Austerity urbanism and the promise of immigrant- and refugee-centered urban revitalization in the US Rust Belt

Pottie‐Sherman, Yolande

doi:10.1080/02723638.2017.1342398

Cited by 45 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In making this argument, we connect to recent research on "downscaled" cities which illustrates how non-traditional post-industrial destinations have hung their hats on the potential of immigration to reverse the dislocations wrought by deindustrialization (Glick Schiller and Çaglar 2010;Filomeno 2017;Pottie-Sherman 2018). Recent initiatives in the U.S. Rust Belt, for example, the country's former manufacturing heartland, highlight this aspirational-symbolic nature.…”

Section: Conceptualizing Aspiring Gatewaysmentioning

confidence: 85%

Live, Work, and Stay? Geographies of Immigrant Receptivity in Atlantic Canada’s Aspiring Gateways

Pottie‐Sherman

Graham

2020

Geographical Review

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Global research on new immigrant destinations prioritizes the study of places experiencing rapid demographic change. Immigration is increasingly promoted, however, as a policy tool to encourage stability in peripheral regions, cities, and communities. This paper introduces the concept of the aspiring gateway to describe locations that attract few immigrants but proactively aspire to become welcoming communities. We make this case through an examination of the geographies of immigrant receptivity in Atlantic Canada. Our findings are based on 22 interviews with participants in the immigration sector in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Highlighting the powerful role of non-state actors and public discourses, our analysis considers the ambiguities and mixed messages of the place-based immigration policies of this region. We argue that a more pluralistic understanding of immigrant gateways must include peripheral spaces that are relatively isolated from international migration flows. Aspiring gateways require a rethinking of assumptions formed in and about new immigrant destinations. Keywords: immigration, immigrant receptivity, new immigrant destinations, urban, Canada. "What can Appalachia learn from Atlantic Canada?" asked a 2018 editorial in The Roanoke Times, referring to pro-immigration strategies in Canada's easternmost provinces and their Submitted version_Aspiring Gateways, Pottie-Sherman and Graham 2 potential to address economic challenges in Virginia's coal counties. Along similar lines, a recent proposal for a place-based visa-the Heartland Visa-calls for U.S. immigration reform to aid struggling regions, citing the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) as a model (Ozimek et al. 2019). Unlike the U.S., encouraging immigration to and supporting integration in non-traditional destinations have become some of the central goals of Canadian immigration federalism: the system of shared management of immigration by the provinces, territories, and federal government which emerged in the 1990s (IRCC 2018; Paquet 2019). Proimmigration proposals in America's coal counties stand out in a period in which anti-immigrant rhetoric is increasingly prevalent (Marrow 2020). At the same time, calls that celebrate Atlantic Canada as an immigration success story are surprising given the region has the lowest immigration levels in Canada (Statistics Canada 2017). These contradictions illustrate the need for migration studies in peripheral regions. How are international migration experiences transforming places and regions on the periphery, and conversely, how are such locations transforming themselves to encourage international migration? What, if any, approaches can be adapted? Writing from St. John's, Canada's easternmost city, our questions are inspired by calls to decenter urban studies to consider what takes place beyond major cities, on the periphery, and in unconventional urban spaces (e.g., Roy 2011; Derickson 2015). Global research on "new immigrant destinat...

show abstract

Section: Conceptualizing Aspiring Gatewaysmentioning

confidence: 85%

Live, Work, and Stay? Geographies of Immigrant Receptivity in Atlantic Canada’s Aspiring Gateways

Pottie‐Sherman

Graham

2020

Geographical Review

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast to the previous set of literature examining the microgeographies of human mobility in the Rust Belt, another distinct body of literature focuses on the municipal‐level policy responses surrounding im/migration in the region and their implications for the lives of im/migrants. This literature considers Rust Belt urban responses to im/migration in the context of the variegated landscape of local immigration activity across the U.S. Geographers who study subnational immigration activism have highlighted how local governments are becoming more responsive and proactive in the geographies of welcoming and exclusion (Furuseth et al, ; Huang & Liu, ; Kerr et al, McDaniel et al, ; McDaniel, ; Pottie‐Sherman, ; Pottie‐Sherman, ; Walker, ; Walker & Leitner, ). As Figure highlights, democratic partisanship is an important dimension of Rust Belt city's stances on immigration.…”

Section: The Politics Of Welcoming Im/migrants In Rust Belt Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of increased immigration policy fragmentation, local responses are also inspired by problems and politics at multiple scales, the “sociohistorical legacies of localities” (Matos, : 810) and the emergence of “eco‐systems” of policy entrepreneurs (McDaniel et al, ). In the Rust Belt specifically, researchers have highlighted the growing policy consensus around the instrumentalization of im/migration to address problems affecting deindustrialized and/or shrinking cities (Filomeno ; Housel et al, ; Pottie‐Sherman, , ). In analyzing the string of initiatives that have formed around the Welcoming Economies Global Network, Pottie‐Sherman () highlights the alignment of welcoming efforts in the Rust Belt with post‐recession austerity politics after the Wall Street crash of 2009.…”

