Urban settings are the grounds upon which immigration stress-tests the strength of democratic values, institutions, and practices. In this audio version of a live event hosted by CASBS on May 6, 2026, CASBS board member and Stanford sociologist Tomás Jiménez, Oxford economist and 2025-26 CASBS fellow Ian Goldin, and Welcoming America executive director Rachel Perić discuss what we can learn from the experience of immigrant cities, especially those that intentionally decide to enable newcomers and long-time residents to flourish together. Hosted in partnership with Stanford's Institute for Advancing Just Societies.
Urban settings are the grounds upon which immigration stress-tests the strength of democratic values, institutions, and practices. In this audio version of a live event hosted by CASBS on May 6, 2026, CASBS board member and Stanford sociologist Tomás Jiménez, Oxford economist and 2025-26 CASBS fellow Ian Goldin, and Welcoming America executive director Rachel Perić discuss what we can learn from the experience of immigrant cities, especially those that intentionally decide to enable newcomers and long-time residents to flourish together. Hosted in partnership with Stanford's Institute for Advancing Just Societies.
Watch the event video and read an article about the event: https://casbs.stanford.edu/news/immigrant-cities-and-democracys-future
View a photo gallery from the event: https://casbs.stanford.edu/photo-gallery-what-can-immigrant-cities-teach-us-about-democracy
View the promotional flyer for this event: https://mailchi.mp/df7b0f4c4589/casbs-event-immigrant-cities-democracy?e=c2d0812d02
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Bob Scott was featured on the Human Centered podcast in December 2022 (ep. 57), "Bob Scott is Trending": https://human-centered.simplecast.com/episodes/robertscott
Narrator: Issues surrounding immigration are among the most contentious of our time. Cities with significant immigrant populations have become the front lines where fundamental democracy-related questions are asked. Can cities ensure that migrants contribute to community development in ways that allow newcomers and long-time residents to flourish together? What lessons can we draw from the study of immigrant cities?
Today on Human Centered, a recording of a May 6, 2026 CASBS event titled "What Can Immigrant Cities Teach Us about Democracy?". The event was presented in partnership with Stanford’s Institute for Advancing Just Societies, and was the fourth Robert A. Scott Lecture, honoring legendary former CASBS associate director Bob Scott. CASBS interim director Laura Tiedens teed up the discussion for the audience.
If you'd like to watch or read more about the event, relevant links are in the episode notes. And now... let’s listen to the conversation on immigrant cities and democracy’s future.
Laura Tiedens: [00:00] Welcome to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. I am Laura Tiedens. I'm the Sarah Miller McCune Interim Director here at CASBS, and I'm really so glad that you've joined us here tonight for what I know will be a very interesting conversation that we have organized in partnership with Stanford's Institute for Advancing Just Societies. So this event on what immigrant cities can teach us about democracy also serves as the fourth Robert A. Scott Lecture. For those of you who don't know, Bob Scott is a legendary and beloved figure at CASBS. He served as CASBS's Associate Director from 1983 to 2001 and again in 2009 to 2010. He shaped the transformative CASBS fellowship experience for really hundreds of fellows. He discussed their work with them, he asked them probing questions, he pointed them to literature and resources, and he made introductions that became collaborations. He was, of course, for those of you who know the Fellows Program, a regular at lunch and a very fierce competitor on the volleyball court. But Bob had such a big impact, I think, because he is truly the personification of the Fellows Program. He is everything that a Fellow could be and should be: endless curiosity, interests that span disciplines, a respect for the distinct strengths of each of the social sciences, and a facility for bridging methods, concepts, and perspectives. And he also insisted that fellows have fun and tell really good stories even while they're doing important work. So I'm very pleased that we have Bob Scott and his wife, Julia Freeman, here with us tonight at this event in his honor. Former fellows who are grateful for Bob's influence on them and on CASBS funded this lecture series to acknowledge the profound impact he has had on the center and on them. And so please join me now in celebrating Bob. So Professor Scott's research, which is accomplished both while he was here at CASBS and as a faculty member in the sociology department at Princeton, examines processes and phenomenon like socialization, stigma, and the social construction of disability, all things that we now consider real, like, classics, but at the time, they were hardly studied and barely understood. Tonight, we're going to have a conversation about immigration, as you know, and this is a topic that aligns with Bob's enduring interest in the ways in which— in the personal and institutional sense-making of individual attributes and the societal consequences of institutions responses to these narratives. Immigration is, of course, one of the most important human behaviors of our time. We are living surrounded by widespread immigration, and it's influencing families, cities, and countries. As you know, the causes and effects of immigration have become political fodder, often with disastrous consequences. Both academics and practitioners have discovered so much about how immigration affects individuals and collectives, And that is our focus tonight, the way in which immigration has changed the nature of cities and societies. The discussion tonight is going to be moderated by Tomás Jiménez. Tomás is a member of the CASBS Board of Directors, and he was a fellow in 2012-2013. During that year, he worked on his book, The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants Are Changing American Life, a copy of which can be found in our renowned Ralph W. Tyler Club. Tomas is also the faculty director of the Institute for Advancing Just Societies, a relatively new institute at Stanford that is dedicated to producing cutting-edge knowledge and bold solutions to realize racial and ethnic justice. Recently, the institute announced the Flourishing Cities initiatives. And in that initiative, they seek to examine movement between nations and how, in that context, to produce thriving communities. And this is really the start starting point for our discussion tonight. And so with that, Tomas, I turn it over to you to introduce our panelists and get this conversation going.
