Urbanism and Immigration

Today I want to introduce something I'm planning on featuring on this blog for the next little while--probably not as consistently or for as long as the CityBracket, but for a bit--which is a focus on how urbanism in various international cities might affect immigration to those cities, with a particular emphasis on Americans right now.

The reason for this is probably obvious.

In this series I'm planning to focus on the following aspects of how urbanism affects immigration:

1. The presence of others

Urban agglomerations (whether the city proper or close suburbs) contain people. That means they're likely to contain other people you can connect to, whether through work, hobbies, religion, or common national origin.

2. Ease of integration

Cities can make it easier or harder to come to a new place and navigate it. The same urbanist elements that help make a city liveable for anyone can be particularly key to the immigrant experience: getting places without needing to spend the money to buy a car or learn new signage and languages to drive can help, and tight-knit neighborhoods can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on whether it means you get cold shouldered or embraced.

3. Pleasures of experience

What is there to do? What is there that makes the city feel like a good place to be? Why would you want to live in this particular city or country instead of at home?

We'll see how this goes, but I welcome feedback or ideas about aspects to consider and cities to include.