The Suburbanization of Immigrants: Exploring Municipal Capacity to Accommodate the Settlement of Recent and Established Immigrants in the Region of Peel

This paper takes the recent settlement patterns of immigrants as a point of departure to explore the capacity of municipalities, despite jurisdictional constraints, to respond to such large waves of settlement and engage immigrant populations in the planning process. Through a policy review and analysis, and key interviews with settlement service providers and planning professionals, the findings of this paper suggest that the Region of Peel is aware of their increasing immigrant population and municipalities are responding to varying degrees. This increase is being acknowledged by using language in their policy documents that is reflective of the municipal responsiveness criteria identified by Good (2005) and by the settlement and integration continuum indicators identified by Murphy (2010). The interviews further reveal that the Region of Peel is planning for immigrants by planning for future growth and that although barriers remain, mechanisms are in place to publicly engage immigrants in the planning and decision-making process.