officials mostly employed *damunhwa* to refer to linguistic and cultural support for marriage migrants, largely overlooking the demands of other minority groups (Lim, 2014, 46–47; Ghazarian, 2018, 22–30; Han, 2007, 49). However, over time, grassroots movements – particularly among labor migrants, along with pro-democracy activists, NGOs, and religious organizations – managed to successfully redefine this narrow interpretation: eventually, the government reframed *damunhwa* in terms of practices for social inclusion targeting all cultural minorities and fundamentally connected to broader human rights agendas (Lim, 2014; Yamanaka, 2014; Ghazarian, 2018).

## 2.3 Making the “Diverse City” in Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and Ansan

European interculturalism, Japanese *tabunka* kyōsei, and South Korean *damunhwa* each offer distinct frameworks that have propelled the differentialist turn within their respective geographical and sociocultural context. Yet, across Europe, Japan, and South Korea alike, the most committed and dynamic champions of cultural diversity are often local governments – particularly municipal administrations – that grapple with the practical complexities of increasingly diverse communities.

Three cities stand out as pivotal *laboratories* and nodal points where national and international multicultural debates converge, evolve, and find concrete expression in local policies: Barcelona (Spain), Hamamatsu (Japan), and Ansan (South Korea). In this section, we examine the development of each city’s diversity governance model and its influential role at both national and transnational levels.
### 2.3.1 Barcelona

Barcelona is the second-most populous municipality of Spain, with a total population of 1,655,956 as of 2023 (Idescat, 2023), 27.8% of whom are foreign citizens. The city once enjoyed significant political autonomy as the capital of the Principality of Catalonia before its integration into a centralized Spanish administration in 1714. By the nineteenth century, it had also become a vital industrial hub. Following the end of Franco's dictatorship in 1979, Barcelona positioned itself on the world stage through major international events – such as the 1992 Olympics – and active engagement in global networks. This international outlook ultimately paved the way for Barcelona's evolution into a diverse city.

Barcelona's official commitment to cultural diversity can be traced back to 1997 when the City Council published its first policy for social inclusion – the *Municipal Plan for Interculturality* – in response to the sudden growing influx of migrants. In 2002, the city introduced its first *Municipal Immigration Plan*, which notably received unanimous backing from all political parties in the City Council. This broad political consensus became a hallmark of Barcelona's diversity governance, ensuring long-term stability and support for key policies.

A turning point came with the election of Mayor Jordi Hereu (2006–2011). Viewing migration and cultural diversity as pivotal to Barcelona's global identity and creative potential, Hereu created the position of *Commissioner for Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue* in 2007. This role was established with the mandate to develop both a new immigration strategy and a comprehensive plan to foster cultural diversity and social inclusion. Dani de Torres, the first person appointed to this role, conducted extensive negotiations with local politicians and civil society, underscoring the need for a clear theoretical framework to guide diversity governance.

Under de Torres' guidance, in 2008 – coinciding with the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue – Barcelona formally embraced an intercultural approach centered on three core principles: (1) recognizing diversity, (2) fostering equality, and (3) promoting positive interaction among cultural groups (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2010, 11–12). A citywide series of debates and events, organized in the framework of the *Barcelona Intercultural Dialogue Programme*, further popularized this new paradigm and drew the attention of the Council of Europe's ICC Network. This connection established a direct relationship between Barcelona's City Council and the ICC Network, paving the way for the city to join the network in 2009.

In October 2008, after extensive preparation, the City Council unanimously approved the *Immigration Working Plan 2008–2011*. This paved the way for the development of a comprehensive plan for cultural diversity governance. The resulting *Barcelona Interculturality Plan 2010–2020* was crafted through a participatory and cross-cutting process anchored in three key methodological principles: (a)
participation, ensuring broad engagement from institutional representatives and civil society; (b) transversalization, incorporating various municipal areas and departments into the plan's framework; and (c) political consensus, achieved through the consolidated practice of negotiating unanimous approval by all political groups.

While it nominally took an intersectional perspective, the plan primarily addressed migration as the focal point of diversity. In the name of the common interest toward social cohesion, the plan called for general and consistent public-private partnerships to tackle diversity challenges by encouraging interaction between majority and minority communities. The intuitive appeal of interculturalism's conceptual framework and its strategic clarity successfully aligned the diverse interests within city governance: civil society was affirmed in its key role and saw opportunities for empowerment; political and institutional actors gained a clear direction for realizing the vision of an intercultural Barcelona, enhancing their engagement with civil society; and economic actors recognized opportunities to participate in public-private partnerships, reinforcing their governance role and leveraging cultural diversity to invest in the local cultural industries by connecting diversity with creativity.

Over the following decade, stakeholders from various sectors – including civil society groups and private businesses – coordinated efforts to implement the plan (Bermúdez et al., 2018). The city’s steadfast commitment to interculturalism led the Council of Europe to showcase Barcelona as a model intercultural city, influential in shaping the European conversation on cultural diversity and promoting Barcelona’s framework as a sort of manifesto of European interculturalism (Peruzzi Castellani, 2023a). In 2011, under de Torres’ leadership, Barcelona helped establish the *Red de Ciudades Interculturales* (Spanish Network of Intercultural Cities, or RECI), bolstering collaboration among Spanish cities and amplifying their collective voice at the national level.

When the initial plan expired, a new Commissioner for Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue, Khalid Ghali, spearheaded an assessment of the city's diversity initiatives. This work culminated in the drafting of a second *Barcelona Interculturality Plan* for the period 2021–2030. Adhering to established participatory and consensus-driven methods, the updated plan broadened its definition of diversity beyond migration, adopting a *super-diversity* lens that included women, senior citizens, youth, and various other intersectional identities. It also reinforced the idea that diversity fuels Barcelona's social and economic vitality (for a more detailed comparison between the two plans see ivi, 4–6).

From Barcelona’s experience, several insights emerge. First, the entrepreneurial aspirations of the city’s strategic agenda and the practical realities of migration served as key catalysts for its diverse-city initiatives. Second, the formal core of the diverse city is defined by two intercultural plans, which gradually broadened the scope of diversity beyond the sole phenomenon of migration to encompass a wider array of social identities through an intersectional approach. Additionally, in the second plan, the synergy between creativity and diversity was further emphasized, positioning this latter as a vital resource for Barcelona’s social and economic advancement.
Finally, several key diverse-city makers emerged in the construction of the diverse city. These are the following: (a) the major and the local administration – particularly the technical office of the Commissioner for Immigration and Intercultural Dialogue – which provided political support and logistical ground-work, setting the stage for the city’s intercultural initiatives; (b) civil society organi-zations engaging in the co-management of initiatives to promote cultural diversity with the local administration; and (c) business actors, leveraging the general interest in diversity to foster the local cultural industry. Importantly, diverse-city makers do not include only members of the majority group. Indeed, members of local cultural minorities belonging to all three identified categories of diverse-city makers have been increasingly participating in the system of diversity governance.

### 2.3.2 Hamamatsu

As of October 2023, Hamamatsu boasts a population of 789,822, with approxi-mately 3% (24,433) being foreign residents – mostly Brazilian nikkeijin (Hamamatsu City, 2023). Incorporated as a city in 1911 with a total population of just 36,782, Hamamatsu was already on the path of modernization and economic enhancement. Renowned for its textile production since the nineteenth century, it cultivated a business-friendly environment that gave rise to some of Japan’s leading corpora-tions, including Yamaha, Honda Motor, Suzuki, and Kawai. By 1960, the popula-tion had more than quadrupled from its early days, and by 2000, it surpassed half a million.

