Making a Place that Looks Like Us: Youth and the Intercultural City

The cities of Europe are becoming rapidly more diverse in their culture and ethnicity. This is an irreversible fact of life. All too often, however, it seems that for local and national authorities this is at best a complication to be managed, and at worst a potential threat to be regulated and confronted.
Is it hopelessly idealistic to think that we might also see diversity as an asset and an opportunity? Often it is the NGOs who are dealing with the real issues at street level of how citizens, local and recently-arrived, can find a way of living together and enriching each other’s lives. And it is amongst young people where lies the greatest potential to forge a new kind of citizenship which both respects people’s distinctiveness while building a common intercultural space for all. Phil Wood will draw upon examples from the UK and around the world of how this is happening.