Economic and Socio-cultural Impacts of Immigration on Metropolises

Newswise — The effect of immigrants on cities in the United States has been widely reported, but several key questions on the true ramifications of this global shift in migration patterns on major metropolises worldwide remain. GW Associate Professors of Geography Lisa Benton-Short and Marie Price present the economic and socio-cultural impacts that immigrants have on major cities worldwide, as well as the linkages immigrants create with their countries of origin.

Benton-Short and Price have recently published Migrants to the Metropolis: the Rise of Immigrant Gateway Cities (Syracuse University Press, 2008). The book offers an analysis in the field that redirects the global narrative surrounding migration away from states and borders toward cities, where the vast majority of economic migrants settle. It examines contemporary global immigrant trends and the profound effects on specific host cities, focusing not only on destinations with long-established diverse populations, but also on lesser-known gateway cities such as Amsterdam and the emerging gateways of Johannesburg, Singapore, Dublin, and Washington, D.C.

Benton-Short is an urban geographer with an interest in the dynamics of urban environment from many angles, including globalization, immigration, planning and public space, environmental quality, and degradation of the urban environment.

Price currently is involved with an in-depth ethnographic study of Bolivian emigration from rural Cochabamba. In addition to her research on human migration, she has written about natural resource use, environmental conservation, and geographical unevenness of globalization.

For more information about the Global Migration Study visit http://www.gstudynet.org/gum.

For the full video of the presentation, please visit http://www.gwu.edu/~newsctr/newscenter/research/m2m/m2m_video.mp4.