Friday, January 21, 2005

Map of London

The Guardian has a special report on ethnic diversity in London today. There's a big map here (pdf), with the key here. The more interesting information is contained in two pages on religion and on ethnic groups. I find two maps most interesting. Irish people are still concentrated in the traditional areas around North London:



I am surprised by this. I thought (mistakenly obviously) that Irish people were more integrated into the general (white?) population. I wonder to which degree this map reflects people choosing 'culturally comfortable' neighbourhoods and to which degree it reflects class difference, especially compared with the suburban distribution of 'white British' people:



This is spectacular. Now, I do think that London is as cosmopolitan as things get but (viewing all the maps) it is interesting how much people congregate in specific areas. I suppose that this has as much to do with movements of people at similar times, property values, average incomes, the age profiles of different groups and the availability of facilities as it has to do with people just plain prefering their own kind, but I wonder if anyone has ever actually tried to break the components of the preferences down?

1 comment:

b199er said...

Whats key to note is that these maps are to different scales. The darkest color on the Irish map is 4% - 13.3%, while on the Indian map is 6% - 54.2%. This means that there is no ward in London which is more than 13.3% Irish.

The Irish concentrate in Brent, however even there they rarely constitute more than 5% of each ward. While in three quarters of London the Irish constitute 2-3%. So it's not much of a major difference. So while in south London 1 in 30 people may be Irish, in NW London 1 in 20 people may be Irish.

With the modern minorities you're going to find far bigger differences. For instance in Harrow 1 in 3 people are Indian. While in Brixton, maybe 1 in 50 people are Indian. As in You see them in Harrow, but you don't in Brixton.

The Chinese are very dispersed, in London and across the UK. Minus a few Chinatowns.

If you look at a map of the United States by Ancestry. You'll see huge county tracts, spanning states that have major German, English, Irish, French, Mexican, African American ancestries.

The science behind it, is that most people don't domestically migrate. 50% of the people in Brent may leave the borough in 20 years, but 50% are still left behind. In another 20 years another 50% of the people will leave, (half of these will be the newly arrived, and the other half will be those who have been there since the old batch migrated), so 25% will be 2 generation old. 20 years later, you have 12.5% and so on. So there's always a legacy.