DOES INTERCULTURALISM MAKE CITIES MORE SUCCESFUL?
(7 February 2005)

A pioneering new research project, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, challenges all cities to rethink their policies on cultural diversity if they aspire to be successful and competitive. The project, called 'The Intercultural City: Making the Most of Diversity' will take place in cities across the UK, in Europe and in Australia throughout 2005, ending with an international conference to be held in the UK in March 2006, offering practical recommendations on how cities should be run.

Bristol is the first UK city to sign up to the project will explore the extent to which cultural diversity is a source of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship and how it can become a positive force releasing new energy and resources for the development of cities. It will identify the processes and the key actors and how can they be better understood and planned by city authorities.

The project will seek answers to the following questions:

* What are the factors that make some cities more competitive, innovative and better to live in than others?

* Throughout history, cities with a high level of cultural diversity have often been the most creative and innovative, but why?

* What happens when people of different cultures interact and how does this lead to new thinking?

* Are there special sets of conditions or particular types of people or organisations who make intercultural exchange more likely?

* What should cities be doing to encourage more of this?

The project advisory group for The Intercultural City: Making the Most of Diversity includes Professor Waqar Ahmad, Middlesex University; Professor Ash Amin, Durham University, Department of Geography; Sir Bernard Crick; Professor Sir Peter Hall; Dr David Janner-Klausner, Local Government Information Unit; Keith Khan, The Rich Mix Project Office; Ranjit Sondhi; Ruth Turner; Hamza Viyani; Joy Warmington.

The project will also incorporate parallel research in several international locations which will enable the team to make comparative analysis of the UK findings. The will be a series of city case studies in Australia (Melbourne and Brisbane), New Zealand (Auckland) and Norway (Oslo, Kristiansand and Drammen). In Bristol the research will identify 90 people with intercultural influences: 30 from the city's past, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel whose father was French; 30 who are currently shaping the city today and 30 who may become the shapers of Bristol's future. Bristol's strengths and weaknesses as an intercultural city will be highlighted, with recommendations for its public and private institutions in making Bristol an open, diverse and cosmopolitan place.

Charles Landry, Director of Comedia, the research companuy behind the project, commented "Multiculturalism as a policy has worked in Britain for many years but its time has now passed. Our experience strongly indicates that greater diversity in cities is inevitable and those cities that deal with it seriously and positively will succeed: it takes more than a few festivals and an exotic collection of restaurants to be a cosmopolitan city. We feel that The Intercultural City will completely break the tired mould of multiculturalism by suggesting new ways that cities should be developed, to make life better for everyone who lives in them."

Ranjit Sondhi CBE, said "This project is critical to our understanding of the role diversity plays in creating great cities. It is a long-held belief that diversity provides new ways of thinking, energy, inventiveness and wealth but no-one has really unpicked how and why that should be the case. The Intercultural City project will be a tipping point in the debates around multiculturalism and interculturalism: issues that touch everyone's lives".

Bristol Cultural Development Partnership's Andrew Kelly commented "Bristol is a successful city region with an enviable track record in innovation and creativity. We want to understand the significance of interculturalism in our past successes so that we can continue to grow and attract creative and innovative people. We know that the future of the city will be based on creativity, knowledge, and creative people for both wealth creation and quality of life. This research will help us move towards being an even more attractive place for people to live and work in".

Further information about The Intercultural City can be found at www.interculturalcity.com.