Writing multiculturalism? Planning for culturally different identities in the city of Birmingham

This article presents a case study of a multicultural planning epistemology at work in the everyday landscape of a city. It draws on insights in cultural geography and the planning archive on Birmingham's Chinese Quarter, to show that the epistemology in play weaves together claims of a factual, authentic multiculturalism based on particular presences with an implicit planning imaginary of cultural identity. It then demonstrates that the planning imaginary in question is structured like a text with a signifying system containing mimetic and disseminative properties. The article concludes by proposing a number of implications from the case study for the planning of Birmingham's multicultural future.