Comparing planning interventions in culturally diverse cities of global immigration (completed)

Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan

This project aimed to understand how urban space is planned in ethnically diverse cities that are home to migrants and also very open to global financial flows, but retain extremely tight border controls over global immigration. Singapore and Zürich were selected as the cities for this preliminary inquiry. The two cities may have different immigration histories and cultural diversity, but they share certain characteristics, such as being small, wealthy, financial capitals, centrally planned, historically with multiple cultures, but currently facing the challenges of integrating new immigrants. They can thus help us understand if and how urban space and land use are institutionally reshaped in small, culturally diverse cities in order to integrate new immigrants and cultures. The project focused on the perspectives of planning institutions in Singapore and Zürich, but with the potential to include other culturally diverse global centres in the near future.