Unsurprisingly, Hamamatsu soon became an eager participant in the national kokusaika (internationalization) campaigns. Aiming at boosting the city's image both at the national and international level, in 1982, Mayor Masaru Kurihara (1979–1999) launched the Hamamatsu Foundation for International Communication and Exchanges (HICE) to foster global ties – funded jointly by the City Council and local business elites. As industrial demand for low-wage labor soared following Japan's immigration policy reforms in the 1990s, Hamamatsu attracted significant numbers of nikkeijin. By the early 2000s, it was home to Japan's largest nikkeijin population, introducing both economic opportu-nities and cultural challenges.

Without national guidelines for migrant integration, under the leadership of the new Mayor Yasuyuki Kitawaki (1999–2007), the city pursued dual strategies. On the one hand, by leveraging the spreading narrative of tabunka kyōsei, Hamamatsu envisioned itself as a community where foreigners and Japanese citizens collaborate towards building a global city – this view was encapsulated in the city’s 2001 stra-tegic agenda, the 2001 Hamamatsu World City Vision. Cultural diversity, deemed essential for a global city, was integrated into the framework of kokusaika, with resources initially dedicated to international exchanges reallocated to provide essen-tial services and support for migrants. These initiatives were coordinated by HICE mainly through partnerships with local NGOs.
On the other hand, in that same 2001, Mayor Kitawaki founded the Japanese Council of Cities with Concentrations of Foreign Residents, a network of cities aimed at sharing effective cultural diversity governance practices and, importantly, lobbying the central government for a comprehensive national integration policy. The contribution of the Council was crucial to fostering the formulation of the national *Regional Plan for the Promotion of Tabunka Kyōsei* in 2006 (see also Shipper, 2018).

Kitawaki's emphasis on *tabunka kyōsei* continued and consolidated under the government of the subsequent Mayor Yasutomo Suzuki (2007–2023). Suzuki advanced the discussion about the role of cultural diversity in Hamamatsu by integrating it into the emerging *creative-city* framework (Landry, 2000; Florida, 2002), introduced in Japan thanks to the work of Masayuki Sasaki, professor at Ōsaka University (e.g., Sasaki, 2001). This evolution was clearly expressed in the 2011 *Vision for Creative City Hamamatsu*, whose key slogan was *A creative city built on civil collaboration, shining into the future*. In particular, *tabunka kyōsei* was positioned as the main principle for *civil collaboration*, thus essential for ensuring the city's shining future. In this framework, the concept of diversity was reframed as spanning both new arrivals and the second generation of migrant families, leading to a dual focus on basic assistance for new migrants and the integration of migrant children into the education system. The city also launched initiatives to strengthen the connection between diversity and creativity, offering incentives and support to local artists and entrepreneurs with migrant backgrounds.

At the same time, Hamamatsu started leveraging its image as a diverse city to strengthen its role at the international level. In 2012, the city hosted a 2012 summit on interculturalism in partnership with the Council of Europe and Japan Foundation. This event was attended by the mayors of a number of Japanese, South Korean, and European cities and ended with the signing of a *Hamamatsu Declaration* where participating cities officially committed to interculturalism and to promoting "promote global partnership among intercultural cities to learn from each other's knowledge and experience to develop more effective policies" (Japan Foundation 2012).

It became progressively clear to the local government that interculturalism could represent an effective frame for Hamamatsu to promote diversity as a key societal and economic strength and, at the same time, gain international recognition. Accordingly, paralleling Barcelona's example, starting in 2013, Hamamatsu formulated a series of four-year plans known as *Hamamatsu Intercultural City Visions* – at least since 2017, the terms *intercultural* and *interculturalism* have been employed as the English translation of *tabunka kyōsei*. In all these documents, Hamamatsu's approach to interculturalism was specified as grounded on the three principles of *cooperation, creativity, and safety*. Hamamatsu's commitment to interculturalism and the city's interest in being internationally recognized as a model of a diverse city led to the decision of joining the ICC Network in 2017. In this way, Hamamatsu was able to boast the title of the *first intercultural city in Asia*. However, while adopting the label of interculturalism has enhanced branding and communication, Hamamatsu's strategies for diversity governance have remained largely consistent since the introduction of the 2011 *Vision for Creative City Hamamatsu*.
Similar to Barcelona, the catalyzers of diverse-city making in Hamamatsu were the city's entrepreneurial ambitions and the impact of migration. The core of the diverse city is represented by the city's strategic action plan whereby, under the ban-ner, respectively, of *global city*, *creative city*, and *intercultural cities*, the ideal of *tabunka kyōsei* – currently translated in English as *interculturalism* in Hamamatsu's documents – was embraced. In these frameworks, the concept of diversity has evolved from focusing solely on newcomers to encompassing all residents with a migrant background.

Hamamatsu's strategy for managing diversity is built on collaborations between local administration and NGOs, often supported by private foundations or enter-prises. The initiatives, centrally coordinated by the City Council through HICE, are directed to three crucial aims: (1) promoting basic assistance to newcomers through public-private partnerships; (2) promoting assistance to migrant children for their inclusion in the local school system; (3) providing incentives to foreign-ers-led NGOs and enterprises. The key diverse-city makers are the same as Barcelona's ones: (a) the mayor and the local administration – particularly HICE; (b) civil society organizations engaging in the co-management of initiatives to promote cultural diversity with the local administration; (c) business actors, aimed at attracting migrant laborers and leveraging the general interest in diversity to foster the local cultural industry. While cultural minorities are active within NGOs and businesses, their participation in policymaking is limited unless they obtain Japanese citizenship, indicating room for more inclusive policy engagement processes.

### 2.3.3 Ansan

With 12.6% of its total population represented by foreign residents – 86,487 out of a total population of 715,088 as of 2024 (KOSIS, 2024) – Ansan stands out as the most ethnically diverse city in South Korea. Ansan was officially incorporated as a city in 1986, during the development of the Banwol Industrial Complex, transform-ing a small fishing village into a bustling industrial center almost overnight – its population soaring from 31,140 in 1980 to 510,314 by 1995 (Kim, 2015).

The late 1990s saw dramatic shifts in South Korea's economy due to the IMF crisis and neoliberal policies, significantly impacting the demographics of industrial cities. In Ansan, more than half of the Korean nationals living and working in densely populated areas close to the industrial district – particularly the neighbor-hood of Wongok-dong – migrated to other cities, especially Seoul. This created strong pull factors for low-skilled migrant workers, who started flowing into the city, filling the places left by Koreans. By the early 2000s, these international migrants had revitalized Ansan's economy, with areas near the industrial district experiencing high concentrations of foreign residents. Particularly, Wongok-dong evolved into a vibrant multicultural enclave with migrant networks, foreign schools, and supportive NGOs and religious organizations.
The national pro-democracy and human rights movements provided a backdrop for local pro-migrant activists to advocate for migrants' and cultural minorities' rights under the *damunhwa* banner. Responding to civil society's push and aiming to mitigate potential social tensions, the City Council prioritized social inclusion and cultural diversity. Ansan became the first South Korean municipality to pass an *Ordinance on Support for Foreign Residents* in 2007, and an *Ordinance on the Promotion of Human Rights for Foreign Residents* in 2009. In 2008, a *Community Center for Foreign Residents* was opened, which, through the co-management of the local administration and pro-migrant NGOs, started providing migrants with legal support and assistance for all the procedures related to immigration. By 2010, foreign representatives and NGO leaders were participating in municipal committees on diversity policy.

