ABSTRACT
New immigrants can boost the residential population of downtown and near downtown neighborhoods. For this to happen, cities must show tolerance and acceptance of diversity. This is in line with the findings of a study of twenty-six communities by the Knight Foundation, which found “openness” of a community to be the greatest factor in people’s attachment to place. The foundation defined “openness” by how welcoming a community is to different types of people, including immigrants, gays and lesbians, families with young children, and minorities. Openness was also found to correlate strongly with a community’s rate of economic growth. Given this finding, the Foundation admonished communities to take active and visible measures to promote tolerance and diversity to make them “welcoming places for all groups” (Knight Foundation 2010, p. 17). Similarly, Richard Longworth, a Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent for twenty years and now a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, made waves recently with the publication of his book Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism. In the book, Longworth made a strong and compelling case for attracting immigrants to midwestern cities to help rejuvenate their economies because:
They not only bring jobs and skills. They bring global viewpoints, vital contacts with other nations, ethnic restaurants and neighborhood festivals, new art and different music. They make cities richer and more fun. Cities that are booming-New York, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, Denver, Portland, San Francisco, Atlanta-all have big and growing foreign-born population. Cities in trouble-Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore-do not. Successful cities draw immigrants, which make them more successful yet.
