Chapter 5 Urban partnerships to manage mobility
180
historical, cultural and religious diversity, acquired importance in Mardin’s desires and efforts to attract supranational actors like UNESCO and EU for the empowerment and repositioning of the city. These supranational institutions, in turn, facilitated and shaped the emplacement of Syriac emigrants in the narratives of the city’s past and future and in its urban renewal/rehabilitation projects. Migrants can help cities position themselves on the global stage. Local strategies of migrant inclusion, whether in origin or destination cities, can strengthen the negotiating position of cities seeking to do business with the world. Attracting and retaining highly skilled professionals, innovators, investors and students, essential for the city, can reap the dividends of investing in migrant inclusion. Migrants can also be part of the solution of managing urban transition,21 as they make the links between smart migration policy and urban planning, and with the rest of the world. Cities that have successfully negotiated connections to global markets, for example as production hubs, knowledge centres and tourist destinations, as in the case of Mardin, or through remittances, are likely to attract skilled migrants for longer term benefits. In a world where people increasingly live between countries and cities, flexible national policies, allowing nationals to hold dual or multiple citizenship or foreign students, entrepreneurs and innovators to adjust their status to permanent residence, can complement efforts by cities to grow their communities while making them more globally competitive.
5.5 CONCLUDING REMARKS
Migrant inclusion occurs at local levels; yet immigration and residence policies are usually the jurisdiction of central governments and not location-specific. Migrant access to services is thus closely related to central–local government relations. There is often a major disconnection between central migration policies and local urban development plans and capacities. Migrant-inclusive cities require financial, budgetary and administrative authority and flexibility. Cities acknowledge the need for citizenship as a process of political engagement among diverse groups and individuals. As migrants readily identify with their host city, cities can play a unique role in creating a sense of shared community and common purpose through a pragmatic approach to “urban citizenship”. Migrants can be city-makers too and support cities to strengthen their place in the global economic and political hierarchy.
21 See the IOM website on the 7th World Urban Forum in Colombia in 2014 www.iom.int/news/iom-activelyparticipates-7th-world-urban-forum-held-medellin-colombia