Eight municipal leaders from the United States and Europe are convening April 11-13 for the first International City Dialogue in Turin, Italy. This workshop, “Shifting Economies, Shifting Migration Patterns: Local Impacts and Policy Responses” will bring different cities into dialogue on the shared challenges and opportunities surrounding immigration at the local level. The workshop will assemble city leaders working on immigration in their local communities, bringing them into dialogue with experts and stakeholders from the Turin immigrant integration community.

Local communities on both sides of the Atlantic are experiencing the impacts of changing migration patterns in the context of the economic crisis, managing the new challenges and leveraging the new opportunities of a mobile work force and population.  Cities are confronting many issues: providing services to newcomers in a context of shrinking public sector budgets, leveraging the economic vitality that new inflows bring to a community and to specific neighborhoods, as well as ensuring social cohesion and intercultural understanding in the receiving community.

Through the sharing of best practices, visits to promising projects in Turin, peer exchanges with Turin officials, and the contributions of distinguished speakers, the workshop will foster a transatlantic dialogue and exchange to foster learning and establish network ties that will support future collaboration. The workshop will provide participants a wider perspective on the challenges they face in their own communities, exposing them to new ideas and enhancing their ability to provide services and ensure social cohesion in a context of fiscal and economic crisis.

This workshop is supported by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Compagnia di San Paolo, with the assistance of FIERI (The International and European Forum of Migration Research).