Keywords

1 Introduction

Suburbanisation as a global phenomenon has presented multifaceted patterns of evolution and transformation in various contexts. As Keil (2018, p. 4) argues, ‘We live on a suburban planet’, yet the suburban environments are shaped in remarkably differentiated ways. Global suburbanisation take many different forms, including but not limited to the typical low density, single-family-home dominated suburban sprawl in many North American cities, high-rise housing in European and some Canadian cities, urban villages, new towns and vertical suburbs in the peripheries of Chinese metropolises, squatter settlements in the Global South, and peripheral expansion, informal settlement, and new centralities in African cities forming a world of suburbs we live in (Keil, 2013, 2018; Mabin, 2013; Nijman, 2013; Wu, 2013). These different suburban built forms and various processes of suburbanisation suggest that the term ‘suburb’ could have different meanings attached to it and can be understood in multiple dimensions. For example, a twentieth-century suburb was characterised as a settlement in a peripheral location, partly (or wholly) residential, with low density due to cheaper land, a distinctive way of life, and a separate community identity (Harris & Larkham, 1999, p. 8). Yet, suburbs and the associated meanings are evolving with time and geographic location. Contemporary suburbanisation is conceptualised as ‘the combination of non-central population and economic growth with urban spatial expansion’ (Ekers et al., 2012, p. 407), and manifested in various built forms and densities, demographic compositions, economic activities, and governance structures (Phelps, 2017).

Suburban population and economic growth are often driven by (im)migration, a process that is in juxtaposition of the planetary suburbanisation. Global migration is a significant demographic trend across the world, with 3.6% (281 million) of the world’s population living outside their country of birth in 2020 despite travel restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic (Natarajan et al., 2022). Europe and Asia were home to the most migrants, with 86.7 and 85.6 million respectively. However, immigrants in North America make up a larger share of the population (15.7%) than those in Europe (11.6%) and Asia (1.8%). The United States has 50.6 million international migrants, the largest share than any other country by a wide margin, whereas Canada takes up eight million migrants (ibid.). Within this North American context, immigrants have increasingly been settling in suburban areas in recent decades. In the US, the majority of immigrants (61%) live in suburbs (Singer et al., 2011). In Canada, the suburbanisation trend of immigration has also intensified. According to the 2011 census, the three major gateway cities – Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal – showed a significant suburbanisation rate, i.e., the proportion of immigrants living in a peripheral municipality, of 51%, 72%, and 33%, respectively (Statistics Canada, 2017). This trend has been observed in Europe and Australia, among other regions, such as the subcity districts in Berlin, the boroughs of London, and the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne (Eurostat, 2016; Phelps, 2017; Forrest et al., 2017). Migrant suburbs in Chinese cities also ‘illustrate a case where diverse population and types of [suburban] development are juxtaposed’ (Shen & Wu, 2013, p. 1823).

The suburbanisation trend of immigration has been driven by a variety of ‘pull’ factors, including the availability of affordable housing, job opportunities, schools, safety, and proximity to established ethnic communities (Alba & Nee, 2003; Wilson & Svajlenka, 2014), as well as ‘push’ factors such as racial exclusion and gentrification-induced displacement (Hulchanski, 2010; Keil, 2018; Tzaninis, 2020). The spatial settlement patterns are generally manifested in either ethnic concentration in specific neighbourhoods or housing developments, such as the so-called ethnoburbs coined by Li (2009), or dispersion throughout the area as a way of spatial assimilation (Forrest et al., 2017; Zhuang, 2019, 2021). These spatial patterns can vary over time and can differ depending on many factors, such as the location, the size of immigrant communities, group characteristics, and receptivity of the host society and infrastructure.

