The Big Picture

By Jan Braat and Niene Oepkes As an official Human Rights City, Utrecht in the Netherlands aims to be a welcoming city for everyone. During the Syrian asylum crisis of 2015-2016, the City of Utrecht developed Plan Einstein, a bold and innovative concept to receive newly arrived refugees.

This year, for the first time ever, the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes passed the 100 million mark. Whether fleeing political unrest, persecution, or forced to relocate due to climate change, migrants often struggle to find housing in the places they find refuge due to increasingly inaccessible and unaffordable housing markets.

By Elizabeth McIsaac, Maytree So much talk about housing concerns units. How many units can we build? Where are the units located? What does each unit cost? But to make real progress on the housing crisis, we need to talk about people. Which people have been shut out of the housing market? How do public policies affect how people get housing (or don’t)? What do people need to turn a physical structure into a home?

By Hannah Presser and Chuni Lu, The International Rescue Committee Urban space in North America is continuously re-invigorated by newcomer populations. Take for example the new waves of immigrants arriving in New York City from Asia and the global south establishing themselves in Little Italy, a once European enclave. A significant portion of these newcomers are refugees arriving through the U.S. refugee resettlement program, which has welcomed over 3.7 million people into American cities and towns since its inception.

By Samer Saliba and Helen Elizabeth Yu, Mayors Migration Council Most refugees live in cities, which should come as no surprise, considering over half the world’s population now resides in urban areas, driven by an increasing demographic shift away from agrarian livelihoods, particularly in regions affected by forced displacement.

By Kirsten McRae, The Shift It’s in the news every day—people are forced to flee their homes in growing numbers due to circumstances beyond their control. According to the World Economic Forum, the number of people fleeing their homes has doubled in the last ten years and it’s predicted that more than one billion people will be displaced by environmental change, conflict, and civil unrest by the year 2050.