green beam city

I would be interested if there's more planning and social studies research done on this topic. And as a current planner, would you say there's huge academic support in planning literature for banning or avoiding ethnic enclaves?

Maybe my previous comment took it a bit too far. The analogy between banning ethnic malls and creating internment camps aren't exactly the same. I take it that people who wishes to ban ethnic malls are going to apply this ban indiscriminately towards all races, whereas internment and concentration camps focus on (typically) a specific ethnicity. But I still stand behind my point regarding constitutionality otherwise.

I always thought it was obvious that it is not the planners' role to regulate the users. Urban planning and zoning were developed as a direct response to the incompatible land uses that were leading to private disputes and environmental problems. We give planners the power to limit common law property rights for that rationale: to have some rational plan and approval system that would promote compatible living spaces. In essence, planners get to limit how you exercise your property rights to the extent justified by planning principles. These principles, however, are bound to the scope of land uses and do not apply to the users. Planners are not experts in how people should behave.

And yet, here we are dealing with this exact issue in Calgary. Are there any planning literature and studies that demonstrate ethnic enclaves constitute negative land uses? I suspect the underlying "rationale" for "avoiding" exclusive ethnic development is a rather paternalistic one: to encourage better social-mixing of ethnicity ("for their own good because they obviously don't know better!!"). While that's a noble goal, the mean to achieving that goal is certainly not within a planner's jurisdiction (nor is that of a lawyer, politician...etc).

These ethnic enclaves are a phenomenon worthy of attention as they may be indicators of how ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected in our societies to the point where they feel the need to form enclaves in the first place. Even this characterization may be inappropriate as enclaves do not necessarily mean insufficient integration. Banning ethnic enclaves not only marginalizes ethnic minorities' freedom to locate where they choose (and how they conduct business), but also misses the underlying reason for why ethnic minorities do not share similar living patterns with the "majority".

From my limited knowledge, there is a fair bit of research on how ethnic enclaves diminish the sense of social inclusion and a common identity. This seems almost intuitive.

But the bigger question which seems to be missing is: Are immigrants better off living in ethnic enclaves? I have purposely used the term "better off" vaguely, because there's a multitude of factors to consider, some of which, to me, is very difficult to operationalize-- especially since I'm more of a quantitative researcher.

Do newcomers living in ethnic enclaves adapt better in life in Canada?

Do newcomers living in ethnic enclaves fare better in raising their socio-economic status over time?

Do newcomers living in ethnic enclaves truly have a harder time "assimilating" in mainstream Canadian culture? Inversely, do newcomers not living in ethnic enclaves fare better in "assimilating" in mainstream Canadian culture?

Answering these questions would make a great PhD thesis.

Do you remember our Teaching Assistant in Plan 101, Cecilia Zhuang? Her thesis is on this very topic of ethnic retailing (http://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/3647). I attended her thesis defense, and unfortunately her thesis recommendations provide no "magic" answers to deal with this issue. We simply don't have any legislative power, nor should we have it, to truly be proactive in shaping these developments.

Tiff, you also bring up a good question about social-mixing.

It appears that "integration" is a new buzz work in the field of planning, as we attempt to integrate different land uses (e.g. Transit Oriented Development), integrate different socio-economic groups (e.g. Regent Park developments, rental housing minimum provisions).

These above planning initiatives were undertaken with the assumption that it presents "good planning" and that it would better the community. Certainly I agree that with that it would improve these communities.

Using the above logic, would the forced mixing of "ethnic" stores parallel the intentions of, for example, the Regent Park redevelopment?

Planners surely don't have the capacity to enforce the mixing of "ethnic" stores, and it would certainly not be good for us to be given that power. But the Toronto Official Plan already cites that we should build communities that encourage mixed household incomes.

In other words, could we make a parallel argument that that if we want to encourage the development of mixed income communities for the sake of better social conditions, that it could also be translated to affect change in ethnic communities for the same reason?

Nice comments. A few initial thoughts...

integration v. accommodation is also a hot topic (as always) in constitutional law and political theories. almost always the conversation revolves around ethnic conflicts in troubled world (think...Pakistan, Sri Lanka, etc.). Not knowing too much about the topic, I am only aware of some of the usual proposed solutions and they include redesigning the institutional framework with power-sharing arrangement and constitutional recognition for ethnic minorities status in a region...

But it seems like the solutions proposed in these deeply divided societies usually avoid imposing restrictions on ethnic groups. That seems intuitive, too: any solution dealing with identities ought to respect a group's right to determine its own identity. The solutions should be empowering (so that the group may formulate the ultimate solution using the tools given) rather than imposed.

I reckon that these legal scenarios are not the same as the ones in the planning context. But I feel like solutions that encourage ethnic diversity and harmony should recognize the right for any ethnic minority's right to self-determination.

And that ought to include the right to freely locate its businesses and its residences. Rather than doing it through zoning which essentially predetermines (or limits) the range of geographical location an ethnic business has to choose from, the government should consider using tools that empower ethnic groups so they may choose to integrate with the society in the manners that they so choose. Another reason why we may not wish to employ zoning/ OP as a mean to encourage integration is the definition of ethnic business. What constitutes an "ethnic enclave"? Is a plaza with several businesses run by third-generation Italian Canadians considered an ethnic enclave? Are businesses with English-only signage "mainstream"? Are we measuring ethnicity by the level of visual integration with mainstream society? And in a multicultural society such as ours, how do we differentiate between ethnicities that have integrated successfully from those we deem not integrated? Seems like this exercise can only be done based on visuals: we identify ethnic enclaves based on the language of the signage and the skin colour of the business patrons and owners. Would a shopping plaza that look culturally non-specific suffice or do you have to look "Canadian" aka "white, anglo saxon/ french/ irish / italian/ greek/ polish/ insert_any_other_western_ethnicities"? are we going to set a quota for maximum number of Chinese patrons for a given retail area to avoid creation of an ethnic enclave?

I feel as if a policy discouraging ethnic enclave would in effect impose an inordinate burden on the non-western minorities business owners to justify their "mainstream-ness" through the planning process. This linedrawing exercise can easily become another state-enforced discrimination based on race.

This brings me to the premise of your argument: "there is a fair bit of research on how ethnic enclaves diminish the sense of social inclusion and a common identity. This seems almost intuitive."

This only seems intuitive if you are not part of the ethnic minority living within the enclave. With respect, I would challenge the study that can empirically demonstrate the truth of the above premise. I suspect one's sense of social inclusion in an enclave would vary depending on who you're talking to. Are we referring to the white families living in Markham? Does the sense of inclusion of ethnic minorities not matter in community planning? How come no one questions the underlying reason for why we have the enclaves? My understanding was that the ethnic business enclaves were formed to follow where the ethnic minorities were residing. The two factors then reinforce each other. ("the chicken and egg conundrum?") So an OP policy that truly wishes to create a visually multicultural business landscape would probably have to first prevent any racial conglomeration in residential area in the first place. How would you enforce such a policy?

So on that note, I do not see a parallel between the OP policies that encourage mixed social income development and OP policies that encourage mixed ethnicity. That's because the former actually is associated with certain types of land uses (e.g. low income housing, social services) and the latter does not. I cannot fathom an OP that would define "ethnic businesses" as a land use category. I think this goes back to my initial concern about the limits to the authority and jurisdiction of planners.

FYI:
My cousin commented on this post, but over on my blog. That's one problem with the Internet.

Tiff, you bring up a good point about now anyone can develop policy to integrate cultural groups and disintegrate "ethnic businesses.

I hope to touch on that in a later blog entry.