Plan for a Dynamic Future

By embracing global migration and incorporating human flows into urban planning, adaptive cities prepare, transform, and thrive in the face of a dynamic future.

The majority of migrants move to cities, often overwhelming municipal and humanitarian agencies unprepared for their absorption. Ineffective management of new populations can exacerbate existing stresses and lead to disruptions of a city’s interdependent systems and services. A city’s resilience depends on addressing migration as a fundamental part of the city’s ecosystem, in tandem with transportation, economic development, and other traditional elements of urban planning.

Understanding this, forward-looking cities are institutionalizing migration policies as permanent features of their planning process. The most effective strategies include the incorporation of migration considerations into the design of key services and infrastructure, the formation of departments for immigrant affairs, the application of the migration lens to city-wide master plans and resilience strategies, and developing more granular data collection to better improve integration initiatives.

Some cities have more autonomy to achieve these strategies than others, but all must account for the day-to-day management of migration and are uniquely positioned to do so even, or especially, in the absence of a national framework.

Explore the strategic approaches below:

1. Incorporate migration considerations into the design of key services and infrastructure

2. Establish a city-level office dedicated to the successful integration of newcomers

3. Incorporate migration considerations into city-wide plans and resilience strategies

4. Develop more granular and coordinated data collection to improve integration initiatives

Download the full Global Migration: Resilient Cities at the Forefront report here.