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White Flight Fear As 150,000 a Year Move to Suburbs

Posted on: Friday, 18 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

MORE than 150,000 people a year are fleeing inner London for life in the suburbs or the country, it was revealed yesterday.

In some boroughs more than one out of every ten families and individuals moved out an exodus unparalleled in any other city in the country.

The movement out of the capital came against a background of high levels of inward migration that have pushed up the population of Greater London by 627,000, to 8.3million, over a decade.

Incomers include high proportions of people arriving from abroad and high numbers from ethnic minorities.

The pattern raises the spectre of 'white flight', the departure of middle class families from the city, a phenomenon which severely damaged U.S. cities in the 1960s and 70s.

In London, the movement involves not only whites but successful ethnic minority families joining the shift to suburbs and countryside to escape crime, poor transport and poor schools.

Figures gathered in the 2001 census and released for the first time yesterday show how the central boroughs of Westminster, Wandsworth, Islington, Camden and Hammersmith all saw more than 10 per cent of their residents move out in the year before the census.

They deepen the picture of a middle class movement out of central London already drawn by figures showing that the white population of the capital dropped by seven per cent during the 1990s, more than 400,000 people, while numbers overall grew because of a rising ethnic minority population.

The growing evidence of 'white flight' from London is revealed in a 465-page volume of census results covering towns and cities released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics.

Both Westminster and Wandsworth lost 11 per cent of their existing population in the year before the census.

But the population of both boroughs actually rose over the same period by 2 per cent in Wandsworth and 4 per cent in Westminster as even more new people came in.

Many of the arrivals were immigrants. Around one in 40 people in Wandsworth and one in 20 in Westminster counted by the census in April 2001 had arrived from abroad in the previous year.

During that year the ethnic minority population of Wandsworth, just under a fifth of the population, rose by 7.5 per cent. That of Westminster, more than a quarter of the population, went up by 13.5 per cent.

The big movement out of inner London is in sharp contrast with other major cities.

Only one in 50 people left Birmingham and the West Midlands conurbation; around one in 40 left West Yorkshire towns; and one in 50 left Manchester and its surrounding towns.

Middle class flight presents potentially severe problems to cities affected.

In the U.S.

it destroyed the social mix of cities and left their old centres blighted by poverty, drugs and crime.

Such extremes are highly unlikely in London, but the departure of growing numbers of middle class people means that inner city boroughs are likely to suffer from the loss.

The ethnic minority population of London is now more than a quarter of the total: 2,145,553 people out of 8,278,251.

Across England and Wales 15 per cent of the urban population come from ethnic minorities.

Asians make up 5.4 per cent of city and town populations; black Caribbeans make up 1.3 per cent in urban areas; black Africans 1.1 per cent.

The census figures show that nine out of ten people live in towns and cities, more than ever before.

How cities are for the young

CITIES are increasingly places for young people to live.

Those aged between 20 and 29 make up 13.5 per cent of the urban population but only 8.9 per cent of those who live in the small settlements of the countryside.

People over 45 are far more likely to have retreated to the country: 38.2 per cent of the urban population is over 45 against 46.1 per cent of rural residents.

Meanwhile, Nottingham has overtaken Sheffield in the league table of England's biggest conurbations, now filling seventh place with a population of 670,000 compared to Sheffield's 640,000.

London is top of the table with a population of 8.3million. Birmingham and the West Midlands are second with 2.3million.

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