On one hand, immigration has had a significant impact on the demographic makeup and economic and cultural landscapes of suburban areas, such as greater ethnocultural diversity of the local population and increased immigrant-owned businesses and cultural amenities and services (Liu & Jeong, 2022; Zhuang et al., 2015; Zhuang, 2019, 2021). On the other hand, while (im)migrants are rapidly suburbanising, residential segregation has increased in metropolitan areas across the US, among other countries (Alba & Foner, 2015; Farrell, 2016; Wu, 2013). Socio-spatial exclusion further deepens the marginalisation of migrant communities who are trapped in disadvantaged suburban locations with downward mobility (Shen, 2017). Unlike central cities that are more likely to adopt sanctuary policies, some suburban communities have resisted the influx of immigrants and implemented policies to restrict their settlement along with anti-immigration political rhetorics (Forrest et al., 2017; Leitner & Preston, 2011). Additionally, immigrants may face systemic discrimination and challenges in accessing resources and opportunities and participating in decision-making, raising concerns about social justice and rights to the city (Edge et al., 2020; Kim & Bozarth, 2021; Loewen, 2005; Lung-Amam, 2020; Vitiello, 2014; Zhuang, 2021).

In sum, migrant settlements in suburban spaces just add more complexities to suburbia by bringing diverse demographics, (inter)cultural practices, new built forms, and new meanings of space and community. These migrant spaces challenge conventional suburban socio-spatial organisations of land, infrastructure, and resources, as well as suburban governance, planning, and design. The manifestations of migrant suburbs where diversity and urban growth are juxtaposed inevitably present profound implications for governments, practitioners, and academics in a myriad of ways, such as changing land uses and physical forms (e.g. neighbourhood characters, heritage preservation), competing claims for space and rights to the city (e.g. who has the access), and increasing awareness of equity and social inclusion (e.g. who belongs to and in the community). Despite the established suburban settlement trajectory, there is still a lack of knowledge about how diversity is manifested at the suburban neighbourhood level, how immigrant settlement patterns are transforming suburban spaces, or how municipalities and the host societies should respond to promote inclusive community-building. As a result, understanding the patterns and nuances of immigrant settlement in suburbs is crucial for policymakers and practitioners who aim to promote the integration and well-being of immigrants and their host societies.

This chapter draws on the research work in this volume by Cathy Yang Liu and Rory Renzy (Chap. 9), Jie Shen (Chap. 10), and Carlos Teixeira and Anabel L. Salinas (Chap. 11) that explore the migration-related suburbanisation processes in different contexts (i.e., the US, Shanghai, Vancouver) to cast light on the narratives of everyday suburban life, diversity management, growth and development, policy and governance, and socio-spatial (in)equity and (in)justice. Specifically, the above chapters address many imperative issues around suburban migration in terms of housing, employment and entrepreneurship opportunities, access to services, social networks, and public infrastructure (e.g. transit). The various settlement needs are primary to migrants and interrelated in their everyday suburban life, but unfortunately are often neglected in the peripheries due to limited access to resources and opportunities, segregation and isolation, and the lack of migrant-oriented and culturally-responsive policies, infrastructure, and services. It raises the following critical questions. What are the systemic barriers that prevent us from understanding migrants’ needs, and thus creating welcoming and inclusive communities to support migrants’ settlement and integration in the suburbs? How do race, class, ethnicity, gender, or other forms of diversity play out in shaping migrants’ lived experiences and their socio-economic integration outcomes in the suburban context? How do we reconcile the competing needs of diversity in the rapid process of suburban growth and transformation? What are the policy implications for suburban municipalities and policymakers to tackle inequitable access to resources and services in suburbs?

Given that the meanings of suburbs and the processes of suburbanisation vary in a myriad of ways, there is no one-size-fits-all template to address these questions. Rather, this chapter adopts Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of the production of space as a theoretical framework to unpack the nuances of migrant suburbanisation and the varied lived experiences; help researchers, policymakers, and the hosting societies gain a better understanding of migrants’ perceived and lived experiences in suburbia; interrogate the juxtaposed realities (both challenges and opportunities) of migration and suburbanisation; and further explore migrants’ agency and rights to the city. It concludes with several implications for suburban planning for and with immigrants.

