Why some cities feel inclusive: The city ethos model of institutions and population-rootedness in European cities

How do cities sustain inclusive coexistence under conditions of diversity and demographic mobility? This article shifts the analytical focus to city-level inclusiveness , understood as a property of the city's institutional-normative order rather than of interpersonal relations. Building on a thin conception of city ethos, the article develops a City Ethos Model that conceptualizes perceived urban inclusiveness as an interpretive outcome shaped by the interaction between institutional perception and population-rootedness. The model treats population-rootedness as a temporal infrastructure that shapes how institutional performance is interpreted: where more residents have accumulated exposure to local institutions, institutional signals are more likely to settle into durable city-level expectations. Empirically, the analysis draws on approximately 108,000 respondents across 70 cities in 28 EU member states ( European Commission, 2019 , European Commission, 2023 ). Multilevel models show that positive institutional perceptions are associated with higher perceived inclusiveness. However, population-rootedness does not operate as an independent source of inclusion. Instead, it significantly moderates the institutional effect: in cities with greater population-rootedness, institutional perception is associated with higher perceived inclusiveness, whereas in contexts where institutions are viewed skeptically, rootedness may reinforce exclusionary interpretations. These findings suggest that population-rootedness functions as a conditional amplifier of institutional signals rather than as a direct driver of inclusion.