Tomás Jiménez: [04:42] Thank you. Thank you, Laura, for that introduction. Bob, thank you for, for your presence here and for really setting the tone that all of us who have been fellows here enjoyed. And in terms of a kind of culture, you like I also just want to take a moment to thank Laura and CASBS and the CASBS staff, especially Jansen, for all of your hard work in helping us put this together, and Laura for your partnership with this, and the IAJS staff, especially Chow Lam, who you probably met out at the table, who was instrumental in making this happen, so thank you. So Laura did an amazing job framing up our conversation, and I'll just add a couple of more things. So the way that I think about immigration about migration, and this is reflected, Ian, in one of your recent books, is that the history of the world is the history of migration, that people have been moving ever since we've had societies, even the smallest societies. And so migration is certainly a feature of our world today. It's a fact of our life in spite of how sometimes we try to resist it. And it's really, I think, easy, especially in this area of the world, to think about migration as a benefit, as a source of innovation, as a source of social and cultural dynamism. But the very thing that produces that dynamism, the diversity that immigration creates, produces, can also be a source of strain. And democracies require some sense of unity, some ability of the individual individuals who operate in it to see something of themselves in each other so that there is a collective on whose behalf each individual can work and kind of have in mind. And so I want to talk about that dual— it's not a duality, but I would like to talk about that dynamic. And I'd like to talk about what cities have to do with it. So Louis Brandeis, who was a Supreme Court justice, said, and I'm paraphrasing here, in 1932, he said that states were the laboratories of democracy, but I think that cities are the petri dishes. And so with that, I want to get into the animating question that we have tonight, which is what can immigrant cities, that is cities that are characterized by large immigrant populations, teach us about democracy? Before we get into it, I have a piece of business. So you all have on your on your chairs, or if you're sitting on your chair, hopefully you're not sitting on it and you've picked it up, but you have a pen and a note card, and you are welcome to ask a question on that note card. We'll spend about the last 15 minutes of our time together answering some questions. We'll gather them up and take some questions. And now I'd like to introduce our esteemed panelists who are gonna help us answer tonight's questions. So to my immediate right, we have Rachel Parich. Who is the executive director of Welcoming America, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan international organization that supports communities building a welcoming society for every person, including immigrants, so that everyone can fully contribute and shape a shared prosperity. Under her leadership, Welcoming America has grown into a powerful force for change, now working with communities that are home to 1 in 7 Americans, and partnering with local leaders worldwide to move beyond divisions towards shared prosperity. Rachel's expertise is rooted in more than a decade of high-impact advocacy and management, including leading major literacy and community investment initiatives for the United Way. Her work is profoundly personal. She's the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and refugees And so she brings a deep understanding of the resilience found in migration and the essential need for inclusive civic infrastructure. She was recognized on the Eames Institute inaugural Curious 100 list in 2025. A sought-after voice on issues at the intersection of urban resilience and migration, her insights have been featured in The New York Times, CNN, and Forbes. Please join me in welcoming Rachel Parich. And to my far right, we have Ian Golden. Ian Golden is a professor of globalization development at the University of Oxford and the founding director of the Oxford Martin School. He's also a CASBS fellow this year. His far-reaching scholarship makes sense of the critical challenges of our time. And his influence extends well beyond the academy. He served as the vice president of the World Bank and as a trusted economic advisor to President Nelson Mandela during South Africa's historic transition. Ian is the author of over 25 books. Most recently, he released The Shortest History of Migration, which is a visionary look at how human movement has driven progress for over 300,000 years. This follows his critically acclaimed work, Age of the City, which was named a Financial Times Best Book in 2023 for its exploration of why our future will be won or lost in our urban centers. Ian is also a TED Laura Tiedensnd a BBC documentarian who's been knighted by the French government for his service to development. Please join me in welcoming Ian Goldin. So you are both keen observers of what's happening in cities and of migration. And somebody can give us the score of the Giants game in a second.
Rachel Perić: [10:54] That's what's happening.
Tomás Jiménez: [10:54] I think that's what's going on. Also happening in cities. And I think of this as a conversation where practice meets research. But I want to throw this at you first, Rachel, and then Ian, feel free to weigh in. So there's a lot going on in cities right now. If any of us paid attention, it was hard not to, to what happened in Minneapolis a couple of months ago, or in LA a few months before that, or in the UK several months before that, where there were riots among people who were opposing asylum seekers in England. It would be easy to get the impression that cities are really struggling— excuse me, I'm struggling right now— with migration. I'm going to pull it together. Cities are really struggling with migration. don't want to assume anything, so I want to ask the question, but I would guess that you have a different view of things given the work that you've done with practitioners, with city governments, in your work with Walk Along America. So, so what are you seeing in cities right now?
