Design thinking in a superdiverse city context

‘This is just the way we do things here.’ Maybe people don’t even say it, but, implicitly, it is considered understood that this certain way of doing things is the norm. In the meantime, in many large cities in North-Western Europe, more
than half of the population has a migration background. They have become majority-minority cities, where all ethnic groups — including the group that is still a majority on the national level — form a numerical minority. Demographic changes ask for a changed mindset, new ways of thinking and doing in the context of growing heterogeneity and complexity. We are standing on the brink of one of the most profound social changes of our times. A psychological change, because in these super-diverse cities the old majority group, people without migration background, will lose their power to determine ‘how things are done’. A cultural change, because the cities will increasingly be characterized by their diversity of cultures and norms. There will be a switch from the old
dominant culture being the norm, to diversity being the norm.