Building a welcoming city in the American rust belt

Local governments across the United States have implemented a wide range of exclusionary and inclusionary immigration and immigrant policies. Using a Multiple Streams Approach, this article explores the policy formation and implementation process associated with the adoption of welcoming city and other integration initiatives in two mid-sized cities that have experienced industrial decline and depopulation: Buffalo, New York, and Toledo, Ohio. In both cases inclusionary initiatives were motivated by economic development considerations, as well as by a humanitarian and human rights agenda aimed at addressing the challenges facing immigrant and refugee populations. Both cities are situated in ethnically bifurcated, liberal areas where civic identities are tied to self-conceptions of openness to newcomers. Area politicians, community organizations, and advocates within the municipal administration emerged as key policy entrepreneurs in both cities, as did the local police force in Buffalo. Inter-municipal differences were observed with respect to the origins of policy solutions, and the impact of a state's political identity and external policy networks.