TY - JOUR
AU - Zhang, Lijuan
AB - Immigration is a topic of enduring interest. In addition, immigrant communities, as cultural, economic and political emblems, have always existed in global cities. Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Cities: Global Perspectives, edited by Prof. Cathy Yang Liu, provides a comprehensive insight into the experiences of immigrant entrepreneurs in 13 diverse urban cities across five continents. This book employs a traditionally comparative approach to analyze the economic and development differences between the Global North and the Global South. One of its key innovations, however, is the theoretical framework used to explore emerging economies like South Africa and Brazil. By reading this book, readers can gain a panoramic and brand-new understanding of immigrant entrepreneurship in some immigrant cities. In their opening words of Part I, Lauren W. Forbes and Cathy Y. Liu introduce the connections between global cities and economic patterns using the theoretical framework of comparative analysis and transnational immigration studies. In the aftermath of WWII, Sydney, the fourth greatest immigrant city in the contemporary world, introduced large-scale settler immigration programs that saw it accept people from countries, such as Korea, Lebanon, etc., and refugees from Iraq and Syria. Unlike late immigrants (the post-1997) to Hong Kong, Sydney has witnessed several generations of family immigration who have brought distinctive lifestyles and business careers. Korean immigrants in Sydney have succeeded in building the intergenerational businesses such as restaurants, supermarkets and hotels. By contrast, indigent refugees or humanitarian immigrants from Africa have found it harder to start businesses because they are more poorly educated. By the authority of the Chinese Central Government, Hong Kong, as a global intermediary in entrepôt trade, experienced an economic boom, which motivated many local people and attracted many British, Americans and Austrians to establish their businesses since its handover in 1997. However, this boom relied upon large numbers of low-paid laborers from South Asian nations like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Comparatively speaking, on the other side of the world, European and American cities, like Barcelona, Paris, New York, El Paso and Washington, DC, reveal the varying ecology of immigration communities. Asian and African immigrants participate widely in the food service market in Barcelona and Paris. Their particular national and ethnic foodstuffs bring people together in the urban neighborhoods but can create the derisive name of ‘commercial ghettoes’ that are separate from the white mainstream but serve as a conduit for Europeans to know about the communities. On the other hand, besides trans-pacific Asian immigrants like Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Vietnamese and Filipinos to the USA, Hispanic immigration from countries, such as Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, also make up a significant share of immigration to the USA owing to their proximity to the US border. It is notable that, according to the figures of the US Census Bureau, of the 1,050,911 firms in New York City, 51 percent of them are minority-owned (p. 102). Furthermore, in New York City, successful self-employed Hispanic businesspeople are also key players in the ethnic leadership in the city, advocating for working-class immigrants and maintaining good relationship with local politicians and with mestizo elites in New York’s professional sphere (p. 104). This resonates with similar cases of Mongolians, Nepalese, Salvadorans, Ethiopians and Eritreans in Washington, DC, who have developed livelihoods as street peddlers, bakers or small restaurant owners. In the subsequent part, the four contributors provide four case studies. Despite outbreaks of xenophobia in South Africa in the 1990s, migrants from within Africa and other international immigrants have fostered the entrepreneurship in Gauteng since 1990s. During this time, formal business space like retailing was reshaped as massive new shopping malls sprung up, while informal sectors or unregistered businesses, like hair-dressing, shoe repair and beadwork, began to prosper in the suburban areas. Insufficient start-up capital for the informal African business people limited their business expansion and success, while competition from the international-migrant entrepreneurs with greater professional and managerial expertise further undermined the informal entrepreneurs. However, the dark side of the thriving immigration business was that South Africans held negative attitudes toward immigrants even though they promoted the local economy and social development. It is widely acknowledged that the case of Semarang, Central Java and Indonesia serves as an example of innovation in micro- and small enterprises’ cluster formation and development. This is so because Arabic, Chinese and Indian migrants have acted as an exogenous factor in the industry cluster dynamics in the city since the 1990s. As one of most important Chinese-inhabited areas, Semarang has developed a lasting and highly effective local economic development pattern on the basis of a benign interconnectedness among migrants (entrepreneurships), (governmental) industrial institutions and local markets. Chapter 8 analyzes Amsterdam and Toronto, two cities that have boasted of their multiculturalism, hospitable business environment and lenient immigration policies. The fact that new immigrants have