Sadiq Kahn Quotes

You cannot deal with a city if it's not socially integrated.

I did not intend to stay; I had no experience in the United States - I may have been here less than 24 hours - but I knew I would never get inside there. And 'there' not being America necessarily, but that harmonious mode of living that some people are lucky enough to have in this country.

London is the greatest city in the world, but we're at a crossroads. Ordinary Londoners have been priced out of our city because of the housing crises. We're a city that's growing in population, but the infrastructure can't cope with the growth.

In the 21st century, government efforts should focus on 'multiculturalism', including the diversity of languages.

I want to live in a city where immigration is seen as a new source of strength.

Our Muslim friends must learn from previous waves of immigration.

Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting.

The diversity, individualism and mobility that characterize developed economies -- especially in the era of globalization -- mean that more of our lives is spent among strangers …. in a developed country such as Britain is that we not only live among stranger citizens but we must share with them. We share public services and parts of our income in the welfare state, we share public spaces in towns and cities where we are squashed together on buses, trains and tubes, and we share in a democratic conversation .… All such acts of sharing are more smoothly and generously negotiated if we can take for granted a limited set of common values and assumptions. But as Britain becomes more diverse that common culture is being eroded.

Europe is not America; one of the reasons for the fragmentation and individualism of American life is that it is a vast country. In Europe with its much higher population density and planning controls, the rules have to be different. We are condemned to share—the rich cannot ignore the poor, the indigenous cannot ignore the immigrant—but that does not mean people are always happy to share

It is not healthy when a nation lives within a nation .... A nation cannot be confident of its tomorrow if its refugees are among its own citizens.

The melting pot has sprung a leak.

Efforts to concentrate immigrants in social groups and to retard their Americanization should be steadily frowned down.

Unless we labor to help others achieve a reasonable stake in society, we may find ourselves losing the society in which we have too great a stake.

Urban growth, ethnic and religious diversity. and the spread of large corporations destroyed the reality of Protestant, middle-class power in the region and the ability of their ideology and the pioneer symbol to remain uncontested. The region's leadership class came to include Catholics as well as Protestants, corporate leaders, professionals, and small producers.

Immigration makes losers and winners.

You have to remember that west of Winnipeg the ridings the Liberals hold are dominated by people who are either recent Asian immigrants or recent migrants from Eastern Canada; people who live in ghettos and are not integrated into Western Canadian society

One wonders whether the ethnic categorization effort at finding solutions to problems that cross ethnic boundaries. Poverty is poverty is poverty. It does not have peculiar ethnic characteristics.

We offer them Roman citizenship in order to make them more desirous of living in the city and to induce others to do so.

There is an increase in inequality in the early stages of development.

The audiences for some of many of our greatest cultural events—I’m thinking particularly of the Proms [traditional patriotic promenade concerts]—is still a long way from demonstrating that people from different backgrounds feel at ease in being part of this. I know this is not about making every audience completely representative, but if we claim great things for our sectors in terms of their power to bring people together, then we have a right to expect they will do that wherever they can.

If living in France bothers some people, they should feel free to leave the country.

It took Hong Kong 100 years to become what it is.

I've spent my entire adult life encouraging minority communities to get involved in mainstream society, civic society.

Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies and therefore remains a 'life lie.'

European countries simply do not have the ideological framework the United States has in the shape of the 'American dream' that has helped to absorb successfully wave after wave of immigration to the States, including Muslim Americans who are well integrated into American society. There is no analogous French dream or German dream.