The World in a City.

Viswanathan, Leela

The World in a City. Paul Anisef and Michael Lanphier, eds. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. 544 pp. $70.00 hc, $35.00 sc.

Toronto has been touted as the most ethnically diverse city in Canada, if not the world. The Worm in a City, edited by Anisef and Lanphier, provides insight into the histories of immigration, socio-demographic characteristics, and experiences of belonging of various ethnic communities in Toronto. The aim of this book is to provide insight into "the settlement and integration of immigrants in Toronto" through a framework of social inclusion and exclusion (p. 12). The authors draw on seven characteristics of exclusion first identified by G. Rodgers in his 1995 work, "What is special about a social exclusion approach?" (In Social Exclusion: Rhetoric, Reality, Responses, published by the International Labour Organization). These include exclusion from: goods and services, labour markets, land, security, human rights, and macro-economic development strategies. Lanphier and Anisef offer an eighth, namely, "[e]xclusion from (regaining) identity, including problems of mental health and loss of community" (p. 10). Toronto is presented by the editors as a "complex metropolis" which has been affected not only by systemic factors related to global flows of migration, but by state policies of economic development, housing, employment, education, health, and settlement services.

Each of the ten chapters addresses aspects regarding the "integration and accommodation" of immigrants in Toronto, as well as the role of government policies affecting immigrants. The book culminates in a summary of the policy implications drawn from previous chapters of the book, and the editors call for the co-operation of all levels of government to break down the barriers blocking immigrants from socioeconomic opportunities and access to social service supports.

Following the editors' introduction, the book opens with an overview of Toronto's post-World War II immigration history. In chapter one, Troper focuses on the ways in which immigration policy has intended to welcome immigrants in Canadian cities. He also points to the contradictions between restrictive regulations on immigration and the organizational and institutional practices that attempt to accommodate the reality of pluralism in Toronto. In the second chapter, Jansen and Lam build on Troper's historical overview and provide a socio-demographic analysis of immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area from the post-war period to the 1990s. In chapter three, Murdie and Teixeira explore the residential and spatial patterns of immigrant settlements in Toronto. The authors contrast settlement choices with the constraints facing immigrants in such choices, and in doing so, the authors reveal a story of how segregation (for example, ethnic enclaves) has unfolded in the city in some cases. Preston, Lo, and Wang explore the economic drivers of immigration that have been linked to federal immigration policies in the fourth chapter. The authors focus on the labour market integration of immigrants during the period from 1971 to 1996 and reveal the role of social stratification and gender differences in the labour market outcomes of immigrants. The educational system is the focus of James and Burnaby's analysis in chapter five. Here the authors note how schools can provide ample evidence of programs and policies that promote the inclusion of immigrants and refugees, but that very little is known about the impact of these policies, both on the school system as a whole and on the individuals and groups within them. In chapter six, Noh and Kaspar highlight the link between immigration and health and the generational differences in health outcomes of immigrant parents versus their Canadian-born children. Following Scardello's photo essay in chapter seven, Seimiatycki, Rees, Ng, and Rahi provide examples of the mobilization, "civic determination, and activism" of new immigrants in Toronto, and the subsequent impact on the development and delivery of services to newcomers (in particular, immigrant women) in chapter eight. The penultimate chapter identifies state policies that have an impact on immigrants; Burstein and Duncan identify particular policy areas such as education and training that require improvements in order to better integrate immigrants into society and offer new areas for immigration research.

The World in a City is useful to academics and researchers interested in how historically systemic factors, such as international immigration and national policies, have socially and spatially impacted on Toronto. This book provides a fairly comprehensive look into the historical, socio-demographic, and economic elements surrounding the integration of these immigrant groups and the relationship between immigrant integration and state policy; however, very little mention is made regarding the politics of immigrant integration, that is, the various claims made by immigrant groups on the state through informal mechanisms, especially given that new immigrants and refugees lack formal citizenship in Canada. While the essays in this edited volume emphasize how governments largely place the onus on immigrants to integrate, the book does not provide insight into how cities are transformative spaces largely due to increases in immigrant populations. That is to say, governments are implicated in their responses to increases in urban immigrant populations, while immigrants also transform the relations between the state and civic society.

Leela Viswanathan

Faculty of Environmental Studies

York University

Email: viswanle@yorku.ca