DIVERSE PLACES - CASE STUDIES

Uk population change

• England is Europes most densely populated country

• 89% of the population live in urban areas (10,000 + people)

• 11% of the population live in rural areas

• The population size in the UK has gone up by over 10 million people in the last 50 years

  LONDON

• has seen continuously rising migration (national and international) and a vastly expanding economy

• There are many job and educational opportunities in London that people take advantage of

  To contrast, DEVON

• has seen a large number of people move into retirement

• There is a lack of services in rural areas so people migrate to urban areas

• There has been an increase of people owning second homes in Devon - sandy coastline

• There has been an increase of UK tourism

Mixed rural area (North Yorkshire) vs Remote rural areas (Highlands)

NORTH YORKSHIRE

• Population just over 600,000

• Predominantly older population - average age 39.8

• Mostly rural country

• Losing young people due to migration

• Smaller towns and cities increasing in population size due to inward migration

• International migration doesn’t really impact North Yorkshire (less than 5% of the population)

  THE HIGHLANDS

• Population 230,000 - sparse low overall population

• Average age 43.2

• Accessibility to the rest of the UK is a problem

• Economy is largely based on farming and tourism

• Outward migration is a large factor - due to little access to jobs and fewer towns / cities nearby

Cornwall

POSITIVES

• Beach location and scenery

• Sparsely populated

• Cornish language (gives a sense of identity)

• High quality housing

• Climate - more sun

  NEGATIVES

• Remote - no motorways in Cornwall

• Frequent storms and high rainfall in winter

• Lack of social opportunities

• Limited services - e.g healthcare and shops (many village shops have had to shut)

• Tourism - poor reputation in some areas

• ‘Brain drain’ - young, well qualified people leave the area

  FACTS

• Elderly population

• Teenagers, young people and ethnic minorities are less attracted to the area

Managing rural areas (Cornwall)

• Cornwall has Superfast Broadband (one of the first places in the UK to receive this) - This has encouraged businesses to invest in Cornwall

STAKEHOLDERS IN MANAGING CHANGE (who has been involved and affected)

• The EU has been funding Cornwall since 1999

• UK government has continued to fund Cornwall to develop the area

• As tourism has increased over time, there has been better connectivity via roads and railways

• Farmers want a greater economic expansion

Brixton riots - South London

• April 1981

• Impacts of inequality and discrimination

• Involved clashes between the local Black community and the police

• The riots were caused by racial tensions, police brutality and high unemployment and housing issues

  IMPACTS

• Cemented a negative perception of Brixton (violent and unsafe)

London Docklands (east London) (evaluation and change)

BACKGROUND

• Manual labour (working class)

• Primarily white British

• Poorer

• Low quality terraced housing → replaced by tower blocks

• Poor transport links → younger people moved away so left older people

CHANGES

• 1960s → containerisation, therefore new docks moved out of London

• Unemployment declined

• housing - 50,000 new homes built since 1981

• Local community - £20 million was spent on environmental and community projects e.g. local parks and gardens

• Expensive shops, bars, flats - meeting the needs of professionals with a higher income

• Improved Transport - London city airport handles 4.3 million passengers a year (opened in 1987)

• Environment - by 1988, 600 hectares of land were reclaimed. Parks and riverside paths were developed, with old houses made to look better

  • → All of these changes to encourage TNCs to set up their headquarters (banking, insurance) - it was successful and worked

development of Canary Wharf

• Fewer families

• Higher education

• More professional level employment → young workers

• Higher % of ethnic diversity

  • complete transformation!

Southall - little India (diverse area with historic tensions)

STATISTICS

• 55% Indian population

• 4% White British

• 17% Asian

• Improvement to public spaces

• South hall big plan : 4000 new homes

• Crossrail, connecting to Central London being built

BACKGROUND

• Post WW2, high unemployment in England which encouraged commonwealth to work in industrial jobs

• Invited over to fill labour gaps

• Over time, migrants settled in the same areas, forming ethnic clusters

THEORY

• links to Harris Todaro theory — they expected better wages and employment in factories and industry — even tho jobs were not guaranteed, the expected income was higher than in their home regions

Brixton (south London) - Caribbean wind rush generation

BACKGROUND

• People migrated from Caribbean countries to the UK - former UK colonies

• Between 1948 - 1970s after World War II

• To help fill labour shortages and rebuild the “motherland”