Rachel Perić: [12:00] First of all, it's really wonderful to be here. Thank you to CASBS, and thank you to you for organizing, organizing us around this intersection of immigration and democracy. I think, you know, the narrative— there is a deliberate narrative that's being painted about cities and the experience of migration, that it's something chaotic and out of control. And that, you know, very much feeds into the narrative that's being peddled in ways that try to undo our democracy right now. And that's one of the things that has been motivating me to try to draw this connection between immigration and democracy so that we understand that many of the things that are in the public discourse around immigration are really about walking back the core protections that democracy offers for all of us. Maybe we can come back to that a little bit later. I think what we've seen over the last year in cities has been a real split screen, I would say, of the worst of what humans can do to one another in the way that indiscriminate sweeps of communities, people being picked up just based on their race or their job or where they happen to live, things that are fundamentally un-American, and people murdered. It's terrible. And we've also seen, I think, the best of what humans can do in standing up for one another as neighbors. And I think if we look at many of the cities that, you know, some of the— that have been in the news over the last year, the way that people stood up for their neighbors what came out of work, longstanding work in the community to really create the conditions for people to exercise their voice, to organize, to connect at a human level with one another. And so when this moment of friction came, those communities were maybe not as prepared as they would have liked to be, but they, they understood what was at stake. And so I, I think in this moment when we think about the role that cities are already playing and the role that cities can be playing, it's really how can cities prepare themselves for the worst of times, whether that's political violence, whether that's a natural disaster. Or the best of times embodying the values of a democracy. I know that we'll get into that. But I think contrary to the chaos and scarcity narratives that we're hearing, this is really a story about resilience. It's a story about capacity, and it's a story about neighbors coming together to see one another's humanity.
Tomás Jiménez: [15:14] Ian, what are you seeing?
Ian Goldin: [15:15] Well, first, being at CASBS has been the experience of a lifetime. And I want to thank Lara and Bob and everyone that's gone to make this possible. This is the most amazing place. And for those of you that haven't been CASBS fellows, try being one. So thank you. And thanks to you, Thomas, and the Institute for Just Societies, and to Rachel and what you're doing with Welcoming America. Which is quite remarkable, both things. And I must say, one of the big surprises of my time at CASBS has been discovering how much really good stuff is happening at Stanford, which I always thought was a rather conservative Hoover Institution place, but it's not. There's huge diversity. And of course, in the Valley, which is 41% immigrant, two-thirds of the tech workers are foreign. This could not be a better place to be discussing this topic. And it's very difficult to think of an iconic Silicon Valley firm that's not immigrant-founded. There are one or two, but they're the exception. Because two-thirds of the breakthrough VC and patents in this valley come from foreigners. So one doesn't have to think very deeply to recognize that without foreigners, there would be no Silicon Valley as we know it today. There would certainly be no Stanford as we know it today, because it's brought the best brains in the world to this place. And that's true of the US in general. To answer your question about this tension, which obviously exists, I would say— I would flip it on its head. The most immigrant cities are the most tolerant cities, and also the most livable and happy cities, and those thriving cities. And that's a generalization that goes from Melbourne and Sydney through London and Paris to the US as well. What Silicon Valley's experienced is a generalizable historical phenomenon about what drives growth. And the places that have been most anti-immigrant are those with much lower shares of immigrants. The countries with— that are most immigrant, and in Europe, for example, it's Poland and Hungary, have less than 1% immigrants. They're the most anti-immigrant countries in Europe. The most pro-immigrant countries are those with the highest shares. And London, for example, in the UK, is the most pro-immigrant place, but 40% of Londoners are foreign-born. Just like 41% here are. 35%, so way above the US average, which is 16% foreign-born. So there's no correlation between having high levels of immigration and being anti-immigrant. In fact, I would argue the opposite is the case. And it's not just about being anti-immigrant. London was fervently anti-Brexit. 70% of Londoners voted against Brexit. The places that were— Smaller had numbers of immigrants voted for Brexit. And the tensions we saw in London were people being bussed in from other places. Like Minneapolis. Minneapolis was a story of local solidarity and resilience against foreign ICE troops brought into the city. And Minneapolis stood up for it proudly. So I think the idea that somehow without trying to paper over some real tensions that do exist in some cities, the story that somehow high levels of immigration lead to tension, lead to an undermining of democracy and growth gets it precisely the wrong way around.
Tomás Jiménez: [19:02] So you have both painted a relatively positive picture, right? You know, there's— to Rachel, to kind of borrow your words a little bit, sort of the best of times and the worst of times in some ways in American cities. Ian, you've talked about cities that have large immigrant populations being some of the happiest, kind of most thriving places on the planet. So I wonder if you can take us inside a city or cities in general that are characterized by immigrants. What's, what's happening there? Maybe Ian, we'll stick with you and then jump over to you, Rachel. But what do you see happening there that that makes them happier places? What's going on that accounts for why Londoners were so much against Brexit and folks who lived in areas with lower immigrant populations were so much for it? What explains that?
Ian Goldin: [19:51] Well, I think there's a virtuous circle in dynamic cities which they do well, people do better, they create more jobs, people see a brighter future. And they attract more people, particularly young people. And more diversity attracts more young people because young people want to hang out with people like themselves. They don't want to live, like, in some town where there aren't the clubs, the clothes, the fashions, the food that they like. So you create this virtuous dynamic part. We also know from the management literature on innovation and diversity that more— and this is true of gender diversity, and race diversity, that when people see things from different perspectives, they're more likely to innovate and be dynamic. And that if you really want to kill innovation, get a whole lot of homogeneous people in a room and try and bring about change. So different perspectives, different disciplines is the engine of the cauldron of cooking, just like a great meal. Different spices and different things make a great meal. And I think that's the dynamic. And it's a virtuous circle. You can die, and government can kill you. And that's what I fear is happening in the US, that government is undermining this and slowing it down. And then you can get into a very bad dynamic. But the cities have to do a lot. And I'm sure we'll come to that. What can cities do to manage this as a win-win? Rather than a trade-off on housing, for example, which is a crucial trade-off area, on jobs, on other things. And some cities have shown how to do it, and other cities have shown how not to do it.