Because local governments in South Korea rely heavily on national funding (Lee & Suh, 2021), cities compete to showcase innovative projects. Motivated by the central government's cultural policy enthusiasm, which spurred the *Hallyu* or "Korean Wave" (Lim, 2022), many municipalities, including Ansan, have sought to leverage their local cultural industries to boost their economies. It was not long before Ansan recognized the potential of leveraging its unique cultural diversity to access special national funding and enhance tourism.

Eventually, after intricate political negotiations, the local government secured permission from the national government to convert Wongok-dong into a *Multicultural Village Special Zone*. In 2009, this ambitious plan started, with the Ministry of Knowledge Economy allocating a budget of 18.6 billion KRW until 2013 – the project was then extended for another 5 years and, again, until 2023, with a budget increasing each time. Key urban enhancements and transformations in Wongok-dong included the installation of multilingual signage, the development of public and multipurpose spaces, and the establishment of the renowned Street of Multicultural Food, featuring over 200 ethnic restaurants.

The creation of the Multicultural Village led to the relocation of most of the structures and practices of diversity governance in Wongok-dong, notably through the establishment in the neighborhood of the Ansan's Foreign Residents Support Center. This center, akin to Hamamatsu's HICE, operates in collaboration with numerous NGOs under the local government's umbrella, streamlining the city's diversity governance efforts.

The centralization of diversity governance in Wongok-dong resulted in a somewhat localized and segregated approach to diversity. While Ansan has remained a pioneer in recognizing the rights of cultural minorities – for instance, enacting policies for healthcare assistance to undocumented migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic – these efforts largely originate from Wongok-dong's stakeholders, indicating that advocacy and recognition channels for cultural minorities are critically concentrated in this neighborhood.

Following its participation in an intercultural-cities summit in Hamamatsu in 2012, Ansan intensified its efforts to be recognized as a diverse city both nationally and internationally. Motivated by the examples of Hamamatsu and other intercultural cities, in that same year, the city launched the South Korean National Network
of Multicultural Cities, aimed at promoting city-level advocacy and knowledge-
sharing. Moreover, in 2013, the city hosted a new summit of European, Japanese,
and South Korean intercultural cities.

Progressively, also Ansan turned to the conceptual framework of interculturalism
both to reinforce its communication strategies and enhance its brand as a diverse
city. While no comprehensive strategic plan for the promotion of interculturalism
has still been formulated, Ansan's City Council has begun to systematically use
*interculturalism* to define its approach to *damunhwa* in English-language materials.
The emphasis on fostering personal interactions became even stronger, and upon
joining the ICC Network, Ansan briefly topped Hamamatsu in the ICC Index, gain-
ing symbolic status as Asia's leading intercultural city.

As in the other cases, Ansan's transformation into a diverse city was driven by
entrepreneurial growth and migration. The core of its system of diversity gover-
nance lies in the Multicultural Village Special Zone, where forward-looking poli-
cies support minority rights and showcase cultural diversity. The scope of diversity
governance in Ansan is mainly restricted to individuals with migrant origins and
mostly localized in Wongok-dong. Accordingly, beyond the mayor(s) and the City
Council, most of the diverse-city makers are geographically localized in the
Multicultural Village. This includes the Ansan's Foreign Residents Support Center,
along with its associated civil society and business collaborators. Despite this spa-
tial segregation, a distinguishing factor of Ansan is that, apart from local politicians
and members of the administration, many of the diverse-city makers are members
of cultural minorities (living in Wongok-dong).

## 2.4 Concluding Remarks: The “Diverse City” Between Europe and East Asia

Across both Europe and East Asia, cultural diversity is significantly transforming
social landscapes. Even though individual regions have distinct social, economic,
and political contexts, countries in these geographical areas are collectively transi-
tioning from an ideal of cultural homogeneity toward cultural pluralism. This chap-
ter has traced the contours of such a differentialist turn in Europe, Japan, and South
Korea, focusing on the emergence of diverse cities in Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and
Ansan. Despite notable differences, including geographic and cultural distances,
these cities share a general drive for economic growth that has attracted significant
migration. In turn, this migration has sparked innovative diversity governance mod-
els that could propel the differentialist turn both nationally and globally. This con-
clusion summarizes the key insights from a comparative perspective.

First, as concerns diverse-city making, the role of mayors, city councils, and
administrative officials clearly emerges as pivotal in institutionalizing diversity gov-
ernance. In all three cities considered, strategic plans championed by city councils –
Barcelona *Interculturality Plans*, Hamamatsu *Intercultural City Visions*, and
Ansan's *Multicultural Village Plan* – serve as the backbone of each locality's approach to cultural diversity. Implementing these plans typically involves collaborative arrangements or co-management, where civil society and business stakeholders guide major initiatives.

Over time, each city has made efforts to include individuals from minority groups in formulating and running these initiatives. In particular, Barcelona and Ansan, to varying degrees, have successfully integrated people from diverse cultural backgrounds into key policymaking roles, reflecting a broader commitment to harnessing a wide range of community experiences for shaping and governing multicultural urban environments.

The scope and objectives of diversity governance evolve continually in diverse cities, as does the very concept of *diversity* itself. Early on, policies generally focused on providing basic services for newly arrived migrants. Gradually, however, cultural diversity came to be celebrated as an economic and social asset. The *creative-city* framework has significantly influenced this thinking by suggesting that cultural diversity can energize local development and cultural initiatives.

Initially, in all three cities, the term *diversity* referred mostly to newcomers. Barcelona has been particularly proactive in broadening the concept to include an intersectional lens, thereby moving toward a super-diversity perspective in which overlapping social identities are taken into account. While Hamamatsu and Ansan are beginning to adopt similar approaches, their focus remains mostly on migrant populations. Nevertheless, the evolving recognition that *diversity* encompasses a broader set of social identities highlights a continuing transformation in how these cities embrace and manage multicultural complexity.

Finally, we have seen that diverse cities are actively seeking to strengthen their influence and visibility, both within their own countries and on the global stage. In their respective geographical contexts, Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and Ansan have taken the lead in forming networks dedicated to actively promoting cultural pluralism and lobbying their national governments to adopt more inclusive policies. Simultaneously, their participation in transnational frameworks like the Inter-Cultural Cities (ICC) Network has opened up new channels for international collaboration, allowing these cities to share innovative practices and resources while enhancing their global profiles.

