Cosmopolitanism, planning and immigration. Ghanaian immigrants and the use of the city : case of Brescia and Como in Italy

Cities reflect the combination of people who live in them. The more diverse the interests there are in the cities, the more different meanings are associated to different parts of cities. One source of diversity, at least in the cultural sense within the city is from immigrants. Cities in Europe and in the world which have been targets to mass numbers of immigrations therefore offer much more social diversity. In the face of this, the idea of cosmopolitanism flourishes: of a society where people do not feel a sense of attachment to local tendencies but are open-minded, a culture where people are ascribed to be citizen of the world. People make daily choices in their usage of the physical and social infrastructure. In this way, we can measure the cosmopolitan orientation of people by their choices of places to go and to stay and this may provide useful information as far as planning service allocation in a culturally diverse society are concerned. The study presents a look into the lifestyle of the Ghanaian immigrant community in Brescia and Como. It seeks to understand how by how the usage and perception of places portray their cosmopolitan orientation, and how this reflects their choice of housing and public places. The study combines a qualitative approach with a touch of ethnographic research which took the shape of in-depth interviews and mostly by just being there to listen in and to observe. The study reveals that, attachment to the local Ghanaian sense of community is very fragile which has resulted in careful orchestrated sense of social relations. Staying in close proximity to fellow Ghanaians is not desirable. In as much as people prefer to stay in neighbourhoods dominated by Italians, there is strong ethnocentric perspective in the kind social relations, with every act of perceived discrimination interpreted with a racial slur. Local churches play important roles in the social lives of people and also in bridging the gap between the host society and the Ghanaian society. Chapter one of the report introduces the theoretical framework that grounds the study. Chapter two provides some highlights of the relevant literature. Chapter three and four presents accounts of the field work in Brescia and Como respectively. Chapter five provides a conclusion which is done of a comparative basis, between the two case study towns, and between the field work results and what exists in literature on cosmopolitanism already.