Multicultures and Cities

Book excerpt: In the planning of city development, it is important that different groups should be able to live in peaceful coexistence. This is how the concept 'multicultural' came about. During the 1970s, multiculturalism was developed into a model of political democracy-a strategy for society's rapid change. The term multiculturalism suggests that contemporary urban cultures somehow co-exist in a condition of mutual respect and possible equality. The new multiculturalism seems very different from the migration that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The essays in this collection address the general themes of ethnicity and contemporary European urbanism in many different ways, examining a wide variety of cities and city pairings. The common bond in these writings is the impact that a contemporary merging of ethnicity and culture is having on the new urbanity that is now widely accepted as driving the new Europe. The effect is far greater than might be predicted from the relative social powerlessness of many of the bearers of these cultures. At the same time, existing urban processes continue to ensure the marginality of these groups.