19,000 U.S. Cities Go Global: The National League of Cities and Cities of Migration Project Collaborate to Share Stories of Successful Urban Integration

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National League of Cities (NLC) and Cities of Migration (CoM) are collaborating to promote the successful integration of immigrants into local communities in the United States and internationally. The NLC-CoM partnership represents a new opportunity for success stories from U.S. cities to reach an audience of global city leaders, integration experts and local stakeholders from the public, private and community sectors.

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The strength of the NLC and CoM collaboration will be the joint commitment to a common agenda for inclusive communities and urban prosperity. Among the many activities in the partnership, NLC and CoM will engage in information exchanges, hold joint education efforts, and develop integration programming and learning materials. In particular, the two organizations will use webinars to bring national and international city and community leaders together for virtual city-to-city learning exchanges on good integration practices and strategies for local success.

Driven out of NLC's Center for Research and Innovation, the Municipal Action for Immigrant Integration (MAII) project, is made up of the NewCITYzen Naturalization Campaign and the CITYzenship Community Initiative.

"The Municipal Action for Immigrant Integration project is pleased to collaborate with the Cities of Migration project," says Ricardo Gambetta, NLC's Program Manager for Inclusive Communities. "CoM has a recognized track record of featuring initiatives that promote diversity, inclusive communities and a shared agenda for urban prosperity.  This partnership will allow NLC to plug into best practices and local efforts of immigrant integration on an international level."

Immigrant integration is the process of connecting immigrants with their new communities.  Local officials, community leaders, and ordinary citizens strive to include these new residents at work, school and in local neighborhoods and encourage their participation in the democratic process.  Strong community involvement by immigrants ensures a more inclusive and stable community, reduces crime and poverty and maximizes the social, economic and cultural contribution of the immigrant communities to the life of the city.

NLC will use its networks to help CoM identify other examples of innovative integration strategies and local practice from cities across the United States to share with international stakeholders.

Examples of good ideas in the United States that have already found a global audience through Cities of Migration are the Latino Credit Union in Durham, N.C., which addresses the financial needs of the growing immigrant community and the Boston Back Streets Program that helps immigrant owned businesses thrive in urban environment.

"At Cities of Migration, we believe that diversity is the new mainstream," says Ratna Omidvar, President of Maytree, and CoM founder. "Our work with NLC and the MAII project is an opportunity to build a new consensus on the benefits of immigration, one that brings U.S. cities to the world – and connects them with their global counterparts."

When newcomers succeed, the results are a stronger economy and a more vibrant and inclusive community. When they fail, the results are poverty, segregation and social tension.

However, successful integration cannot happen on its own. While migration and immigration policy are usually determined nationally, the lived reality of settlement and integration is uniquely local and urban. Successful integration requires the participation of local officials, community leaders, businesses, and schools, as well as the less usual actors in sports, the arts, unions, retail and the streets of the city.

About The National League of Cities

The National League of Cities is the nation's oldest and largest organization devoted to strengthening and promoting cities as centers of opportunity, leadership and governance. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans.

The NewCITYzen Naturalization Campaign will highlight the benefits of naturalization. The CITYzenship Community Initiative assists cities in developing an action plan for managing immigrant integration challenges, as well as defining a strategy to increase city government outreach in the immigrant community. The MAII project is supported by the Knight Foundation.

About Cities of Migration

Cities of Migration is led by the Maytree Foundation in Canada, with partners in Germany, Spain, the UK, and New Zealand. It is the first international initiative to connect global cities around shared issues of migration and immigrant integration. Launched in December 2008, the project now regularly reaches 5,500 global integration experts, practitioners and city leaders. In September 2009, Cities of Migration was recognized at a High Level Roundtable of the UN Alliance of Civilizations at UN HQ in New York on the "Inter-Ethnic City." For more information see: www.citiesofmigration.ca.

Established in 1982, Maytree is a private foundation that promotes equity and prosperity. Its focus is on the reduction of poverty in Canada, with a particular focus on immigration, integration and diversity. For more information see: www.maytree.com.

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SOURCE National League of Cities