Tomás Jiménez: [21:33] So Rachel, Welcoming America works on civic infrastructure. And it has a model for how to reap the kind of benefits of immigration and diversity that Ian talked about. So I wonder if you can take us inside Welcoming America's work and its partners' work to, you know, take us under the hood. How is this happening? And why do we need it to happen?
Rachel Perić: [21:56] Yeah. Well, maybe I'll share the story of Dayton, Ohio, because I think it illustrates a lot of these points. And, you know, I think one of the things that is true, particularly of cities that are newer to demographic change, because we have We have, you know, many cities in the U.S. and globally that have been experiencing migration, you know, for more than a century, but what happened in the U.S. over the last 30 years was people started going to parts of the country, and immigration was a new phenomenon for those places. And actually, that story is really what gave birth to Welcoming America as an organization, coming out of some organizing work in the American South, recognizing that the kinds of connections that people have in a community and the way that they navigate diversity wasn't a natural muscle in parts of the country for whom demographic change was new. So there was a kind of intentionalness that is needed to go from just the presence of diversity to actually creating an environment that an environment where people actually belong, whether you've just arrived as a newcomer or you've been there and you're experiencing your community changing. So, Dayton, Ohio, in— back in 2011, which was the moment when— I don't know if you remember this, but Alabama, Arizona were passing some of the most restrictive anti-immigrant laws in the country. Dayton, Ohio said, "We're gonna go the other way." They brought their community together to create one of the first welcoming plans in the United States. It laid out a set of values that were gonna drive the community. We wanna make sure that people can come here. We're a city that has been losing population for the last 50 years. We need people in this community, and we need people not only to come, but to put down roots and be part of the community, be woven into the civic fabric of the community. So, they created this very intentional plan. They established an office within their city government to help continue directing that plan, mobilize people from across the community, schools, soccer tournaments, any way that they could create that sense of shared community. And over time, they— turned around 50 years of population decline. They reinvigorated their Main Street, new businesses, people coming in. They were able to not only attract people, but they saw a big spike in naturalization rates because people were coming and they said, "Yeah, this— I want to be a U.S. citizen. This is a positive experience for me." They saw a shift in public attitudes around immigrants. And, you know, it was not just a boon for people who were coming there as immigrants, but for the community as a whole. And then Dayton became— Welcoming America runs a program where we certify communities as welcoming places, and Dayton became the first in the country to earn that badge, which is, you know, really a recognition that this is not just about proclaiming yourself welcoming, but actually backing that up with policies and with practices that make that real for people.
Tomás Jiménez: [25:18] Can you just say a bit more about being certified welcoming? So one of the things that I think about, and I know you do too, is not just narratives and counter-narratives. It's how do we capture the full picture of what's happening in a place like the United States when it comes to immigration. Really easy to get a picture of the United the United States, based on our policy right now, that this is an anti-immigrant nation or made an anti-immigrant turn. I don't think that that's an unreasonable conclusion in our policy, in the policy realm. But there's lots of things happening in the country. And one of the things I do sometimes at talks is I show people the map that Welcoming America has showing all the places that are certified welcoming. So I just wonder if you can say a bit about that to fill in the picture a little bit more.
Rachel Perić: [26:05] Yeah. Well, that makes me so happy, Tomas. And I know that it would make our members and the leaders who are in communities thinking they're trying to solve this on their own and realizing that they don't have to be alone in figuring this out, which is why we exist. So we set a goal to get 50 places certified as welcoming by 2026. This is our 250th anniversary as the United States. We thought getting 50 places to put their policies where their values were would say a lot about, you know, the country that we are becoming and have the potential to be. And I'm really proud to say that we're hitting that goal. And that list includes, you know, some big cities. San Jose, just down the road here, is one of our leaders. But also many small communities, Crete, Nebraska, Emporia, Kansas. And it was really important to us to be able to show that this is work that can happen whether you're a big city, in a, you know, big liberal city, or a small, small town, maybe in a more conservative part of the country, that welcoming is a value that can be shared across, you know, across the full spectrum of diversity that is in this country. And I think, you know, the— a couple weeks ago, Kansas City announced their certified welcoming status. And they did it right in the middle of the week that the Supreme Court was delivering birthright citizenship. So here we have, you know, this story about who belongs, who is entitled to call themselves an American, and Kansas City coming coming out very forcefully to say, we believe it's all our residents who belong in this community. So we're really proud of that.
Tomás Jiménez: [27:55] Yeah. Thank you for that. So Ian, a minute ago, Rachel mentioned that it's not really a natural muscle for us to flex, to be kind of open to change, especially sudden change, demographic change, cultural change. And I know you're an economist, but I'm going to ask you a kind of cultural question. But Ian's a very broad thinker, economist, and has written broadly about these things. But the social science research suggests that what people are reacting to when they react negatively is not the economic impacts of immigration on their lives. If there's a sense that there's an economic impact, it's on my people, be it Americans, Brits, or, you know, my ethno-racial group. But what they do respond to is cultural change. It's people practicing religions that are unfamiliar, speaking languages that are unfamiliar, having different skin tones, et cetera. So I wonder, and you've taken a very global view in how you have examined immigrant cities in general and immigrant cities as well. So I wonder if you can give us some insight insight about how to manage that kind of cultural chafing that can come with immigration. We've extolled all the virtues, but you know, as Rachel's pointing out, there's some challenges. So I wonder if you could talk about the cultural challenges and what you've seen in your surveying the globe worth of cities in terms of what works.
