Case Studies

The 1967 Immigration Act has had profound effects in redrafting the social geography of immigration in large Canadian cities. The Eurocentric orientation of the old immigration regime has given way to a global regime, with about half of each year's new Canadians now arriving from Asia. This cultural reworking has of course major implications for the professional work of physical and social planners, social workers and NGOs, architects, landscape architects, and other design professionals in metropolitan areas...

Immigration and the Changing Social Geography of Canadian Cities
by David Ley and Annick Germain
The Social Sustainability of Multicultural Cities : a neighbourhood affair?
by Annick Germain

Immigration can be meant as a sensible sismograph, effectively indicative of new logics of organisation of the space.
Italian immigration landscapes can help to understand movements of that country and the various and not very investigated changings of its landscape.
Planum presents a photo-gallery from the book "Metamorfosi urbane. I luoghi dell'immigrazione" by Arturo Lanzani and Daniela Vitali.

Images form the places of the immigration
from "Metamorfosi urbane. I luoghi dell'immigrazione" a book by Arturo Lanzani and Daniela Vitali

This contribution, proposed by Pasquale Culotta, is the result of an architectural planning workshop, attended by students of the fourth year of the Faculty of Architecture (Palermo - Italy) on some quarters of Palermo which are characterised by a consistent migrants' presence. In particular, the work is focused on the analysis of the strangers' domestic architectures: in the double language of the house, the domestic interior and the public exterior, thanks to the solutions found for the foreigner inhabitant, Palermo shows at a same time a sunny and smooth "skin" and a complex "stomach", with fresh and surprising interiors. With the support of some interesting drawings, the research feed on listening to "the other" in order to come to an architecture as a unique place of the human experience.

The domestic architectures in the towns of migrations
by Pasquale Culotta

Le architetture domestiche nella città delle migrazioni
di Pasquale Culotta

The contribution has been built up by the Association called ASFI - Association des Femmes Immigrees (Association of Immigrant Women) which works in "La Gotte D'Or", a popular neighbourhood of the North of Paris. The contribution gives a picture of the situation of immigrant people in this particular urban context, outlining the main activities of the association (literacy courses; dance and theatre courses; holiday camps; legal, administrative and informative assistance; …). This association, created in the 1982 by a group of African women, represents a significant element in the construction of different ways of thinking integration and cohabitation dimension in multiethnic societies: a bottom-up way of building town planning processes, listening to the real needs of immigrant people.

Une association du quartier de la Goutte d'Or: l’ASFI, Association des femmes immigrees
S. Jarrousseau, S. Mellier

This contribution has been proposed by the Agence National d'Urbanisme du Mantois (Federation National des Agences d'Urbanisme). It offers a precise analyis of the immigrant population in Mantes la Jolie, situated 50 Km from Paris. Starting from some historical and social reflections about the development of this suburban area, the contribution outlines a very stratified and interesting panorama of "foreigner" inhabitants. It's a dimension in which the qualificative 'foreigner' is too global because it hides a complex social reality made of different subtleties, "colours", irreducible subjects, particular ways of living. The contribution puts in evidence even the importance of community withdrawal (come back of community culture, religious practises and the consequent ethnic tensions), the meaning of the public spaces, the women's role, the security problems.

Etude de cas. Contribution au concours “Ville et Immigration”
Fnau, Auma.
Correspondent: Mallory Reveau