Circles of Social Life, Liverpool Settling Strangers; Supporting Disability Needs

Liverpool city is home to one of the highest concentrations of Australia's recent arrivals -many of them from refugee backgrounds. Further, it is also home to many culturally and linguistically diverse communities in their differing stages and experiences of settlement. As one of the fastest-growing regions in Australia, the city is concurrently going through rapid and significant economic, demographic, infrastructural and environmental change. There are many observed complexities and contradictions prevailing across the Liverpool urban-scape.This study seeks to understand Liverpool city as a whole urban region, with particular attention to the intersection of two major themes: (i) Settlement of refugees and migrants generally; and, (ii) Settlement and support for refugees and migrants with disabilities. In order to understand how to respond best to settlement needs, this complexity requires that we clearly identify, chart and navigate Liverpool's uneven and contradictory circumstances. "Ground-up" considerations are essential to good design and implementation of community development programs and interventions (especially in the settlement and disability space). The study, thus, applied the Circles of Social Life approach which was developed exactly for such complexity. It was originally developed by the UN Global Compact Cities Program and Metropolis.The Circles approach provides tools to capture and measure subjective and "ground-up" responses to sustainability across four key domains: Economics, Ecology, Politics, and Culture. Overall, we are interested in the question of urban sustainability, resilience, and adaptation because "cities have become the unlikely but crucial zones for the survival of humanity."