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Sustainability of Migration Generated Civic Participation in Urban Governance

Migration generated civic participation in urban life and governance and sustainability of the established practices within the process of intergenerational and social changes are in the focus of this contribution. Migrant inclusion in the process of urban governance is often generated from bottom up through the process of satisfaction of their own collectively perceived needs. Due to social, cultural, linguistic and class differentiation marginalised migrants mostly have to look not only after their own cultural but also welfare needs, and are not in a position to participate in the established modes of mainstream civic life. Migrants` civic participation appears in diverse forms and degrees of intensity of voluntary engagement through which they impact on urban spatiality and governance. It is often channelled through appropriated elements of the built environment necessary to satisfy their own collectively perceived needs and to escape social disadvantage. Through dynamic civic participation and commitment of their own resources, migrant collectives appropriate needed spiritual and secular communal places, including places of leisure, education, child and aged care. Through their own voluntary efforts migrant generate besides the bonding also a very important bridging social capital and open diverse paths for civic participation that often has an impact beyond their own community boundaries. The social and spatial urban landscape changes under the creative impact of new culturally diverse inhabitants as they find, through their own collective acts a mode of inclusion in urban governance. Migrants add new qualities to the urban diversity that is not only a factor of ethnicity but also of respective class, cultural, gender and age breakdowns, and of the time of arrival. Migrant collective decisions and endeavours have direct impact on the process of social and spatial urban planning. Through this process migrants become acquainted with the practices of urban governance that facilitate their own inclusion in the governance of a multidimensional culturally diverse urban environment. New organisational structures and diverse spiritual and secular elements of the built environment as key identifiers of cultural diversity appropriate important roles at different levels of urban governance. These visible indicators of migration generated urban diversity embedded into urban structures over time cease to primarily represent newly arrived marginalised cultures as people of different cultural background participate in governance of their immediate environment. This makes sustainability of migration generated civic participation embedded in patterns of urban governance an issue of paramount significance. The generated process of civic participation identified by collective involvement, mutuality, cross-cultural exchange, generated social capital and a sense of belonging creates a cohesive glue in a dynamic urban environment. Intergenerational changes will have implications for sustainability of migration-generated patterns of civic participation, embedded cultural diversity and urban governance. Governance of the huge Sydney metropolitan area was affected by large scale migration and expanding cultural diversity over the last fifty years. Through collective civic participation migrants satisfied their own social needs in adverse circumstances, enhancing the quality of their own lives, and in many instances, of a broader community too. Diverse forms of migration-generated civic participation are registered with an impact on the governance of this fragmented culturally diverse urban area. Effects of migrants` civic participation shape and identify many Sydney neighbourhoods ; its impact on governance is illustrated by various social and spatial outcomes. Particular consideration will be given to the expectations of sustainability of migration-generated civic participation, being a factor of social changes, including cross-cultural interaction, sense of belonging, created bonding and bridging social capital, and in particular of imminent intergenerational changes.

migrants; voluntary; civic participation; governance; sustainability

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