Flight from London

princeofpounds

Spotted this article on the BBC earlier on, about the change in demographics and specifically the reduction in white british population in London

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21511904

The article tries to pitch it as a 'success story', where all these working class white folks are doing well and looking for a better life in the country. But reading the comments, they are almost all universally of a different opinion.

Any thoughts on this? I was staggered by the scale of the change in just 10 years in a few of the boroughs, with some losing between a quarter and a third of their white british population.

wymondham

Maybe London isn't so great after all?

wotsthat

princeofpounds wrote: »

Any thoughts on this? I was staggered by the scale of the change in just 10 years in a few of the boroughs, with some losing between a quarter and a third of their white british population.

I'm not surprised - it's a pattern that can be seen throughout the country.

Immigrants move in - indigenous population moves out. In the East Midlands it's been happening for decades. Areas of Leicester, for example, would have been predominantly white British in the 1970's but now are exclusively occupied by immigrant populations.

Maybe humans inherently prefer to be surrounded by people that look like them and have similar values and culture

Mr._Pricklepants

Any major city like London, in these times of globalisation will always attract a huge variety of colour, languages and nationalities. Can only be applauded, therefore I agree 100% with the closing line in the article, defining it as a success.
London would be a third rate provincial backwater if it had stayed white British.

daveyjp

I was listening to the report on R4 this morning, unfortunately I only heard part of it. They were interviewing someone from Dagenham.

His parents have moved out as has his sister. He puts the Dagenham situation down to the Ford plant closure. As soon as it closed many people had no reason to stay. They took their redundancy, sold their RTB former Council home for much more than they paid for it and relocated - his parents now live in Lincolnshire.

[Deleted User]

Isn't this just a normal pattern? It's hardly new; immigrants move in, prior population moves out. I'm sure we did it in GCSE geography..

Conrad

I live in a county bordering London. Incommers from London are 99.9% white.

The pattern is invariably one of having kids and wanting to 'get out' whatever that means.

There is no meaningful celebrating of other cultures and the whites, often left leaning, go to white concerts, white National Trust visits, white Cornish holls, white skiing, white flapjack fetes, white camping, but they do have the odd Indian meal and falafal wrap, soooooo

michaels

Conrad wrote: »

..... white skiing....

Is there another sort?

ruggedtoast

Most people when they have enough money move as far away from London as they can get. The only people who really want to live there are twenty and early thirty somethings who are still excited by the "vibrancy" and people who are so rich they live in a bubble anyway.

Most middle income psuedo middle class (which I include myself as) people's goal is to move out of London and also score a job where they dont have to commute in there either. No one has any hope of just moving to a nicer area of London because the time when that kind of social mobility was available to average earners in the capital is a decade or more past.

A lot of the Indian community has done very well and moved out to NW London, Harrow, Pinner, Rayners Lane and Uxbridge.

I wont guess at the reasons why but there isnt any sign that the Bengali and Pakistani communities in the East End or the Afro Caribbean communities are going to achieve the ability to do this any time soon so they are pretty stuck where they are pending benefit reforms in areas where 70% or more of the working age adults are unemployed.

Unfortunately this is what happens with ghettos. The bottom of the heap gets stuck there and everyone else moves away.

Its unusual that it happens inside a major city, Paris for example confines its Algerians to no go zones on the outskirts of the city, which occasionally explode into rioting and invade the centre. London's weird social engineering has kept it all in the middle and everyone who can afford to move out does so.

chucknorris

wymondham wrote: »

Maybe London isn't so great after all?

Depends on what you want, I lived there for over 15 years, it is great for rapid career progression (providing you work hard), property equity growth (providing you buy and sell smartly). But awful for quality of life (at my age mid 50's but obviously much better for younger people who appreciate a vibrant city existance).

EDIT: What are you expecting from London?

Nikkster

michaels wrote: »

Is there another sort?

Best to keep off the yellow snow :eek: