Globalization and urbanization are challenging many cities to incorporate large and diverse groups of people into their communities every day. Given this challenge, cities are left with the two options: to view their growing diversity with indifference, or to view their growing diversity as an advantage - something that can be harnessed to benefit the city. Research demonstrates that cities that provide more opportunities for members of different cultural groups to interact tend to reap the economic benefits of diversity the most. However, quantifying how many opportunities there are for people of different cultures to interact can be a difficult task. Our understanding of diversity is often limited to the ethno-cultural make-up of a city through census data. Less frequently do we ask how often and how meaningful are the interactions between these ethno-cultural groups? This study is an attempt to answer that question using Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a case study. Qualitative research was done with people identified as emerging leaders in the Milwaukee area to get a better understanding of how much meaningful interaction is occurring between members of different ethno-cultural groups (i.e. intercultural engagement). The results of this study will provide an indication for where and how intercultural engagement is being facilitated in the Milwaukee area. Furthermore, the results will help us understand how emerging leaders in the region think about and prioritize intercultural engagement efforts. These are questions that the Milwaukee area, and other places, will need to begin to answer in order to better plan for the increasingly diverse landscapes that are becoming our cities.
