HOPEFUL PLACES: Migration and belonging in an unpredictable era

"Low income, poor education and related difficulties" diminish the lives of native-born and immigrant, and remain largely unaltered by an emphasis on cultural retention and national migration policy. Perhaps in the end, Gans's criterion remains the only useful measure of migration policy, and a sense of belonging; that regardless of official statements about multiculturalism or embrace of difference, and in the face of continued marginality, a successful settlement is one that survives as "by and large a good place to live".
- From the Introduction