2 A Theoretical Framework: The Production of Space in Immigrant Suburbs

Henri Lefebvre’s (1991) seminal book The Production of Space explores how space is mentally, socially, and physically produced, reproduced, and transformed in society, and how it is used to reinforce social relations of power. Lefebvre provided a three-part, triadic model for the assessment of the production of space, which argued that space (e.g. the built environment) is not simply a physical structure for spatial practice where people encounter in urban reality and during daily routine, but is socially constructed by diverse, human experiences and abstractly controlled and conceived by a dominant class or the experts (e.g. scientists, planners, architects, developers, technocrats, engineers, etc.). He distinguished perceived, conceived, and lived spaces (in spatial terms: spatial practice, representations of space, representational spaces) that encapsulate the social production of space; that is, the contention between the technocratically-planned, conceived, and perceived construction of space with the differences of the subjective lived-experiences of those in the lived-space. He also emphasised that ‘the lived, conceived and perceived realms should be interconnected, so that the “subject”, the individual member of a given social group, may move from one to another without confusion – so much is a logical necessity’ (ibid., p. 40).

More simply, the theory regards the notion that space is implicitly controlled and planned by a dominant class, ‘all of whom identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived’ (ibid., p. 38), but has differential impacts on people’s everyday life, thus asserting that the organisation of space can affect people’s mobility, access to resources and amenities, and participation in social and political life. Lefebvre further posited that society’s spatial organisation reflects and reinforces social hierarchies and inequalities. Therefore, the understanding of space is a crucial element of political and social struggles, and social relations of power, as it shapes the possibilities for resistance and change.

It is worth noting that Lefebvre’s work was composed during a context where the heterogeneity of cities was relatively less stark than the contemporary context of global migration and diversity. An intersectional lens, in particular through race and ethnicity, ought to be considered when evaluating the theory of the production of space (McCann, 1999). Intersectionality was conceptualised by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) to recognise the intersection of race and gender in converging disadvantage and oppression. Intersectionality is particularly relevant under the context of migration and suburbanisation due to ethnocultural diversification of the demographics through immigration, although some of the suburbs may not necessarily be as diverse as central cities.

Existing research on migrant suburbs highlights settlement and integration as a multi-scalar process. For instance, the policy (macro-level) implications at various levels of government have been attested to evaluate the management of migrants in suburbs (Walker, 2014). On a more local level, researchers have empirically examined community (meso-level) factors that contribute to migrant suburbanisation such as housing accessibility (Teixeira, 2017; Salinas & Teixeira, 2022) to the role of community organisations and spaces (Lo et al., 2015; Mukhtar et al., 2016). Attention to individual (micro-level) and subjective/lived experience factors that impact suburban settlement and integration is emerging (Dean et al., 2018; Kim & Bozarth, 2021; Salinas & Teixeira, 2022) while, notably, studies tend to focus on specific groups’ characteristics and experiences.

There is a lack of an integrative approach synthesising and integrating the macro-, meso-, and micro-level factors to better understand the epistemological underpinnings of migrant settlement and integration in suburbs. The theory of production of space offers a relevant theoretical framework to understand how spaces in migrant suburbs are conceived as a result of planning policies and processes at the macro-level, perceived in daily encounters and spatial practices at the meso-level, and lived through actual human experiences at the micro-level. This multi-scalar framework contributes to the understanding of the gaps between suburban planning, settlement, and integration services, and cultivating a sense of belonging through the actual lived experiences and agency of migrants. This may provide practical considerations to better improve the process and outcome of suburban planning and implement physical and social infrastructure needed to support migrant settlement and integration. The following sections will elaborate more on how to apply the triad lens of space to interrogate the interactions of migration, settlement, integration, and suburbanisation.

3 Unpacking the Conceived Suburban Space and the Inherent Socio-spatial Segregation

Lefebvre’s theory lends itself to an understanding of how the suburb was first conceived as ‘an ideal, the good life: it was harmonious, predictable, and secure, and change was not a part of that dreamy constellation’ (Nijman, 2013, p. 162). Under this abstract and imaginary representation, North America as the ‘birthplace of the prototypical twentieth-century suburbs’ (ibid.) has witnessed an accelerated process of suburbanisation after World War II, with the relocation of industries, economic activities, jobs, and middle-class nuclear families from the central city. Duany et al. (2010, p. 6) defined the five components of suburban sprawl that are strictly segregated from each other: housing subdivisions, shopping centres, office parks, civic institutions, and roadways because ‘suburbs are designed based on the assumption of massive automotive transportation’. As a result, suburbs are typified with low-density, car-dependent, and segregated land use development patterns, where single-family homes characterised by detached houses on large lots are often separated from commercial or industrial uses. Shopping centres, strip malls, and big boxes are prevalent retail forms mainly accessible by automobiles.