Ian Goldin: [29:28] Yeah, I think you're absolutely right that there's a total disconnect between what economists populists in general, with one or two exceptions, believe, which is migration's good.
Tomás Jiménez: [29:40] Yeah.
Ian Goldin: [29:40] And there's sort of— on virtually any metric you look at, even the arguments that it undermines wages and all that, they've all been trashed. So— and what voters feel and what's driving populist opinion of the right and the left around. So it's absolutely central to make sense of that. And culture, as a sort of broad basket, is clearly part of the explanation. I think the answer is that societies that have done well, or cities that have done well, are very tolerant. In other words, you're not asking someone to change their religion or their beliefs. Some you might, like, we're not gonna allow polygamy in our society. If you wanna do that, You shouldn't be here. There are some, you know, abide by the law and you'll be okay. And what big cities do, and it's one of the reasons why immigrants tend to cluster in big cities, is they create communities of like-minded people. You can be in this area or in Toronto or London and basically live in your community. You can, with your practices, your traditions, you'll find restaurants that have your food, you'll have shops that specialize in your cuisine, etc., etc. And one of the good things in the US is that there's a celebration of other people's festivals as well, which doesn't, for example, happen in the UK. That people recognize other festivals, religious festivals, or traditional festivals, Diwali or what other. And I think that tolerance is extremely important to get. And it's so interesting to me that the place that's crying out for immigrants now is the Midwest of the US. These mayors in the Midwest— I found that fascinating when I was researching my book. These campaigns, like there were in the 1850s, to find immigrants are now being repeated feated by these cities that are being depopulated by aging and by people moving out. And so I think this, too, will change. If you want immigrants from other places, you need to be tolerant. For many people, it's a strength. You know, you walk around the streets of Mountain View and close your eyes, and you could be in China or India at times, from the language 'What language you hear?' Doesn't freak people out. It's a great thing. It's an asset of the place. And that, I think, comes with time. And for the next generation, it will be even easier, both because the immigrants' cultures will revert more— they'll adopt local customs and habits— and because people will become more tolerant of them.
Tomás Jiménez: [32:29] Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad, Rachel, that, you know, in the context of this, part of the discussion, you brought up rural communities. I think it's really easy for those of us here in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area to think that we somehow have a monopoly on tolerance and being liberal about change. But Ian, as you pointed out, a lot of these cities in the Midwest are kind of calling out for immigrants. They need repopulation. Need the vibrancy of the economy that comes with it. And a lot of these cities, I think, are actually incredibly small cities. Rural cities have actually been incredibly innovative. And I think one of the reasons is that at the city level, there's a pragmatism. There's a notion that we are dealing with people's everyday challenges. We are trying to help people achieve their everyday aspirations. We opened our Flourishing Cities initiative with a conversation between David Holt, who is the mayor of Oklahoma City, and Julián Castro, who is the former mayor of San Antonio and former housing secretary, presidential candidate, Housing and Urban Development secretary. And they agreed on a lot. And one of the things they agreed on is that mayors are pragmatic, and they have problems to solve, and those problems are right in front of them. Them. So I do think this is just a plug for both big and small places. And I think one of the things that is happening in cities is a different version of membership. So we live in a world of nation states. And nation states decide who gets to be a member, who gets to be a citizen. And there's a hard side to that citizenship. It is in our documentation. It's our passports. And that hard side can be powerful in informing how we think about membership socially in everyday life, right? So if the nation-state says people are undocumented, that is not just a legal category. It becomes a social category, how we judge people as insiders and outsiders. But in cities, people are not kind of abstract undocumented or or legal or citizens or not. They are neighbors, they are parents on my kids' soccer team, they are parents in my kids' school, they are coworkers, et cetera. So I wonder if we— I wanna ask you to think about what membership looks like in cities and that kind of soft side, that civic side of citizenship. Membership can teach us about democracy? It's a small question.
Rachel Perić: [35:16] Yeah, small question. Well, I guess it's my belief and experience that the powerful thing that cities and towns can do, especially with such a hostile federal government, is redefine what membership means and do that in a really proactive way. And I think you started this conversation talking about the importance and the power of being bound together as a group and what defines that. And I happen to believe that— and I think many of us in this room believe— that the definition of what binds us together may have cultural attributes. Attributes, but it shouldn't be based on things like race. To define yourself as an American should not be based on race. And many other things, including origin. When my family came to this country, it was the first moment for them that they could be liberated from the idea that your status was completely based on your religion and identity, that you could, you know, come to the U.S. and call yourself an American and be from anywhere in the world. And I think, you know, that is an important thing that we want to hold on to, you know, at a national level. At a community level, I think the power that we hold is to define belonging based on being a member of that community and to be reinforcing that in the way that how do we create people's sense of connection, agency, ownership around decision-making in their community. I think back to my days working in my own community, we had a term, it was the Golden 100, the 100 people in the community of 1 million who were the decision-makers. And, you know, that was fine 30 years ago. But, you know, the missed opportunity is really involving people who currently live in a community in the civic life to feel that sense of agency and ownership of a community. So, just quickly, I think many of our members are really focused on creating, you know, things like an academy to help more newly arrived immigrants understand how local government functions and be able to learn about that and then get involved civically on boards and commissions and be represented in the not just political decision-making, but community decision-making.
