Toronto is perhaps the most multicultural city in the world. The process of settlement and integration in modern-day Toronto is, however, more difficult for recent immigrants than it was for those newcomers arriving in previous decades. Many challenges face newly settled immigrants, top among them access to healthcare, education, employment, housing, and other economic and community services. The concept of social exclusion opens up promising ways to analyze the various challenges facing newcomers and The World in a City explores Toronto's ability to sustain a civic society.

This collection of essays highlights why the need to pay more attention to certain at-risk groups, and the importance of adapting policy to fit the changing settlement and clustering patterns of newcomers is of crucial importance. The authors' findings demonstrate that there are many obstacles to providing opportunity for immigrants, low resource bases in particular. Toronto, they suggest, does not provide a level 'playing field' for its newly arrived inhabitants, and, in failing to recognize the particular needs of new communities, fails to ensure a growth that would be of immense benefit to the city as a whole.

Paul Anisef is a professor of Sociology and associate director of the Centre of Excellence for Research in Immigration and Settlement (CERIS) at York University.

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Michael Lanphier is professor emeritus of Sociology and senior scholar at the Centre for Religious Studies at York University.

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