By strategically adapting and promoting the strategies exchanged through these networks, Barcelona, Hamamatsu, and Ansan have positioned themselves at the forefront of a multiscale system of diversity governance. They demonstrate how frameworks such as the creative city model and interculturalism can spark broader innovation in diversity management worldwide. As key catalysts for social change, these cities offer fertile ground for local stakeholders – from policymakers and civil society to business leaders and minority communities – to shape increasingly inclusive and dynamic urban environments. In so doing, they reinforce their stature as significant players in the ongoing evolution of urban policy and practice.
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**Chapter 3**

# The Policy of Refugee Reception and the Policing of Public Space in Paris

Marco Cremaschi and Tommaso Vitale

Since 2015, there has been a significant increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving in Europe, sparking a renewed discussion about the integration of refugees. The reception of refugees in the urban region of Paris is the outcome of a long process of structuring different policy streams. This marks a “local turning point” in the governance of migrations, with cities becoming the central level for the development of new local migration policies (Zapata-Barrero et al., 2017).

Various local arrangements adapt public services and facilities to accommodate the increasingly heterogeneous local population (Raco & Tasan Kok, 2019). Such a process mainly occurs along the lines of multilevel governance and civil society involvement already developed to deal with migrants.

This chapter analyses local refugee reception initiatives against the backdrop of broader public policies for the reception of migrants in general (OECD, 2018), given the overlapping of certain actor networks, institutional resources, and territorialization logics. In France, the state remains the predominant actor in the reception and integration of foreigners, with only limited room for manoeuvre afforded to local authorities. However, this chapter argues that the very evolution of reception practices—and the governance arrangements that sustain them—depends not solely on formal institutional frameworks, but on the presence and political handling of urban conflict.

Far from a static or linear process, refugee reception in urban spaces unfolds through contentious interactions between top-down state actors (such as the police and national agencies) and bottom-up initiatives (including NGOs, grassroots collectives, and social movements). What enables the system to adapt and function is not consensus, but rather the capacity of local administrations to mediate, navigate,

M. Cremaschi · T. Vitale (✉)

Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE) & Urban School,
Paris, France

e-mail: tommaso.vitale@sciencespo.fr
*and politically manage these conflicts.* In this context, moderate conflict becomes a driver of change: it reveals frictions, forces articulation between actors, and contributes to adjustments in policy delivery and institutional arrangements—even in a landscape marked by normative constraints and persistent challenges in rights protection.

The analysis thus points to a gradual shift from centralised, command-and-control models to more fragmented, negotiated, and adaptive forms of governance—what can be described as *regulation-in-progress*. Urban space emerges here as a political arena where divergent logics and interests are confronted, and where the possibilities for asylum and integration are not only implemented, but actively shaped—and often contested—through everyday political labour and spatial negotiation.

The arrival process in the Paris case does not correspond to an ordinary pattern of establishing an ethnic neighborhood, as an optimistic account of the refugees’ arrival suggests deploying the analogy of the nineteenth-century migrants’ neighborhood (Saunders, 2010). The actual process of settlement is nothing like smooth and eventless and does not coalesce in spontaneous order, if it ever had; social interactions and the ‘institutional memory’ of places (Cremaschi et al., 2020) play a crucial role in shaping informal practices related to migration, practices that do not occur naturally.

Several reasons support this analytical perspective. To begin with, although the legal and conceptual distinctions between migrants (or foreign-born individuals) and asylum seekers (potentially refugees) have been clarified on multiple occasions, these differences often remain blurred in practice. Individuals entitled to reception frequently find themselves slipping into illegality, facing sudden rejections or, conversely, receiving temporary authorisations. Some accept this state of legal ambiguity as the lesser evil, hoping for the chance to continue their journey toward their intended destination. Yet, for most, this legal uncertainty is experienced as one of the many expressions of institutional irrationality. Furthermore, refugee policies in France lack a clearly defined framework (Lelévrier et al., 2017). They operate within a fragmented institutional landscape, yet they intersect with a highly stratified urban and metropolitan social geography (Préteceille, 2007). This geography is further shaped by mainstream social and urban policies (Fioretti, 2021), which continue to rely on traditional integration measures such as language instruction and vocational training. Finally, while dominant policy narratives frame the 2015 so-called refugee crisis as a moment of rupture and innovation in Paris’ reception policies (Bonn, 2022), policy analysis tends instead to emphasise continuity and institutional isomorphism. From this viewpoint, different policy streams may converge in ways that transcend initial intentions, spatial proximity, or contextual specificities, enabling their interaction and mutual reinforcement.

While we are interested in examining urban space and the spatial dimension of integration processes within cities, relying solely on a spatial perspective can lead to confusion and hinder our ability to observe the interaction of structuring phenomena (Cremaschi & Le Galès, 2018). These phenomena occur across multiple levels of governance and various dimensions of economic structuring. In certain cases,
there is a legitimate risk of confusion, such as when considering the feasibility of
developing a social geography related to legal foreign presence, often referred to as
second-generation immigrants. Conversely, attempting to construct a geography
focused on asylum seekers or broadly encompassing ‘refugees’ may lack both
robust data as well as any political coherence. Nevertheless, the alignment of recep-
tion centers (see Chap. 11) with migration areas is not arbitrary; it results from the
territorial concentration of adversity factors and the convergence of actor networks.
Of particular significance is the intricate layering of policies associated with the
reception issue and the way it attracts resources and attention, even if not formu-
lated with precision.

Given these premises, the observation of what occurs in public space remains
crucial. It serves as a strength, both methodologically and substantively, for under-
standing the quality of life in cities. Additionally, from a purely political standpoint,
it sheds light on dimensions of legitimacy and political intervention—both infra-
structural and symbolic—by local governments. This is particularly relevant in
large capital cities with progressive local administrations (Therborn, 2017). An
examination of public space provides insights into the disconnection between regu-
lation and reception within the Parisian context. The visibility of refugees in public
spheres has been instrumental in heightening civic consciousness in Paris.
Simultaneously, it serves as a subject of political apprehension and an opportunity
for the display of state-inflicted violence by humanitarian NGOs, too. The gover-
nance of public open spaces extends beyond traditional command and control
approaches, emphasizing delegation, integration of new knowledge and technolo-
gies, negotiation, and self-regulation. The central concern involves an evolving,
albeit ambiguous and partially contradictory, process of outsourcing certain aspects
of reception policies without a well-experienced governance mode (Artioli & Le
Galès, 2025).

The next section describes the relevant social geography of Paris. Social trans-
formations due to deindustrialization have left a lasting impact, concentrating immi-
grant populations in areas marked by blue-collar workers and social housing estates.
While Paris actively engages in social and redistributive policies, achieving a bal-
anced geographical distribution for diverse social groups remains a challenge.

The ensuing section delineates the social policy responsibilities of both central
and local institutions, against the backdrop of which the handling of refugees has
transformed into a separate specific policy domain. Despite ongoing collaboration
in Paris, challenges endure due to the stance of the French government and the inad-
equate coordination within the EU.

The following three sections analyse the role of space in shaping reception poli-
cies in Paris, highlighting three distinct but interrelated spatial framings. Firstly, the
so-called “Project Territories” of the EU Structural Funds illustrate a gradual shift
in which territorial coalitions reinterpret national regulations in light of their own
competences and operational expertise, thereby adapting policy implementation to
local configurations. Secondly, despite such local initiatives, the scope of locally
managed reception efforts often encounters a deadlock when confronted with rigid
normative injunctions from central state authorities, revealing persistent tensions
between decentralised action and national constraints. Thirdly, both governmental bodies and local actors deliberately mobilise spatial arrangements as instruments of repression, using urban space not only to assert control but also to mitigate conflict between competing and often incompatible uses.