found a niche is of great importance since the turn of the 21st century because a niche market allows them to profit from the existing demand for English-speaking immigrants and avoids competition from other entrepreneurs. Besides those Western newcomers, immigrants from Morocco, Surinam and Turkey have taken advantage of their experiences of travel and living in Holland to promote intra-ethnic business connections. This helps to build bridges across nationalities and brings new goods and services to the local market. Furthermore, the impact of immigrant entrepreneurs in Toronto is huge because the ethnic retail clusters have not only sprouted across the inner city but also speckled suburban landscapes (p. 194). The prototypical economic drive of ethnic entrepreneurship has shaped a new locality or place-making, while collective business activities also support a community’s claim to a new streetscape. Put another way, this kind of spatial concentration of ethnic businesses creates a form of ‘spatial capital’, which can be conducive to processes of commercialization and ethnic enclaves. However, it should also be noted that urban planning must take multicultural demands into account because the urban immigration enclaves should build relationships with other urban areas in the city because a segregated community that is initially an enclave can over time slide toward becoming a ghetto (Abrahamson, 2020, p. 141). The final part of the book analyzes a number of cases ranging from New York Flushing’s immigrant-owned businesses to a succinct introduction to the purpose of American EB-5 (Employment Based Fifth Preference) immigration program. In the era of Michael Bloomberg’s mayoralty (2001–2013), his five-borough economic development plan, including the 2004 Downtown Flushing Framework, rezoned and repurposed the industrial infrastructure for luxury residential and recreational uses, which later induced a bifurcated enclave economy and, in some cases, the demise of small business owners due to the huge injection of global capital into the area. A former ‘blighted’ suburban downtown was transformed into an international center of cultural consumption and real estate start-ups. Major transnational property owner-developers like F & T Group, Young Nian Group LLC, United Construction and Development have ‘gentrified’ Flushing but have also cruelly ‘torn’ down the life of the immigrant workers, who had partially taken up temporary, informal and dangerous jobs. Historically, global new immigrants tended to assemble in developed countries; however, the new immigrant communities are increasingly establishing themselves in the newly rising political economies of Asia and Africa. Unlike most immigrants to North America, Europe and Oceania, Chinese people in Africa and African immigrants in Vietnam, respectively, have represented a new wave of grass roots entrepreneurship. Twenty-first century labor market complementarity among countries, like China, Thailand and within countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, has spurred urbanization because the mobility of international migrants has helped to fill employment and business niches in urban areas. Dynamic, adventurous, and with relatively high skills in football, African experts and professionals, to some extent, have contributed to the social, economic and cultural exchanges in Ho Chi Minh. More recently, immigrants to the Global South are gaining strength; however, the structural contradictions between the Global North and the Global South seem so striking that we need to take heed of the expanding gap. Historically, US immigration law, such as Public Law 101-649 (1990), was passed to absorb immigrants due to political reasons, restoring the stagnating national or local economy. By conferring economic citizenship, the USA succeeded in shaking off the economic downturn and in boosting the regional and fixed-point economic growth. This book addresses an impressive range of immigrant-related issues from urban immigration space, business niche to immigration communities and multiple entrepreneurships in global cities. Besides the traditional immigrants to Europe and North America, new immigration trends have begun to emerge in developing countries in Asia and Africa, which facilitate the formation of new global communities. Africa and Asia are variegating the global migration picture. New immigrants and immigration communities in Asia and Africa will inspire even more research. Their emergence is likely to become a crucial area in global urban studies. Over time, on the basis of immigrant entrepreneurship research, new research paradigms and frames for interpretation will hopefully start to take shape, and in doing so, will displace North America-centered theory or Eurocentrism. Funding This review article is fully sponsored by Major National Philosophy and Social Science Fund (titled “A Study of Transition in Global Urbanization in the 20th Century”) (Ref. 16ZDA139). Reference Abrahamson , M. ( 2020 ) Globalizing Cities: A Brief Introduction , Routledge , London and New York . Google Scholar Google Preview OpenURL Placeholder Text WorldCat COPAC © Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. 2022. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Cities: Global Perspectives
JF - Community Development Journal
DO - 10.1093/cdj/bsac008
DA - 2022-04-22
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/immigrant-entrepreneurship-in-cities-global-perspectives-bJDmEWlPU6
SP - 719
EP - 723
VL - 58
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -