Global migration means millions of people are starting new lives in cities far removed from the places they were born, where they will help to shape the urban fabric of the communities around them.

Despite accusations from some that all cities are becoming alike, these newer citizens are carving out identities distinct from both their ethnic origins and those of the longer-standing inhabitants around them.

For example, when Annika Marlen Hinze conducted a study of families of Turkish origin in Berlin, she found they identified themselves as neither Germans nor Turks, but as Berliners or even as residents of a particular neighbourhood. “One woman told me: ‘I’m telling my son he’s both Turkish and German, but I also tell him he’s a Kreuzberger,’?” says Ms Hinze, assistant professor of political science at Fordham University in New York.