The cookie-cutter zoning regulations in suburbs have led to a fragmented, homogeneous, and car-dominated landscape coupled with inadequate public transit and limited access to public amenities and services. Historically, suburban space was conceived by the dominant building industry, regulatory authorities, capitalists, and state power. As Nijman (2013, p. 165) pointed out, ‘suburbanisation was the business of an extremely powerful industrial conglomerate that employed (and helped generate) the American suburban imaginary to full effect’, which included huge corporations, local ‘growth machines’ (e.g. developers, builders, banks), local governments that regulate land uses and sometimes direct subsidies, and the federal government ‘that was central to the financing of homeownership, the construction of highways, and that in various ways espoused suburban ideologies’.

Suburbs are also segregated by socioeconomic status and ethnicity, as evidenced in higher poverty rates than in central cities and spatial segregation/exclusion of immigrant groups (Farrell, 2016). Experiences of eviction, displacement, homelessness, discrimination, and racism (Fiedler et al., 2006; Hepburn et al., 2022; Hulchanski, 2010; Loewen, 2005; Preston et al., 2009) further deepen the socio-spatial divide between the rich and poor, between the native-born and immigrants, and between White and minority populations. The land use segregation exacerbates immigrants’ needs for public infrastructure and services as they tend to rely more on public transit than the native-born to access affordable housing, job opportunities, and social services (Farrell, 2016; Lo et al., 2015; Teixeira, 2017). This can result in reduced social mobility, spatial inequality, and the lack of a sense of community, challenging the conventional suburban planning ideals. Duany et al. (2010, p. 45) contested the suburban sprawl reality and concluded that ‘the unity of society is threatened not by the use of gates but by the uniformity and exclusivity of the people behind them’.

Suburban segregation in land use and by socioeconomic status has a significant impact on the character, liveability, and sustainability of suburbia and the lived experiences of immigrants, highlighting the need for a more integrated, equitable, and sustainable approach to suburban development. City builders such as planners, architects, engineers, developers, and policymakers ‘should endeavour to ensure that what gets built on the urban fringe is as environmentally sound, economically efficient, and socially just as possible’ (ibid., p. 185). This can help reduce dependence on cars, increase equitable access to resources and services, and promote more diverse and inclusive communities. After all, suburban planning must be ‘based on a foundation of spatial equity’ (ibid., p. 147) rather than imposing elite experts’ imagination and ideology upon suburban space. Lefebvre’s theory is useful when applied to planning immigrant suburbs as it urged the producers of space to reconsider the following critical questions: Whose representation of space is attested to by the plans? Where does it derive? Whose vocabulary does it make use of? Whose code does it embody? Whose interests are served? What intervenes between representations of space and representational spaces, how, why, by whom, and for whom?

4 Making Suburban Places and Building Social Infrastructure

Lefebvre’s work links the abstract, conceptualised, or imaginary representations of space with the physical spaces and the spatial practices of everyday life which are central to the understanding of suburban life and the production of immigrant places. The spatial practices of various immigrant groups with different identities, cultural practices, and uses of space can be at odds with the conventions in suburbs that were intended to be predictable and homogeneous. As a result, the needs of migrants are often ignored or underserved due to the lack of social and physical infrastructure (Lo et al., 2015). Suburbs, especially when compared to the central cities, are generally less serviced or insufficiently equipped with the infrastructure to support migrants’ social and economic integration. Additionally, local municipal planning practices affecting the delivery of public infrastructure and services are often influenced by upper-level policies and funding structures (Mukhtar et al., 2016).

Despite the infrastructure deficiency in suburbs, research has identified the role of spatial capital – that is, the concentrations of co-ethnic or mixed-ethnic populations – in utilising local resources to meet community needs, maximise business performance, contribute to place identity, and achieve institutional completeness (Hewidy & Lilius, 2021a, b; Li, 2009; Zhuang, 2019, 2021). Many of these ethnic concentrations serve as important community hubs including ethnic retailing, places of worship, community organisations, and other ethnic-oriented institutions, and form an important social infrastructure to support social integration, place-making, and community bonding (Klinenberg, 2018; Tasan-Kok & Ozogul, 2017; Zhuang, 2021).

