WORLD MIGRATION REPORT 2015 Migrants and Cities: New Partnerships to Manage Mobility
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HIGHLIGHTS • Three million people around the world are moving to cities every week (UNHabitat, 2009). The fast rate of urbanization brings with it both risks and opportunities for the migrants, communities and governments. The World Migration Report 2015 explores how migration and migrants are shaping cities, and how the life of migrants in turn is shaped by cities, their people, organizations and rules. • It examines the relationships between migrants and cities on issues such as employment, housing and health, and also considers how migrants help to build and revive cities with their resources and ideas, both in the origin and host country. The Report also identifies innovative examples of how some cities are seeking to manage the challenges of increased global mobility and social diversity with varying degrees of success. It will highlight new policy developments concerning urban partnerships among migrant groups, local governments, civil society and the private sector which are designed to meet these challenges posed by migration and cities. • Urbanization, defined as the increasing share of a population that is living in urban areas, can be attributed in general to natural population growth, net rural-to-urban migration, and also to the progressive extensions of urban boundaries and creation of new urban centres. Human mobility and migration clearly play an important part in the urbanization process as internal and international migrants gravitate to cities and urban areas. Yet there is no common method for analysing the interplay between migration and urbanization. • Cities are generally conceived as settlements characterized by certain indicative features such as large populations, density, administrative functions and social diversity which make them distinct from non-city, suburban or rural areas. The traditional distinction between urban and rural areas in many developed countries has become blurred and the principal difference between urban and rural areas in terms of the circumstances of living, tends to be the degree of concentration of population. There is no internationally agreed definition of a “city” or any consensus on how to identify when a settlement is ‘urban’ or to determine its boundary. • Overall patterns in migration and urbanization can be observed. There is however a lack of empirical data and the absence of systematically collected information of a comparative quality and content, especially in low income countries. This lack of data inhibits a deep understanding of migrants in urban environments. Cities, with their high concentration of migrants, often from different places of origin, offer a unique spatial domain for researching and understanding the dynamics of migration, urbanization and the intersection of national and local governance and policy.
June J.H. Lee