Ian Goldin: [37:59] Yeah, Ian. Yeah, I think in addition to the institutional and cultural frameworks, there's a lot of practical things that cities can do. One thing that's to make people feel belonging. One is issuing ID cards. Yes. So that people have a right to access services, libraries, everything else, and also that the police don't harass them. So, you know, that's— I mean, can be a municipal surrogate for federal. Housing is obviously absolutely central to everything. And Palo Alto has done a terrible job in this respect, if I may say so. It's a nice place, but 160 permits for new housing when you have this massive growth, thinking about that issue. So that then leads to public transport, because most of the immigrants have to get here from somewhere else to get their jobs. And for every high-tech worker, there's 5 others that need to get here. In construction, in massages, in meals, in security, in everything else. And where do they live? And who's looking after them? So that sense of belonging is partly like— if you set your framework that you only belong here if you own a house here, well, then you have a big problem with belonging. And if you're only going to have representation if you have property, then that's a representation barrier. For belonging. So I think there's lots of things that can be done around that which are helpful, including creating different boundaries, like San Mateo and San Clara County coming together, for example, in that respect. But then there's all sorts of other things like language and like assimilation. And some of the— I think there's a lot of good case studies on that, as I'm sure Welcome America highlights, you know. And, and some— when you ask immigrants where do they want to be and why, you get the answers for these things very, very quickly. And it's to do with recognition, sense of belonging, but also language schools, job placement centers, lots of other things that go with that, and control of not being harassed. Is very important as well.
Tomás Jiménez: [40:24] So I just want to take a moment. It looks like we're already starting to gather some of the question cards. But if you have a question and you haven't written it down, this would be a good time to do that because we'll flip over into Q&A in just a second. But Ian, you've got me thinking about prescriptions. And so I wonder if each of you could say, ideally one, but if you have a couple of things, something that you have seen, Ian, as a researcher, Rachel, in the practitioner world, something that you've seen that you wish every city would do and that you would want to export up to the federal level? This is, by the way, a question I asked of Mayor Holt and Secretary Castro. And so it was generative, so I'm trying it again. But what is something you've seen that you think is like a model for how things could be done elsewhere, including at the federal level?
Rachel Perić: [41:17] Either one. Yeah. Well, I think all the things that you're describing that enable people's belonging, some of those things happen in the community, but there also has to be a responsibility on government. In local government, one of the most important things that we've seen is the creation of an office if you're a big enough city to have that office or a function, or it has to be somebody's job to make sure that this intentional approach is being taken and to be a champion for the range of policies that need to have this lens. That needs to happen in local government, that needs to happen in state government, and that should be happening at the federal government level, which could then also incentivize more of those efforts at the state and local level.
Ian Goldin: [42:08] I'm very taken by what Mayor Holt is doing. He's a Republican, right? Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things he did, which I think was just so good, was he took out the pictures in the city hall of all the previous 100 white mayors and put in place representatives representatives of the city by demographics and by age and gender and everything else. And so when you walk into the City Hall, you see the city citizens, not the tiny elite representatives. And you feel at home. You feel it's your city. And it's that sort of representation of what constitutes the city, the recognition recognition of what's going to drive its future, which I think successful cities have been very, very good at encapsulating in the way that they run things, the way they message, the way they set up institutions, that they're there for everyone, not just a tiny fraction of the population.
Rachel Perić: [43:14] Yeah.
Tomás Jiménez: [43:15] I think we have some questions pouring in here. And so I will— Take some. Thank you. I want to thank the first person for having good handwriting. This person has two questions. I'm going to read the top one here. What can we learn about cities from the Global South when it comes to including immigrants?
Ian Goldin: [43:44] Is that for me?
Tomás Jiménez: [43:45] Yeah.
Ian Goldin: [43:47] You know, that's a tough question. And it's tough because they obviously don't have the resources, and some of them have very, very high shares of immigrants. So already, very high share of people living in informal settlements don't have supplies of basic infrastructure which we take for granted in the advanced economies. And so there's massive pressure on resources. On the other hand, what what we can take from places that have transitioned from the Global South to wealthier is that immigrants are a very big part of the story. And the most obvious and rather crazy example is Dubai, which is 90% immigrant. Yeah. Dubai would still be an oil-exporting, much, much, much poorer place if it hadn't absorbed people from around the world. It's a sort of extreme case, and it's not democratic, so it's not good for this— for our discussion today. But it does show you that there's no threshold above which immigration becomes a problem, some magic number which has been argued in the past. I think the cities that have been most successful are those that are most dynamic. And you create this virtuous circle where you can create jobs. Where you have high unemployment, and unfortunately this is the case of some cities in my country that I was born in, South Africa, then you can get very nasty rise in xenophobia when you really are struggling over resources, and that puts additional pressures on city leaders. So create jobs. Is really the only way to be a successful city, whether you're poor or rich.
Rachel Perić: [45:38] Maybe if I could just add, you know, as we, as we started doing work in the United States, we, we started encountering other networks of welcoming communities around the world, including in the Global South. And it was very important to us to stay connected with, with them because I think I think there's so much we can learn about how to make migration work well from the Global South, where the scale of migration and the scale of the need for this work around social cohesion, how do you address intergroup relations, bring communities together, I think that there are many, many lessons there. So just as an example, in Brazil, the Brazilian government actually has done what I just described we should do, which is create a federal government-supported network of welcoming communities in Brazil. We, you know, have talked to groups in Nigeria who are really interested, you know, particularly, you know, given the trajectory of the Sahel and just, you know, in just people being displaced there, they're really interested in doing more to support, you know, the, the human connection part of navigating an even more quickly diversifying population. So I think we need to be linking arms and learning from one another as quickly as we can be.
