How Immigrants—and Their Kids—Have Remade New York City

As part of the annual Henry Hart Rice Urban Policy Forum on May 9, NYU Wagner hosted a lecture and discussion on the impact of immigration on New York City featuring Philip Kasinitz, Presidential Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center.

More than 100 students, faculty, staff, and members from the broader New York City community attended the event to hear Kasinitz present his research on the question of how immigration and immigrant family growth has contributed to the development of politics, culture, and the economy of New York City. Dean Sherry Glied and Professor Mitchell Moss offered opening remarks.

To support his lecture, Kasinitz presented a wide variety of statistics related to the shifting immigration patterns over time both in the city and nationwide. Notably, he shared that immigration–and births to foreign-born parents—has helped to counteract migration out of the city’s boroughs, and that immigrant crime rates rank at or below those of native citizens.  

Kasinitz’s remarks sparked a lively discussion of immigration in the United States both past and present. At the end of the lecture, audience members discussed how immigration policy should take shape moving forward.