Culmiating Task-3.pdf

Topic 4 – Article 1http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/why-newcomers-are-beginning-to-bypasscanadas-big-cities/article25143840/Why newcomers are beginning to bypass Canada’s big citiesDOUG SAUNDERSThe Globe and MailPublished Friday, Jun. 26, 2015 1:35PM EDTLast updated Saturday, Jun. 27, 2015 2:12PM EDTWhen Zernab Yazdani, an easygoing college graduate, talks about his childhood years inRiverdale – a cluster of aging apartment towers and townhouse complexes encircled by singlestoreymini-malls – what tweaks his memories is not the ever-shifting mix of languages andcultures. Riverdale’s 7,500 residents were mostly born in other countries, as his parents were;only one in five speaks English as a first language.Rather, it is the unspoiled nature just beyond the concrete. “It was a great place to grow up – wehad tobogganing in the winter and trails in the forests, the lake right nearby and a lot of space toplay.” The hiking trails, along with the air of mutual co-operation among the newcomers here,have drawn him back as an adult.This could be one of the well-known high-rise immigrant districts on the outskirts of Toronto,Montreal or Vancouver: Shop signs are in Russian, Spanish, Hindi and Urdu; windows abovestores advertise Sikh and Hindu temples, Russian Orthodox churches and mosques; the publicprimary school, with so many kids from the Indian subcontinent, recently built a cricket pitchwhere a baseball diamond would usually go.But it isn’t. The apartment Mr. Yazdani shares with his wife looks across a leafy ravine toStoney Creek, a largely agricultural community. Riverdale, a fast-expanding enclave that is, byone measure, Canada’s third most immigrant-heavy settlement, is in the eastern end of Hamilton,far from the city’s old steel mills and a stone’s throw from the vineyards of Niagara Region.Hamilton is doing everything it can to attract people like the Yazdanis. In fact, there is a growingeffort by many mid-sized, post-industrial cities to spark a new wave of immigration. Alsostruggling, places such as Moncton, Trois-Rivières and Kitchener are doing everything they canto open their doors, from adopting their own de facto immigration policies to, in some cases,even going abroad to recruit new residents.While the great majority of Canada’s immigrants still settle in greater Toronto and Vancouver,secondary cities have begun to grab an increasingly larger share.In Canada’s rust belt, mass immigration is increasingly seen as the hope for recovery.A thriving destination for newcomers in the twentieth century, Hamilton has been in a longperiod of decline since its heavy industry dried up. To city manager Chris Murray, a revivedimmigration program was the only way out.15