Tomás Jiménez: [47:03] Yeah. Yeah, this next question I think links up to, Ian, some of what you mentioned about Dubai, and I'll just add the Gulf countries in general, which is about social class. So in our discussion, we talked about cultural differences. And how cities manage and even harness the benefits of those cultural differences. But this person wants to know, what about social class? And we think about intergenerational mobility— I'm embellishing on the question a little bit here— but we think about intergenerational mobility in the United States, which has— you know, the rungs on the ladder of that mobility have gone further and further apart. We have levels of economic inequality that we haven't seen in this country in 100 years. 100 years, what about the kind of class mobility angle? I mean, you mentioned housing.
Ian Goldin: [47:52] All right.
Tomás Jiménez: [47:53] I mean, you mentioned housing and the—
Ian Goldin: [47:55] The data is so interesting on social mobility that I've seen. And this is in this book, but also my previous book that I did, which is that the first generation of kids tends to be mobile. They get more educated than their parents, and they get better jobs and better incomes than their parents. The second generation, but then the third generation can revert to the mean. Yeah. So, and that is, it certainly in terms of, and it's true on many other things. It's true on fertility data, for example, as well, that you get the sort of reversion to the country mean as people get more and more assimilated over time. Time intergenerationally. So yes, class is a massive, massive issue, and, and I think that's what's so important when one's thinking about what's driving Silicon Valley or what's driving London and things, that the inequalities within cities are often as great as the inequalities between cities. Now, some economists speak— the future, I think, is going to look even more like that because basically the knowledge economy is replacing the manufacturing and place-based economy. There's no reason for places to be where they used to be. And the only question is, where do people want to be in the future to, to generate knowledge? And that means you're going to get more concentration, and then you're going to have big effects between places and within places. And that's why housing, public transport, schooling, education, those things become absolutely central to addressing this.
Rachel Perić: [49:36] I think one story that that question makes me think of, because absolutely the issue is not immigration, the issue is inequality. Yep. Is what happened in cities like Chicago a couple of years ago when when Governor Abbott was deliberately sending buses of people, and it created real tensions. It created real tensions in the city, and it created real tensions because there were longstanding real claims that people had been treated unfairly and didn't have access to housing, and who were these new folks that were coming in? And taking resources. And many of the longstanding issues that had not been addressed in the community got swept up into that. So all of that then creates this dry kindling. And all it takes is one political opportunist to just throw a match, and that whole thing— which, of course, was the design of that whole busing scheme. So, I think we also have to acknowledge there are these natural tensions, you know, whether they're cultural or class-related in communities. But there are also some really bad actors who, you know, are deliberately using scapegoating to try to create these antagonisms. Because the real threat is if those communities got together and organized for the, you know, resources that they all deserved. I think we would be in a very different place. And that would, yeah.
Tomás Jiménez: [51:14] Yeah, I mean, I'll just add a couple things. So there's a recent paper in Sociological Science, which is housed here at Stanford University, that shows that Trump's vote share increased as a function of the number of immigrants who got bused into that particular city. It wasn't by a ton, but it does show that there's a relationship. Relationship there. And so, you know, some of these tactics worked. You know, however you feel about them, it worked. And, you know, we've talked a little bit about leadership here. And the way that I think about leadership, whether it's at the city level, federal, or state, is that they are a bit like conductors. And they can get— you know, there's lots of ways of thinking about immigration. There's lots of narratives. As I'm thinking in the US context now, about who we are as a country, about the role that immigrants play. And that conductor, the political leaders, can get certain parts of that orchestra to play more loudly than others. And so the opportunism is not just to get people to revolt and show up and vote for a particular candidate, but it's also an opportunity to do the kinds of things that you've mentioned in places like Dayton. So, you know, what do we want or how do we want our leaders to conduct, who do we want them to conduct, and what tune do they want us to play? So, I'm going to— oh, good.
Ian Goldin: [52:39] Yeah, I mean, I think the ability to do that and to play on foreigners plays off material conditions that people are experiencing.
Tomás Jiménez: [52:50] Yeah.
Ian Goldin: [52:50] You know, COVID-19 came from somewhere else. It was a foreign thing. The financial crisis for much of the world, not for some banks in the US, was like an exogenous event. And so a lot of people feel very anxious about the future and very uncertain, and they don't want bad stuff to come from elsewhere. And so it's always been this easy target. And the conductor gets more powerful at certain times.
Tomás Jiménez: [53:19] Yeah.
Ian Goldin: [53:19] When you have that very, very fertile atmosphere. And so the responsibility, I think, on leaders as well is to calm things down, is to like make sure your economy is functioning properly, make sure people don't have those underlying anxieties as much as possible.
Tomás Jiménez: [53:38] Yeah.
Ian Goldin: [53:38] Yeah.
Tomás Jiménez: [53:38] And I mean, Ian, as I think you've pointed out, how a lot of the things that are good for creating welcoming environments are not just good for immigrants. It's not just things we do for some people. It's good for the entire community. So the next question is moving us down to the individual level. And somebody wanted to know what you would recommend for individuals to encourage cities to be places of belonging or welcoming and to encourage narrative change? Maybe, Rachel, I'll throw that at you first. What can individuals do?
