Urban Political Geography - Book Report/Review Example

Urban Political Geography "Immigration, Diversity and Urban Citizenship in Toronto" By Myer Siemiatycki and Engin Isin The have tried to analyze and dissect the nature of the immigrants residing in the city of Toronto. They have tried to understand the effect the immigrant population has had on the policies of the city and the weight that they push around in the political and economic setting of the city. The authors argue that the number of immigrants headed towards the mega-city of Toronto has been increasing gradually over the years and that they are not confined to any specific location or of any specific nationality as now Toronto and various other cities of Canada have become highly concentrated with differing immigrants of diverse nationalities.

These immigrants are not situated in any specific allocated lands but are free to live wherever they please as long as they can afford the place and can adjust to the requirements of the location. The key concepts addressed in the article are that the demographics and statistics may help in determining the nature of the concentration of the immigrants but their influence, their control over the politics and their habits can not be understood by them. The article addresses how the actions of the locals affect the attitudes of the immigrants as well.

As when the movement was in progress to stop the project of the mega-city, where 6 cities were to become the mega-city of Toronto, the immigrants showed no interest in the movement as they felt that the decision would be made by the "whites" and their say would have no effect. But later when their rights were felt to be jeopardized they began a full fledge movement combining all the ethnic minorities and pressurizing the government to take notice of them. Another concept evident is that when faced by the local Caucasians the immigrants all sided together and were united in their decisions.

Camaraderie among the various nationalities and a sense of tolerance was prevalent among the various nationalities. To support their arguments the authors have provided numerous statistical data and have used both quantitative and qualitative statistical techniques. Using demographic data from the various cities relating to the population densities and using the population surveys of the various ethnic groups the authors have managed to come to some specific conclusions related to their research findings and have provided conclusive results.

The authors have chosen the mentioned research options because they needed to prove that the immigrant ratios of the city were actually supporting their arguments or not. For example the mention of the Greeks being the major influencing group in the immigrants is supported by the majority of Italians and Greek in most of the major cities of Canada. In my opinion the authors' arguments are valid and the supporting research is very convincing. The three major incidents they have used to gauge the intensity of the influence of the immigrants in Canada's system are recent and very accurate.

The opposition to the mega-city, the results of the election; Mel Lastman contesting against Barbara Hall and winning with a wide margin due to his high interest in the immigrant population, and the number of public space occupied by the immigrants; out of the 165 social events to take place in public spaces 155 were related to immigrant festivities and religious events. The evidence provided is homogenous with the assumptions placed by the authors. After reading the article one begins to question as to the global effect this immigrant movement will have on the political and economic conditions of the world.

With the movement of people of various religions, cultures and races over different countries one can imagine the effect of diffusion of habits taking place. The intermingling of the faiths, the cultures could lead to more tolerance to the other nationalities and might even lead to a more open-minded approach to policy making by law makers of different nations as their policies would have global effects and be much more effective in urban policy building. The lessons one can learn from reading this article is that policy makers need to take into account the views of even the least populous minority as the collection of these minorities may be a powerful influencer for future agendas.

The Urban Policy Issues need to be addressed at every level and can not be overlooked at either the federal or municipal level as they affect a large portion of people belonging to the city and immigrating to the city as well. The better the policies the more likely they are to welcome newcomers and to assist in their becoming a productive and supportive pillar of the community.