White Flight 'Increasing Segregation' (UK)

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 11-28-2006 | Philip Johnson

[blam]

White flight 'increasing segregation'

By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 2:01am GMT 28/11/2006

The flight of the middle classes from the inner cities is threatening to undo 30 years of progress that has made Britain the best place in Europe for ethnic minorities, the country's race equality chief said yesterday.

Trevor Phillips, the outgoing chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), said increased polarisation and segregation in areas deserted by the better-off was "the great threat" to the development of a diverse and harmonious society.

Trevor Phillips: warnings

Speaking at a conference in London to mark the 30th anniversary of the Race Relations Act, which set up the CRE, he said: "Britain is by far the best place in Europe to live if you are not white."

But he feared that trends unforeseen in the 1970s were placing this in jeopardy.

"As a nation we are becoming more ethnically segregated by residence and inequality is being amplified by our separate lives," he said.

"The real crisis lies in the areas which the middle-class minorities are leaving behind — areas which are becoming more and more ethnically concentrated and exclusive."

Research commissioned by the CRE for the convention showed that despite the greater number of ethnic minorities in Britain, few mixed. Two out of three people hardly ever choose to meet someone of a different ethnicity in their own homes.

Success: Brick Lane has a strong Bangladeshi community

A quarter of Britons want to live in an all-white area and more than half — including those from ethnic minorities — think there is too much immigration. More and more communities were "shut off" and vulnerable to political and religious extremism.

Mr Phillips said the public education system should be teaching children to live together but appeared to be doing the opposite. Nine of the country's best universities did not have more than 30 African Caribbean students.

His warnings about deepening divisions have landed him in hot water with some race lobbyists and led Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, to boycott the conference.

But Mr Phillips has become increasingly concerned that the departure of the predominantly white middle classes from the inner cities — and out of the country altogether in some cases — will make the creation of a multi-ethnic society harder to achieve.

advertisementHe said the ethnic changes taking place in parts of our country were the most rapid ever known.

"But the change isn't just one of sheer numbers. It is also characterised by a new fierceness with which people express the aspects of their identity — heritage, ethnicity, faith — that make them different from their neighbours."

Official internal migration figures show that white and ethnic minority communities are becoming increasingly separated by growing levels of population movement.

A study last year based on the 2001 census found evidence for the first time in Britain of what is known in America as "white flight", as middle-class families — including those of Asian background in some parts of England — leave areas of high ethnic minority populations.

Opening the convention, Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, said: "The challenge is how we ensure diversity does not become separation. It is about the hard graft of breaking down distrust and building up a shared sense of purpose and belonging, about creating opportunities for interaction as well as respecting differences."

[Myrddin]

My neighborhood, south of Jackson, is crimeless and 50% black. It has nothing to do with the color of the people living here, but the ambition and zeal for life of those people.

Good observation. I knew Mira Mesa was predominantly asian when I moved there in 1983. The nickname "Manila Mesa" had understandable roots. Most were first generation immigrants escaping the war in Viet Nam. They worked hard and their children worked hard. The attention to scholarship and achievement was a positive characteristic of the community. My sons benefited from that attitude. Their friends spanned every racial and ethnic group. A successfully integrated community...for a time. Not anymore. That's part of the reason I left.

[driftless2]

This last September my wife and I spent four days in London. We stayed at a hotel just a few blocks from Buckingham Palace. While we saw non-white people, the great majority of people we saw in downtown London were white. If London is losing indigenous white people by the droves, we certainly didn't come to that conclusion.

[Longhorn Cajun]

Mr. Lamb meet your new roommates, these are the Hyena triplets.