In the face of continued immigration to the United States and federal policy inertia, many local governments have started to adopt their own immigrant-related policies to cope with the newcomers. Among them, welcoming cities represent a new wave of inclusive local government responses that seeks to incorporate immigrants socially and economically and deviates from the previous policies that focus on law enforcement and legal status. In this article, we explore the rationales behind these cities' commitment to immigrant integration by examining the effect of theory-based local demographic, economic, political, fiscal, and institutional characteristics and national network organization on local governments' policy adoption. Our results indicate that cities that have an educated, diverse, and liberal population, are more economically troubled but fiscally sound are more likely to become welcoming cities. The Welcoming America as an umbrella organization also plays an important role in facilitating the welcoming movement.

China is experiencing rapid urbanization during which millions of migrants move from rural to urban areas. Recently, China initiated the national strategy of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" to tap into the innovative potential and promote entrepreneurial development among the general public, with rural migrants being one of the targeted groups of this policy. This context calls for a better understanding of rural migrants' entrepreneurial formation and transition. Using the 2012 and 2014 Chinese Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS) data, we test the importance of human capital, social capital, and community trust on migrants' entrepreneurial entry with cross-sectional and panel data analyses. We find that rural migrants' entrepreneurship rates and entrepreneurial entry rates surpass both their urban resident and rural resident counterparts, indicating the active role they play in urban business landscape. While individual characteristics and social networks play similar roles in these three groups' entrepreneurial transition, rural migrants' business activities are particularly shaped by their perception of communities. Further analysis of migrant-owned businesses reveals their over-representation in main-street industries but their firm performances are on par with other businesses, suggesting their positive economic contribution in cities.

This paper examines the impact of living in ethnic enclaves in different parts of a metropolitan area on low-skilled Latino immigrants' employment accessibility. It does so by comparing the employment status and commuting times of Latinos living in and out of ethnic neighborhoods in central city, inner-ring suburbs, and outer-ring suburbs in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Using the 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), this paper finds that central-city residents tend to have both lower employment probability and longer commutes. The enclave effect is much muted and a spatial mismatch effect evident in these areas. But in the suburban areas, while as likely to work as non-enclave counterparts, enclave residents tend to commute longer to jobs, suggesting the importance of ethnic networks in these enclave neighborhoods. Further distinguishing Latino immigrants by gender shows that women are more enclave-disadvantaged than men. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

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