A city of migrants: migration and urban identity politics

This chapter focuses on the impact of a specific kind of migration on a specific aspect of urban politics, namely international migration and identity politics. The relationship between cities and migration is complex. Since migrants are very diverse, grassroots mobilizations of migrants are very diverse too, depending on their specific background and the characteristics of the urban locality in which they mobilize. The anti-immigrant movements are at least as diverse as those of migrant populations. Beyond urban identity politics, diversity has become an instrument for city branding, invoked to boost one's score in Richard Florida's creative city framework, an influential model among local politicians and policy-makers trying to make their city competitive in the global economy. Spatially, mobilizations against migrants focus on the defence of specific territories. National urban policies are eventually implemented by local authorities.