KEY POINTS

• Invited to help rebuild the UK and worked in jobs like transport, factories and the NHS

• Brixton became one of the main settlement areas for Caribbean migrants because:

- Affordable housing

- Jobs were accessible in London

New England quarter (regeneration)

BACKGROUND

• jobs were previously dominated by white men (1840)

• Area was left derelict for 50 years - links to broken window theory (derelict land attracts crime) - land that is left

CURRENTLY

• now transformed into a multi use area with a younger ethnically diverse demographic

• Highlights a change in culture

The Eden project - Cornwall

BACKGROUND

• Opened in 2001

• Regeneration scheme

• Built to promote environmental education, sustainability and tourism

• Famous for its large biomes that recreate global climates like rainforests and Mediterranean environments

CONTEXT (why it was needed)

• Cornwall faced a decline of traditional industries (e.g China clay mining)

• Job losses and outward migration of young people

• Peripheral location - far from major UK economic centres

REGENERATING PLACES

• created thousands of jobs (tourism)

• Boosted local businesses (hotels, transport, food)

• Reused a brownfield industrial site, former clay pit - brownfield sites can often cause tensions based on what should be done to redevelop them and how the land should be put to use

CHANGING PLACES

• improved place perception and external image

• Cornwall shifted from being seen as a declining mining area —> to a centre for economic tourism and innovation

Little Horton, Bradford

BACKGROUND

• international migration from Pakistan

• Textile workers

• Initially young, white, male, working class looking for jobs

• 64% Asian

• 22% white

• Working class area

• British nationality act → commonwealth citizens could live and work in the UK → Pakistan is part of the commonwealth → this encouraged textile companies to recruit directly from Pakistan → workers lived close to the factories in Bradford (little Horton) (inner city, the location of former textile factories)

• 1968 Commonwealth immigration act → allowed immigration if grandparents had British citizenship → led to the families of Pakistani workers being able to move to the UK

  • government decisions

• 1970s / 80s global shift of manufacturing = higher unemployment - impacted working class workers but the Pakistani workers in particular

• 2004 expansion of EU to include Eastern European countries

• 2008 global recession = higher unemployment

NOW

• Higher ethnically diverse / dominated by Pakistani heritage

• Young and larger families with children (fertility rate)

• Fertility rate was higher - increased population within that community

• Future generations —> Asian / British

• cultural changes: natural increase + migration = higher Pakistani community

• Services change to meet needs - less pubs, more mosques and more Pakistani shops / restaurants

  • White working class feel threatened by the changes in culture and built environment

TENSIONS

• Riots (2001) → triggered by extreme white, right wing / nationalist political groups

  • higher levels of deprivation and inequality lead to tensions as groups are looking for reasons / people to blame for the challenges in their community

COMMUNITY ACTION

• Try to identify the problems → use IMD data etc → actions that bring groups together listening / tolerance

• Government actions to address the deprivation e.g school twinning, skills training schemes, 2025 city of culture application

Harris Todaro theory

• perceptions and reality might not match

Population growth - the south east vs the north east

SOUTH EAST (including London)

• Rapid population growth (29.5% increase over last 20 years) due to the following factors:

  • People from within the UK and overseas moving to London for jobs

  • Plentiful opportunities for higher education such as universities

  • High-tech businesses are attracted to this area to take advantage of the highly skilled labour

NORTH EAST

• Slower population growth (1.7% increase over last 20 years) due to the following factors:

  • High levels of deindustrialisation in the region as manufacturing has moved over seas e.g. steel production

  • High levels of unemployment and fewer economic opportunities for young people

  • People have migrated away from the area to find employment, in particular to the south east

Tong ward

BACKGROUND

• 8/30 most deprived in Bradford

• 10% most deprived in England

• Working class

• Location: suburban

• 78% White

• 11% Asian

Slough (west London)

• A town of around 150,000 people to the west of London

  • Has experienced significant demographic change over the past 20 years → 62% white Christian in 2001 to just 42% in 2021

  • The Muslim population has grown from around 15% to 32% since 2021 → causing high levels of segregation between the different communities

• Government approaches to reduce the conflict:

  • Diversity training in schools - aim to increase integration and understanding between communities as well as decreasing community tensions

    • Despite this, local people have been strongly opposed to this initiative in fear of cultural erosion

  • Evidence to suggest that all stakeholder needs are being met, as outlined by the Slough aspire project