The conclusions deal with the evolving landscape of local reception policies driven by state and non-state actors, and their interaction, following changing mix of contention and collaboration. Despite innovative efforts, there is a lack of coherence, and central dispersion policies (Dollet, 2023) contradict local commitments, raising questions about the role of local governance. However, the cyclical coming and going between the dismantling of refugee camps and sheltering asylum seekers question the notion and scope of integration, highlighting the porous boundary between formal and informal regulations. Besides, the design of policies cannot underestimate the role of space in shaping welcoming practices.

## 3.1 A Growing Capital

In France, the migrant population, which includes foreign-born citizens, made up 10.2% of the total population in 2020, according to INSEE 2021 data. Among these migrants, 4.4 million were foreign-born residents, with an additional 2.4 million having acquired French citizenship, bringing the total to 6.8 million. Furthermore, there were approximately 0.8 million foreigners born in France, making the total number of foreigners in the country around 5.1 million.

France has a rich immigration history, with migrants comprising 4% of the population as far back as 1920 (INSEE, 2012). What is interesting is that France has a higher proportion of former immigrants and children of immigrants who have been naturalised and are now citizens compared to other major countries, with estimates ranging from 21% (based on the High Council for Integration criteria) to 27% (according to INSEE, 2012). Ethnic and cultural diversity may significantly impact how the public perceives migration, often more so than the actual numbers (Giorgi & Vitale, 2017).

Only half of the migrants who arrive each year fit the typical image of migrants from the Global South (see Chap. 13 in this book). For instance, in 2018, one-third of the 265,000 residence permits issued in France were for student immigration. Due to the EU freedom of movement treaty, France hosted 30,000 minors and 76,000 new European immigrants that same year. Additionally, in 2012, 90% of immigrants resided in large urban areas, a trend that has continued in the past 12 years, in coherence with the general trends of the country.

France's migration patterns are influenced by its colonial past, with approximately half of the migrants coming from Africa, 27% from Europe, and 18% from Asia. Notably, the number of migrants from Europe has decreased since 1982, while the share of migrants from the Maghreb has remained stable, and migrants from Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have more than doubled. The composition of migration varies at different geographic scales, from regions to metropolitan areas and cities.
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.1** The metropolitan area (a) and travel-to-work areas (b) in Île-de-France. Source: INSEE (2020)</figcaption></figure>

Several definitions exist for the Paris metropolitan area, considering its economic functions and influence, which extends well beyond the immediate region. While the INSEE statistical metropolitan area is expansive and covers a wide geographical area (Fig. 3.1a), its area of influence encompasses almost the entire north of France, and its attractiveness involves most of the region (Fig. 3.1b). In the 2017 Census, the Urban Area of Paris had a population of 10,785,092, with growth outpacing the national average<fnref n="1" /> (INSEE, 2020).

In 2016, a new institution, the *Métropole du Grand Paris* (Greater Paris Metropolitan Authority; henceforth: MGP), emerged as an adding political layer for the metropolitan area (Fig. 3.2), competing with the Île de France Region, the Departments, and the city of Paris (Le Galès & Mouchard, 2023). MGP covers a smaller area than the INSEE statistical area, encompassing four departments, including the city of Paris and its surrounding areas. While Paris has experienced stagnant population growth since the 1960s, the metropolitan area has expanded significantly. The MGP is divided in 12 s tiers institutions (*Établissements publics territoriaux: EPTS*) that regroup 131 municipalities. The MGP handles financial

<footnote n="1">¹Over the last three decades, France's population has increased by 9.4 million people, with half of this growth occurring in major cities, including 20% in Paris and the 13 largest urban areas. In most of these urban areas, the city centres have seen a decline in population as residents move to nearby municipalities.</footnote>
The MGP is divided into EPTs:
T1 – Ville de Paris
T2 – Vallée Sud Grand Paris (VSGP)
T3 – Grand Paris Seine Ouest (GPSO)
T4 – Paris Ouest La Défense (POLD)
T5 – Boucle Nord de Seine (BNS)
T6 – Plaine Commune (PC)
T7 – Paris Terres d'Envol (PTE)
T8 – Est Ensemble (EE)
T9 – Grand Paris - Grand Est (GPGE)
T10 – Paris-Est-Marne et Bois (PEMB)
T11 – Grand Paris Sud Est Avenir (GPSEA)
T12 – Grand-Orly Seine Bièvre (GOSB)

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.2** The MGP (metropolitan body) and the EPTs (second tiers institutions). Source: Cour de comptes, 2023</figcaption></figure>

redistribution (Allé, 2023) and EPTs the social urban policy; they share responsibilities on major development projects, improving and rehabilitating housing.

The Paris metropolitan region is home to 2.2 million immigrants, a share that continues to grow since the beginning of the new millennium. Foreign-born residents are not evenly distributed within the Greater Paris area (Fig. 3.3). Deprived neighbourhoods host around 30%, 10% higher than the city's average, according to INSEE 2015 data (Table 3.1). Migrants, foreign-born residents and, of late, asylum seekers or informal refugees tend to concentrate in specific geographical areas along the north-eastern arc and the southern longitudinal spine of the MGP (Boussad et al., 2017). These areas have a higher percentage of foreign-born residents than the regional average, with Plaine Commune having the highest concentration at 37.5% (Table 3.2). Specific municipalities, like La Courneuve, Aubervilliers, and Saint-Denis, have foreign-born residents making up around 40% of their populations. These municipalities are characterised by high shares of young people, large families, unemployment, social assistance recipients, lower education, and social housing, and high odds of social and economic exclusion. 46% to 65% of the workforce comprises blue-collar workers, while the number of highly skilled workers is limited and much lower than in all other parts of the metropolitan area (Table 3.3)

Paris also attracts young adults due to the availability of university and training courses and entry-level job opportunities. Much of the policies implemented in the Paris metropolitan area can be attributed to its economic significance, social and geographic inequalities, and efforts to balance internal redistribution (Le Galès, 2020; see also Diemer et al., 2022).

Yet, the geographic distribution of migrants is closely tied to factors like unemployment. Despite having a relatively young population, the overlap of unemployment, social housing, and low education levels raises questions about segregation within the Paris metropolitan region (Boussad et al., 2017). Scholars consider multiple dimensions of segregation, including residential distribution, ethnic isolation,
<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.3** Foreign-born population per municipalities and case study areas in the MGP. Source: INSEE (2020)</figcaption></figure>

<table><caption>**Table 3.1** Migrants in the region by geographical scale</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Total population 2018</th><th>Annual growth rate 2013–2018</th><th>Migrants</th><th>% Migrants</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Paris</td><td>2,175,601</td><td>0.5</td><td>440,464</td><td>20.2</td></tr><tr><td>MGP</td><td>7,075,028</td><td>0.4</td><td><sup>a</sup>1,551,420</td><td><sup>a</sup>22.1</td></tr><tr><td>Statistical Metropolitan Area (Aire Urbaine : FUA)</td><td>10,816,803</td><td>0.4</td><td>2,200,000</td><td>20.3</td></tr><tr><td>Region Île de France (IdF)</td><td>12,213,447</td><td>0.4</td><td>2,378,567</td><td>19.5</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: INSEE, RP2018 exploitation principale + INSEE 2012