The spatial practices of immigrants in the suburbs can be multifarious and at multiple scales. For example, Basu and Fiedler’s (Basu & Fiedler, 2017) study in Scarborough, Toronto’s inner suburb, captured immigrants’ everyday encounters through schools, festivals, ethnic grocery stores, places of worship, and community centres that have transformed indistinct suburban spaces into places imbued with new meanings and identities. As a result, migrants perceived and framed Scarborough ‘in multiple and metaphorical forms: from a City of Refuge and Peace; City of Memory, Desire, and Imagination; City of Multifariousness; to a City of Civic Engagement and Fluid Resistance. This stands in stark contrast from how the city is framed in dominant discourse and the unsettling debates on how to reform it’ (ibid., p. 25). Toronto is atypical compared to most of the North American suburbs in that its suburbs ‘had always been physically and socially diverse’ (Harris, 2015, p. 31), intensified with high-rise apartments and subsidised housing, and mainly occupied by immigrants and racialised minorities. Yet, many towers are crowded and in dire need of repairs, impacting the physical and mental health of immigrant renters who experience environmental injustice at multiple scales of their housing units, high-rise buildings, and neighbourhood (Edge et al., 2020).

Lefebvre’s theory sheds light on the importance of understanding the spatial practices of a perceived space in the light of changing demographics. How have these suburban immigrant neighbourhoods evolved over time? How is the space perceived, encountered, and transformed into meaningful places? What are the community needs for space and services, especially those related to immigrant settlement? What are the provisions for community infrastructure and services? How do immigrants create their own sense of belonging, identity, and place in their neighbourhoods? These questions are worth further exploration.

5 Immigrants’ Agency and the Right to the City

Lefebvre’s (1991) constant attention to the lived experiences of space or the representational spaces makes his work applicable to the discussions of immigrants’ actual experiences of suburbs, their agency and practices of rights to the city. His concept of ‘everyday life’ emphasised that space is experienced differently based on subjective lived experiences. He argued that ‘representational space is alive: it speaks…It embraces the loci of passion, of action and of lived situations, and thus immediately implies time … It may be directional, situational or relational, because it is essentially qualitative, fluid and dynamic’ (ibid., p. 42). He further suggested investigating how the user’s space is lived (not represented or conceived). Here, he refers to the ‘users’ as those who are underprivileged or marginalised. Lefebvre argued strongly against the so-called advocacy planning, a major planning theory that calls for planners’ representation of various groups’ interests (Davidoff, 1965, pp. 364–365). Specifically, he challenged that:

When the interested parties – the ‘users’ – do not speak up, who can speak in their name or in their place? Certainly not some expert, some specialist of space or of spokesmanship; there is no such specialization, because no one has a right to speak for those directly concerned here. The entitlement to do so, the concepts to do so, the language to do so are simply lacking. How would the discourse of such an expert differ from that of the architects, ‘developers’ of politicians? The fact is that to accept such a role or function is to espouse the fetishization of communication – the replacement of use by exchange. The silence of the ‘users’ is indeed a problem – and it is the entire problem.

Lefebvre (1996) later coined ‘the Right to the City’, a burgeoning concept that has gained much attention in advocating for people’s spatial rights to achieve urban justice: the right to be involved in the process of space production; the right to access city advantages; the right to avoid spatial segregation; and the right to access public services (Harvey, 2003, 2008; Jian et al., 2020; Soja, 2010). Harvey (2008) highlighted the role of resident agencies in (re)shaping their inclusion and belonging in cities. Specifically, he described ‘the right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is the right to change ourselves by changing the city’ (ibid., p. 23). It is a fundamental human right to ensure everyone’s access to resources, amenities, and services, and full participation in social, economic, and political life as well as decision-making. Soja (2010) further elaborated on the two dimensions of spatial justice: distributional justice is the fair distribution of resources, opportunities, and power, and procedural justice refers to the involvement of all people in decision-making processes.