Rachel Perić: [54:12] Well, first of all, I want to just take a moment to recognize two individuals from my Welcoming America team, Daniel and Leslie. If you want to just— and if you are interested in doing more, please come talk to one of us. Yeah, I mean, I think all of this work started with committed individuals. So, I never underestimate the power of one person or one leader to change the trajectory of their community. I think, you know, often what happens is a group of people in a community get together and start, you know, pushing, pushing for more than just, you know, reactive policies, but really to, you know, push their elected leaders on the political narrative, you know, how are you talking about this issue? Are you quelling fears in our community? Are you reinforcing people's belonging? We host an event every year. It was started by some of our members in Alabama during this really ugly period of time there. They said, "We don't want people— we want people to know, you know, who our communities really are and what we think is Alabama, and so can we organize this week together?" that shows that we're welcoming and link arms in doing that. And that's now grown into this international event with, you know, thousands of, thousands of events all over the world. And it's really an easy entry point for anyone to participate in an event or organize an event that speaks to this value. And, you know, especially for arts and culture organizations, museums, you know, educational settings where you could host a conversation. There's millions of ways to have a more explicit conversation in words or through art about this value of welcoming and start there to galvanize people.
Tomás Jiménez: [56:08] You had anything to add?
Ian Goldin: [56:10] I think Rachel said it brilliantly.
Tomás Jiménez: [56:14] Okay. We— I'm trying to— we have a question about democracy. On democracy and autocracy that I'm sure we could answer in 30 seconds. We are closing up on time here, so I'll ask one more question and see if we can answer this quickly. Does that sound good? So this is really about immigration and economic growth, although I think we can think about other kinds of growth too, if I can take some time. And liberties. So Ian, you said that cities with higher immigrant share are the most livable cities and that cities with higher anti-immigrant sentiment have also lower immigrant share. So what can we say about immigration that can actually propel economic growth and development which everyone benefits from?
Ian Goldin: [57:05] You know, I just finished reading Sven Beckett, who's a professor at Harvard, David's book called Capitalism. It's 1,300 pages, so I wouldn't recommend you read the whole thing. I need to get some value out of it, and so here we are. I mean, it's a fascinating book, and I quibble with it, but the basic story of capitalism is about people coming together, diverse people coming together. Trading, exchanging, bringing different things to places, and he traces it back to Aden, actually. It could be traced to Baghdad, which was similar, or Istanbul, or many, many other places. It doesn't matter. But that's what capitalism is about.
Tomás Jiménez: [57:52] Mm.
Ian Goldin: [57:52] It's about this serendipitous exchange of things, and Smith much later wrote about it, and others have written about it. That's where growth comes from. It comes from people getting and exchanging things. They specialize, they innovate, others specialize in different ways and innovate, you exchange and you're both better off. But there's also the bigger story that the more you do it, the quicker you grow because you leapfrog, you know. If someone invents the wheel somewhere and they bring it to the US, that's very good. Or they work out how to ride a horse. Or they work out how to make fire. That's the historical story. And by coming together, you share ideas, and suddenly you have all these aha moments and leapfrog. That's why immigration works. The immigrants themselves are exceptional people. They've taken the risks to leave their countries, often enormous sacrifice to themselves and their communities, leaving. Or they're persecuted and they leave. So they are— they sort of self-selected exceptionals. 97% of the world's population does not move. 3% move. So, country. And then when they get there, they're exceptional because they're outsiders. And they have to find ways of thriving and networking and building. And often they do it by starting their own business, which is why half the small businesses companies in the US are started by foreigners, even though they're only 16% of the US population. So, that's the dynamic of capitalism. It's the dynamic of immigration. And you choke it, and you get North Korea. You know, you want to build a wall, you can build a wall, but you have no progress to ideas, to technologies, to people. And, you know, I can sound a bit passionate about it, but I do believe it's pretty central. To what makes economies dynamic and what also gives people their freedom to escape persecution, certain death, as with the Holocaust, people that escaped and the refugees that continue to escape. And I think it's also an ethical issue. We have to decide whether we want people to die by not accepting them in our societies, by letting them drown in the sea or whatever. And that's not only an in our economic benefit, but it's about who we are as humans. And I think it goes much deeper. I don't want to reduce this to, you know, be nice to immigrants because it'll make you richer. It is that, but it's not that as well. It's also about who we are as humans and our ability to cooperate and work together.
Tomás Jiménez: [60:34] Rachel?
Rachel Perić: [60:37] I think whether we're talking about democracy or the economy. There's just, there's two ways to be in the world. Your power comes from diminishing the power of others, or your power comes from enabling the power of others. And I just think that those are the two competing world visions that we're operating in right now, and we can choose. And I hope more people will choose the abundance vision.
Tomás Jiménez: [61:02] We'll leave it on that challenge, and on that note, please join me in thanking Rachel Paraty of Dorwin. Thank you for this rich conversation. Of course, we could have gone on a lot longer. We did, as I often do. I give my students thousands of dollars of free education by keeping them after class has ended. But before I let you go, I do want to say and encourage you to sign up for CASMS's email list if you're interested. If you're not already on their email list and you're interested in other events like this, please do the same for the Institute for Advancing Just Societies. We have an active social media account, we have a, a mail list, and we do some, uh, what I think are pretty innovative and engaging activities. Bob Scott, thank you so much for providing the impetus for us to come together. And, and Laura and CASBS, thank you so much for this partnership, and thank you all for being here. Have a great night.
Narrator: That was Tomás Jimenez, Rachel Perić, and Ian Goldin asking “What can immigrant cities teach us about democracy?”.
As always, you can follow us online or in your podcast app of choice. And if you’re interested in learning more about the center’s people, projects, and rich history, you can visit our website at C A S B S dot Stanford dot E D U.
Until next time, from everyone at CASBS, and the Human Centered team, thanks for listening.