<sup>a</sup> INSEE 2015

and concentration (Oberti & Préteceille, 2016). It is worth noting that there is little evidence of ethnic minorities being concentrated in ‘ghettos’ as seen in the United States; instead, mixed neighbourhoods are prevalent (APUR, 2023).<fnref n="2" />

<footnote n="2">²Following APUR (2023) in the Greater Paris Metropolis, 37% of the population will live in one of the most mixed neighborhoods in 2019, and 21% in one of the most segregated neighborhoods (where households have high- or low-income levels very close to each other). Finally, 42% of the population lives in a neighborhood that falls into an intermediate situation, being neither one of the most segregated nor one of the most mixed (see also Oberti, 2020).</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 3.2** Non-national residents per country of birth in the four departments corresponding to the MGP</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Dept.</th><th rowspan="2"></th><th rowspan="2">Foreigners</th><th rowspan="2">% of the tot population</th><th colspan="5">Country</th><th rowspan="2">Total of the four countries</th></tr><tr><th>UE</th><th>Algeria</th><th>Morocco</th><th>Tunisia</th><th>Turkey</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>75</td><td>Paris</td><td>310 145</td><td>14.3</td><td>27.9</td><td>8.9</td><td>6.1</td><td>4.6</td><td>0.9</td><td>20.5</td></tr><tr><td>92</td><td>Hauts-de-Seine</td><td>204 659</td><td>12.6</td><td>25.4</td><td>13.0</td><td>13.2</td><td>5.5</td><td>0.8</td><td>32.5</td></tr><tr><td>93</td><td>Seine-Saint-Denis</td><td>400 051</td><td>24.5</td><td>17.9</td><td>15.4</td><td>8.4</td><td>5.0</td><td>3.9</td><td>32.7</td></tr><tr><td>94</td><td>Val-de-Marne</td><td>221 051</td><td>15.8</td><td>27.0</td><td>14.0</td><td>5.9</td><td>5.9</td><td>2.1</td><td>27.9</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: Insee, Census 2018

<table><caption>**Table 3.3** Migrants in the metropolitan region of Paris per EPT</caption><thead><tr><th>Paris and EPTs</th><th>Total population</th><th>Migrant population %</th><th>Foreign nationals %</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>T1 – Ville de Paris</td><td>2,206,488</td><td>20.4</td><td>14.6</td></tr><tr><td>Paris Arrondissements 18, 19, 20</td><td>574,778</td><td>22.7</td><td>NA</td></tr><tr><td>T2 – Vallée Sud GrandParis (VSGP)</td><td>395,761</td><td>16.1</td><td>10.2</td></tr><tr><td>T3 – Grand Paris Seine Ouest (GPSO)</td><td>316,653</td><td>15.1</td><td>10.1</td></tr><tr><td>T4 – Paris Ouest La Défense (POLD)</td><td>559,982</td><td>17.1</td><td>11.7</td></tr><tr><td>T5 – Boucle Nord de Seine (BNS)</td><td>439,561</td><td>24.8</td><td>18.1</td></tr><tr><td>T6 – Plaine Commune (PC)</td><td>429,266</td><td>37.5</td><td>30.8</td></tr><tr><td>T7 – Paris Terres d'Envol (PTE)</td><td>357,568</td><td>29.9</td><td>22.6</td></tr><tr><td>T8 – Est Ensemble (EE)</td><td>412,972</td><td>28.7</td><td>22.2</td></tr><tr><td>T9 – Grand Paris - Grand Est (GPGE)</td><td>392,857</td><td>22.0</td><td>16.6</td></tr><tr><td>T10 – Paris-Est-Marne et Bois (PEMB)</td><td>506,882</td><td>16.2</td><td>11.3</td></tr><tr><td>T11 – Grand Paris Sud Est Avenir (GPSEA)</td><td>310,159</td><td>20.2</td><td>13.5</td></tr><tr><td>T12 – Grand-Orly Seine Bièvre (GOSB)</td><td>692,061</td><td>23.9</td><td>17.8</td></tr><tr><td>Total MGP</td><td>7,020,210</td><td>22.1</td><td>16.1</td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: APUR 2019 on INSEE 2015 data

The shrinking working class has left the place for an increasing share of the middle class in several parts of the city, a significant aspect widely discussed in the scholarly literature on the metropolitan process of change of the major cities in Europe and France.<fnref n="3" /> In the late 2000s, the increase of middle-class residents affected

<footnote n="3">³On the nature and extent of gentrification in Paris an important debate highlighted the risk of over generalisation. Critical scholars tend to adopt gentrification as the central lens (Clerval, 2016, 2020), risking however some theoretical and methodological inconsistencies (Hamnett, 2021). Accurate empirical readings tend to put at the center stage the process of social transformation of the urban region (Préteceille, 2007).</footnote>
the entire capital. At the same time, the concentrations of social housing and old, run-down housing units contributed to preserving working-class neighbourhoods in the northeast sector of Paris and the peripheral belt. This transformation is part of the social reshaping of the urban region's social structure, restricting working-class residential options to inner suburbs or suburban communes far from the metropolitan center (Préteceille, 2007; Bacqué et al., 2011).

As a result, the Greater Paris area exhibits higher income inequality compared to other urban areas in France, with more significant social inequality in Paris itself. The southern eastern EPIS are more affluent, as mirrored by the lower share of migrants in Table 3.2. On the other side, the Northeast neighbourhoods experience high unemployment rates and have a high proportion of social housing. At the same time, central and western districts and most southern districts are more affluent (APUR, 2019).

The social transformations of Paris have been substantial further to the process of deindustrialization. Like all major European economic capitals, the spread of the middle class, the self-segregation of an even wealthier upper-classes and social inequality have grown together (Cousin, 2017). The spatial structure of the Paris metropolitan area remains deeply marked by these long-term trends, with the north-east fringe characterized by the presence of blue-collars and social housing estates (APUR, 2023). Consequently, the immigrant population concentrate in the same areas, as well as other less-affluent groups (APUR, 2017). However, the city of Paris, as well as suburban municipalities, especially in the northern fringe, are actively involved in social and redistributive policies. Notably, the city of Paris has nearly doubled the share of social housing in the last 8 years, which has now reached almost 25% of the housing units. It is an almost unique achievement in OECD countries (Le Galès & Pierson, 2019), although it has been less successful in rebalancing the uneven geographical distribution of social groups (Lelévrier et al., 2017; Ramond & Oberti, 2022).

## 3.2 Policies for Social Integration

To understand integration patterns, it is useful to consider three discursive threads: migrants, suburbs, and refugees. The reception, specifically directed toward the world of refugees, would be less comprehensible without the backdrop of social policies for the resident population in the suburbs, which is weighty in France. This population largely coincides with residents born abroad.

The integration of migrants in France is fundamentally shaped by the republican model, which is rooted in the principles of universal rights and equal treatment for all individuals, regardless of their origins. Enshrined in the constitution, these rights are upheld by the state, which actively promotes national “republican” values. This model, in contrast to the multicultural approach, forbids—at least in principle—categorising individuals based on criteria such as ethnicity and recognising them as separate communities. Instead, national immigration policy seeks to foster social
inclusion and a social mix. Over the past three decades, French policymakers have gradually moved from an “assimilationist” stance to a more “integrationist” framework in addressing immigration (Favell, 2022).