The literature has demonstrated immigrants’ agency to claim their Right to the City as evidenced in the creation of a welcoming refuge city (Kim & Bozarth, 2021), the production of place identities through everyday and political practices (Main & Sandoval, 2015), the negotiation of space and rights in the face of fast-paced suburban (re)developments (Zhuang, 2021; Zhuang & Chen, 2017). Yet, a bureaucratic process has been linked to the challenges of engagement of migrants in the suburban planning process (Allen & Slotterback, 2021; Dwyer et al., 2016; Poppe & Young, 2015; Zhuang, 2019, 2021). Empirical studies that evaluate the Right to the City have documented inequities faced by migrants in physical and social space (Jian et al., 2020; Tsavdaroglou, 2020).

Immigrant integration happens at the local level, where individuals encounter existing systems and physical spaces in their everyday lives leading to nuanced lived experiences (Housel et al., 2016). Mackay-Brown and Ashton (2021, p. 105) argue that no one model of integration ‘explains the generalities and specifics of all the lived experiences’. Therefore, more empirical research in this regard is needed, not only to develop a thorough understanding of the everyday lived experiences of immigrants in different places, but also to explore group dynamics and intersectional identities of immigrants and their role in shaping settlement and integration outcomes.

6 Concluding Remarks

This chapter applies Lefebvre’s (1991) theoretical framework to interrogate the intersections of migration and suburbanisation through the production of conceived, perceived, and lived spaces, and evaluate the process and implications of suburban planning for and with migrants. It first provides an overview of how capitalism and planning conceptualisation influences the representation of suburban space and leads to socio-spatial segregation and injustice. It further explores the spatial practices of immigrants through making meaningful suburban places and building social infrastructure despite the physical constraints of the space and infrastructure. Last, under the notions of the Right to the City and spatial justice, it argues for an understanding of immigrants’ lived experiences and agency to encapsulate the role of space and place towards cultivating a sense of belonging and integration of immigrants and refugees in various suburban contexts. The three modalities of space production are interconnected and mutually dependent. When applying Lefebvre’s theory, it is important to contextualise the production and representation of racialised geographies in immigrant suburbs (McCann, 1999).

Cities can be generative spaces rather than mere canvases, and each city is different and exerts a ‘distinctive pull’ on immigrants who in turn ‘reshape cities’ (Nicholls & Uitermark, 2016). Each urban and suburban environment is uniquely shaped by historical events and regional planning policies or practices or both. When considering the evolution of suburbs, it is important to be aware that they have been characterised by regional diversity (McCann, 2006). Similarly, each immigrant settlement has its own unique ethnic composition, class structure, business niche, customer base, and development trajectory, and different actors who are involved in neighbourhood transformation. As Lefebvre (1991, p. 42) argued:

We should have to study not only the history of space, but also the history of representations, along with that of their relationships – with each other, with practice, and with ideology. History would have to take in not only the genesis of these spaces but also, and especially, their interconnections, distortions, displacements, mutual interactions, and the links with the spatial practice of the particular society or mode of production under consideration.

There are practical implications for suburban planning for and with migrants as outlined in the following action items with attending questions to consider.

First, examine the role of municipalities and city builders in facilitating or impeding immigrant settlement and integration in suburbs and identify effective and inclusive community-building strategies. For example, what are the policies or best practices that effectively respond to diverse community needs? What is an equitable and inclusive community engagement process? How can municipalities and immigrant or marginalised communities work together to bridge gaps in city and community-building? How can more opportunities and spaces be created to encourage community engagement?

Second, identify immigrant places and everyday spatial practices. How have immigrant groups physically (re)shaped their neighbourhood over time? What are their spatial needs? How do they create their own sense of belonging, identity, and place, especially within a planning context that does not always consider cultural values and support the expression of cultural identity?

Third, develop an understanding of immigrants’ lived experiences of suburbs and their agency to claim the rights to the city. Space is experienced differently by different social groups and that shapes the way they understand and use space. To help us gain a better understanding of suburbanisation on various immigrant groups and the places that have shaped their settlement and integration experiences, an intersectional framework is needed to underpin the role of age, gender, religion, class, sexuality, race, and ethnicity in the creation of spatial justice. We may further address the following questions: How are immigrant communities engaged in planning processes? What is the role of agency in relation to the production and governance of space and how we define space?