Section: The Politics Of Welcoming Im/migrants In Rust Belt Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Rust Belt specifically, researchers have highlighted the growing policy consensus around the instrumentalization of im/migration to address problems affecting deindustrialized and/or shrinking cities (Filomeno ; Housel et al, ; Pottie‐Sherman, , ). In analyzing the string of initiatives that have formed around the Welcoming Economies Global Network, Pottie‐Sherman () highlights the alignment of welcoming efforts in the Rust Belt with post‐recession austerity politics after the Wall Street crash of 2009. These projects draw on the sociohistorical legacies of European immigration, and celebrate newer im/migration flows as symbolic of the reinvented American Rust Belt.…”

Section: The Politics Of Welcoming Im/migrants In Rust Belt Citiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Rust and reinvention: Im/migration and urban change in the American Rust Belt

Pottie‐Sherman

2019

Geography Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Immigration represents a promising counternarrative for Rust Belt cities in the 21st century. Increasingly, both immigrants and refugees are part of the comeback stories of Northeastern and Midwestern cities from Buffalo to Dayton and Pittsburgh. This review explores recent research in urban geography and allied disciplines focusing on the international migration patterns, processes, and politics reshaping the urban geography of the American Rust Belt. Recent research sheds crucial light on how im/migrant lives are reshaping urban landscapes of Rust Belt cities, and conversely, how local immigration policies in these cities are rearranging the uneven geographies of immigrant receptivity across the United States. Overall, this review highlights the limitations of the singular spatial imaginary of the Rust Belt advanced previously by many urbanists. Rather, this review illustrates the rich, complex, and tangled contemporary spatial nuances associated with international migration in this region. These spatial nuances are complicated by increasingly exclusionary immigration policy and rhetoric at the federal level since January of 2017.

show abstract

“…Not only do immigrants create jobs with their new businesses, they also fill positions in both low– and high–skilled occupations (Blau and Mackie 2017). In many cities, immigrants purchase homes, with the knock–on effects of lowering vacant property rates and housing stock abandonment (Pottie–Sherman 2018). With the arrival of immigrant families, city schools fill and diversify (Kao et al 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cities and Immigrants: The Local in Anti–Immigration Federal Policies

Adelman

2020

City & Community

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

, were among the top ten metropolitan areas where population growth was attributable to immigrants (New American Economy [NAE] 2019). In other cities, such as Dayton, Ohio, Memphis, Tennessee, and New Haven, Connecticut, influxes of immigrants helped stem population loss (NAE 2019). Although none of these cities is considered a traditional immigrant gateway (Singer 2013), they are among the many locations where concentrations of immigrants now live. Of course, immigrants have resided in urban communities throughout American history (Portes and Rumbaut 2014) and cluster in large metropolises even today. However, over the past 30 years, immigrants and refugees have moved in larger numbers to many new places and smaller cities throughout the United States (Massey 2008; Singer 2013; Singer et al. 2008). Immigrants' presence and activities change the places where they live. Immigrants can transform job and housing markets, school systems, and the diversity of communities. For example, entrepreneurship rates are higher for immigrants than among native-born Americans (Fairlie et al. 2010). Not only do immigrants create jobs with their new businesses, they also fill positions in both low-and high-skilled occupations (Blau and Mackie 2017). In many cities, immigrants purchase homes, with the knock-on effects of lowering vacant property rates and housing stock abandonment (Pottie-Sherman 2018). With the arrival of immigrant families, city schools fill and diversify (Kao et al. 2013). As much as the neighborhoods, cities, and nations shape the lived experiences of newcomers, immigrants also mold the places they live (Alba and Nee 2003). Immigrants contribute to their communities, but debates often center more on what immigrants are perceived to cost than the ways they benefit their new homes. For example, medical and educational investments in immigrants are often portrayed as costs to taxpayers in political debates and some public media (Goldman et al. 2006; Marrow 2012), especially upon immigrants' initial arrival (Blau and Mackie 2017). Another focus has been about the putative effects of foreign-born workers on native-born workers' job opportunities and wages (most notably see Card 2009 and Borjas 2014; for overviews of their debate, see Card and Peri 2016; Frum 2016; Lowenstein 2006). Ideological stances on the value or risk of immigration aside, overall scholarship about the costs and benefits of migration generally shows that immigrants (documented, undocumented, and refugees) pay more in taxes, for instance, than they receive in benefits (Gee et al. 2016; NAE 2017;

show abstract

Austerity urbanism and the promise of immigrant- and refugee-centered urban revitalization in the US Rust Belt

Cited by 45 publications

References 47 publications

Live, Work, and Stay? Geographies of Immigrant Receptivity in Atlantic Canada’s Aspiring Gateways

Live, Work, and Stay? Geographies of Immigrant Receptivity in Atlantic Canada’s Aspiring Gateways

Rust and reinvention: Im/migration and urban change in the American Rust Belt

Cities and Immigrants: The Local in Anti–Immigration Federal Policies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About