This evolution has unfolded in tandem with growing concerns about territorial cohesion, particularly during the 1990s, when the concentration of immigrants in certain peripheral housing estates was increasingly perceived as a threat to national unity. In response, France developed the *Politique de la Ville* (PV), a policy targeting socially deprived urban areas with the objective of countering social exclusion. Characterised by a place-based approach, PV combines locally available resources with external support—such as inter-institutional networks and financial assistance—to address the complex challenges of urban inequality. The implementation of PV has been decentralised, introducing a degree of variation across local contexts, and encouraging the involvement of both local stakeholders and the general public (Epstein, 2020).

During the subsequent decade, a significant shift occurred as European Union anti-discrimination directives pushed the policy focus from integration towards anti-discrimination, especially in the realm of employment (Bereni et al., 2021). Within this broader framework, French urban policy has continued to pursue the normative goal of promoting social mix, now codified as a legal obligation for all municipalities. This policy requires that each municipality contributes to the national effort to combat social and ethnic segregation by providing a proportion of social housing. The strategy involves both the development of new housing units—often middle-class and commercial in character—and the replacement of ageing, mono-functional housing estates, with efforts to control social displacement and ensure proximity-based rehousing (Bhagat, 2021). In this regard, France distinguishes itself within the European landscape for its singular, state-led approach to social housing.

While integration and housing policy evolved at the local and national levels, the institutionalisation of asylum seeker reception in France emerged relatively late (Aulanier & Bartel, 2022). The formal framework came into being with the creation of the *Dispositif National d'Accueil* (DNA), which is now administered by the French Office of Immigration and Integration (OFII). This scheme has its origins in the collaborative efforts of the state and NGOs that mobilised in the 1970s to respond to the needs of Chilean and Southeast Asian refugees. Initially conceived as an exceptional and temporary measure, accommodation centres provided shelter for both asylum seekers and refugees without differentiation. However, France still lacks a stable system of permanent public accommodation for asylum seekers. The support programmes that do exist are highly fragmented, with varying durations and temporalities—often shortest for those with the greatest needs (Dollet, 2024).

A pivotal shift in national immigration policy occurred in 2006, when the French government introduced quotas and stepped-up efforts to curb irregular migration. These changes were reinforced following the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007, whose presidency was marked by contentious debates and a hardening of policies concerning border control and integration. The conditions for obtaining legal residency in France became increasingly stringent, with applicants required to meet
additional guarantees. At the same time, this shift in policy signalled a growing concern with territorial inequality and spatial justice.

The creation of the *Commissariat Général à l'Égalité des Territoires* (CGET) in 2014 further institutionalised this trend. A new integration framework was introduced under the banner of a “republican contract,” which set out an individualised five-year path for foreign residents. In the same year, close to 40% of asylum applications—amounting to 70,052 cases—resulted in the granting of refugee status or subsidiary protection. Most applicants came from countries such as Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Haiti, and Bangladesh.

In addition to these national efforts, France has identified 1514 *quartiers prioritaires* since 2014 as focal points for urban renewal, social inclusion, and the stimulation of new economic opportunities. Local governments and municipal councils have been tasked with delivering services to refugees, while *Départements*—provincial-level administrations—retain overarching responsibilities for health, social assistance, and the management of accommodation in reception centres, as well as the administration of the *Revenu de Solidarité Active* (RSA), a minimum income scheme.

The *Politique de la Ville* continues to function in close coordination with EU structural funds designated for sustainable urban development. Within this framework, a contractual partnership has been established between the state and a wide range of actors, including local authorities, public institutions, and social housing providers. These collaborations reflect the ongoing ambition to align integration policy with territorial equity and multiscalar governance, in ways that resonate with both national principles and European directives.

In this sense, scholars agree that “governing urban diversity in France is therefore complex” (Lelévrier et al., 2017). While the national government oversees migration policy, local governments and councils oversee refugee services. The French case reveals that a better alignment between EU and national policies is beneficial but needs to be integrated more efficiently into the system. France’s multilevel governance system has developed over time, with central and local institutions sharing significant responsibilities for social policies. However, France has a robust national framework for the migrants’ integration, focusing on disadvantaged neighbourhoods and inspired by the republican model. While uncertainties surround the definitions of migrants and integration, local integrated strategies are becoming increasingly relevant within the decentralised French system. In the next paragraph we will see how this evolution is pushed by local contention.

## 3.3 The Progressive Drift of Local Socio-Spatial Strategies

From a policy analysis perspective, power is always territorialized, especially in the history of the nation-state (King et al., 2017). Beyond general references, a more intriguing form of spatial control is through the policy territorialization institutions (and their instruments). Area-based development policies are defined in a specific
territory, namely within the perimeter of a local society. These territories are shaped
by social organization, constellations of actors, and their institutional memory.
Beyond local communities, this memory is also carried by policy communities; in
this case, the social development strategies are examined within the framework of
European regional policies, revealing an interesting spillover effect of social poli-
cies towards migrants and, indirectly, refugees.

In the midst of persistent inequalities, France presents a dual narrative of suc-
cesses and challenges. Emerging crises, including the impact of COVID-19, eco-
nomic instability, the volatility of income from low-skilled jobs, and climate change,
are affecting the framework and impact of integration policies. The parameters of
integration have historically shifted, with ongoing challenges related to access to
the labor market, particularly during periods of economic downturn. At the same
time, discussions on cultural integration are pervasive, often generating divergent
viewpoints and criticisms. Additionally, national social policies related to housing,
urban renewal, and education have undergone frequent revisions and grapple with
persistent resource shortages.

Integration policies for immigrant and minority communities are intended to
complement this framework, yet they face their own set of challenges in the midst
of evolving societal dynamics. Even in the most promising cases, these policies
must contend with troubling trends. In this evolving landscape, the endorsement of
localized integrated strategies is in line with the broader trend of decentralization
within the French system and addresses the imperative of inclusiveness for migrants.

The French experience underlines the potential benefits of better alignment
between EU and national policies, emphasizing the need for more expeditious
implementation. One of the priorities of the EU Structural Funds and regional pro-
grammes is to promote the inclusion of marginalized groups, including migrants, by
supporting integration measures, combating discrimination and promoting gender
equality.

While various approaches address the inclusion of migrants, with a particular
emphasis on Romanian Roma migrants (Cousin et al., 2021), the overarching theme
is to improve access to social rights, employment, and housing stability with a mix
of ordinary and targeted policy measures (Vitale, 2021).

Since 2016, the 11 Etablissements publics territoriaux (EPTs) manage with their Territorial Plans the urban policy, construction and development, sanitation, waste management, as well economic development, inclusion, training, and energy transition (Cremaschi, 2021). In addition, the Île-de-France region used Integrated Territorial Investments (ITIs) to address sub-regional disparities and territorial inequalities through a Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) approach. ITIs support local partnerships, project engineering, and the initiatives selection.<fnref n="4" />

<footnote n="4">⁴Marco Cremaschi et al. (2021) analyzed strategies in the Greater Paris metropolitan area between 2014 and 2020, targeting areas where migrants are concentrated. They have Evaluate regional and local ITI program documents and conduct interviews with local management teams for each ITI in April and May 2020.</footnote>
In the northeast of Paris, both within and beyond the city limits, public policies have focused considerable investment on a densely populated and culturally diverse area marked by deep social inequalities and complex urban, economic, and environmental challenges. Within this framework, the Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) strategy seeks primarily to support career development and prevent professional setbacks. A strong emphasis is placed on addressing systemic discrimination and promoting gender equality, particularly through programs that encourage access to training, employment, and community empowerment. The ITI functions as a complement to other long-standing initiatives, such as the *Politique de la Ville*, aimed at promoting social cohesion and inclusion in disadvantaged urban areas.

Although migrants are not explicitly referenced in the program's strategic objectives, their presence in Priority Neighborhoods (*Quartiers Prioritaires de la Politique de la Ville*, QPV) means that they are indirectly targeted by several interventions. However, administrative regulations and the need for formal certification may result in the exclusion of some migrant groups, especially those in irregular or precarious legal situations. To counter these exclusionary effects, other local initiatives have emerged, focusing more directly on migrants' specific needs, such as language training and personalized support for those in vulnerable socio-economic conditions.

The intercommunal structure of Plaine Commune, in particular, has historically played a central role in the reception and integration of migrant populations. Home to residents from 134 different nationalities and a total of 130,000 immigrants, this territory exemplifies both the cultural richness and the socio-economic pressures facing peri-urban France. The migrant population here is notable for its demographic profile, characterised by a high proportion of women and children—a reality that exacerbates barriers to employment due to limited childcare options and language difficulties. With an unemployment rate hovering around 18%, Plaine Commune ranks among the most economically disadvantaged areas in the country.

Even though strategic planning documents do not systematically mention migrants, a variety of targeted projects are designed to address their specific challenges. These include socio-linguistic workshops, support for navigating social welfare systems and civil rights processes, and the development of spaces such as the women's center in Saint-Denis. Furthermore, broader economic development initiatives within the area indirectly contribute to the socio-professional integration of migrants, offering pathways that—while not exclusively designed for this population—nevertheless provide critical support in advancing inclusion and mobility.

In the Paris metropolitan area, which has a particularly large immigrant population, local authorities have promoted employment, apprenticeships and vocational training for people with lower skills. This category includes many residents of foreign origin. Municipalities are also responsible for social housing, schooling, child-care, nursery and primary schools, catering and extracurricular activities. The city of Paris alone spends more than 38 million euros on the reception of foreigners, although these costs are normally the responsibility of the state. In addition, the SAMU Social de Paris, an NGO that provides emergency aid to the homeless,
contributes to the housing of asylum-seeking families. There are few territorial conflicts over reception policies, but there is no solidarity between the wealthy west side and the vulnerable northeastern municipalities.

## 3.4 Reception Centres Between Care and Control

Since 2015, the French government has struggled to respond to the arrival of refugees, oscillating between dismantling the informal settlements (as repeatedly in Calais, known as the ‘jungle’) and relocating the population to distant areas (Aguilera & Vitale, 2015). This is increasingly the case in Western countries (Agier & Lacadet, 2014) and has led to increased demands on the resources, skills, and expertise from the associations and local authorities responsible for refugee reception, even though their involvement was voluntary.

Although the refugee resettlement program is a national policy in France, the City of Paris has established temporary reception centers that work with NGOs and local organizations to provide individualized support to resettled refugees (see also Chap. 11 in this book). In addition, the city claims a strong commitment to human rights that goes beyond institutional obligations and national directives. The city of Paris wanted to explicitly challenge the central government, and position itself in the network of sanctuary cities, making a political commitment to do more than the national guidelines, justifying its action both on the basis of humanitarian reasons and on the basis of an investment policy for the purpose of reducing crime risks and insecurity for citizens.

In 2016, Paris set up a refugee reception center, inspired by the small town of Grande-Synthes in northern France. The humanitarian reception center was located at the Porte de La Chapelle (CPA: Centre de premier Accueil, also known as the “Bulle” (the Bubble) for its distinctive yellow and white bubble design) and provided temporary reception for refugees living in camps. It closed in 2018. The mayor emphasized the need for a quick but careful response that “embodies aesthetic sensibility” and “conveys a sense of humanity” (on the role of mayors, see also Chap. 1 in this book).

The Bubble was made in the greatest urgency, with the goal of making rapidie give immediate help and welcome. Urgency corresponds precisely to the rapid mobilization of resources to meet immediate and temporary needs. Observation of the organization and internal social relations confronted us with a paradox. While the relationships observed were peaceful and rather welcoming for asylum seekers, the mechanisms of selection at entry, collection of fingerprints at the prefecture, and geographical distribution of people were soundly contested by associations.<fnref n="5" />

<footnote n="5">⁵Critics denounced police violence in its vicinity against migrant-e-s, queuing problems, expulsions following fingerprinting, and unguaranteed asylum rights (France24, January 13, 2017; La Cimade, March 9, 2017).</footnote>
The entrance to the site featured a unique inflatable structure that encompassed designated waiting areas. The Bubble was notable for its tall and wide structure adorned with intersecting yellow and gray stripes; the structure aimed to be a guide-post for refugees and migrants, directing them to the designated location. The yellow bubble was intended to give residents a glimpse of a less bleak landscape and convey a positive message, contributing to a sense of development and improvement in the neighborhood (Scott-Smith, 2020).

In addition, two floors of repurposed shipping containers served as multi-functional spaces, housing both offices and reception areas. The health center, strategically located in 14 containers, includes a waiting area accessible to guests of the central facility. The restored industrial hall housed facilities exclusively for male guests, with expected stays ranging from 5 to 10 days. This space was equipped with eight sections of chipboard cabins, each with its own common areas, shower facilities, dining area, and recreation zone. Women and children were redirected to alternative reception centers to meet their specific needs (see also Chap. 5 in this book). Critics have arguably seen the architectural implications of these buildings as “a recent move towards larger, aesthetically influential and highly emblematic interventions” (Scott-Smith, 2020).

The centre was established in response to the increasing number of resettled refugees arriving in Paris. Over the following year and half, the centre continued to support to resettled refugees, by providing services such as language training, legal assistance, and health care.

Strategically located on the northern outskirts of La Chapelle, the center provided access to essential services and transportation, but it was far from the center of Paris, and for asylum seekers, distance hinders connections with groups and associations. It was equipped with dormitory-style living quarters, sanitary facilities and common areas for social activities. With an initial capacity of 400 places, to be increased to 600, it was expected that 50 to 80 migrants would stay for 5 to 10 days before being transferred to other places, depending on their situation.

The shelter was established in collaboration with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to provide individualised assistance to resettled refugees. A diverse team of professionals and volunteers, including social workers, translators, and health care providers, ensured that refugees received comprehensive care. The CPA was reserved for men only, was run by Emmaus Solidarité association. However, the bubble was more of a spectacle than a practical solution, leading shelter managers to express concerns about issues such as heat, noise, and smell (Scott-Smith, 2020).

The original concept aimed to provide an “unconditional welcome” in Paris. However, the city had to reconcile with the Ministry of the Interior, which did not endorse the notion of an unconditional welcome. As a result, the bubble was transformed into a space where residents entered into a contractual agreement, exchanging their shelter for obligations such as police visits, information registration, and integration into the formal asylum system. According to critics, this led to denying the promised hospitality (Macé, 2017); one of the NGOs challenged the management and subsequently withdrew from the shelter.