.,,to think that the increasing White Flight from our Cities is a very worrying development?

[theplodder]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9831912/I-feel-like-a-stranger-where-I-live.html

And that we are getting further away from being an integrated multicultural society year by year as separate communities live in their own way with nothing in common?

I would hate to live in London.

What do people mean when they say that white areas don't have any culture? They do, it's just a different culture to ethnic areas.

acton seems to be filled with angry MC people, that wish they could live in Chiswick

then they go blame the immigrants. or course its fucking ethnic its got one of West Londons largest housing restates

remember Toby (Free school) Young, another Acton dweller

why should housing estates be ethnic?

I was in London for a christening last Spring and I noticed the huge ethnic mix.
I thought it was rather wonderful, I love where I live in the middle of nowhere, and couldn't live in a city, but I think London and Londoners should be proud of how they've managed to create such a divergent city.

theplodder Marrying a first cousin is allowed in churches in the UK.

It is worrying that there seems to be a growing intolerance amongst a minority of people on all sides.

Established immigrants grumble about the newer immigrants. Islamist youths are harassing gays, people swigging lager in the street and women they think aren't properly dressed. White British grumble about how their neighbourhood has been swamped by immigrants. Towns outside the south east are criticised for being too white and boring.

Everyone is becoming as bad as each other.

Interesting - I grew up on a white working class London council estate, and loads were second generation Irish immigrants
My family lived in Peckham and Camberwell for generations but in London, everyone seems to have come from somewhere else; there are French, Jewish, Welsh, Irish people in my family tree.

In Lonfon, immigration is a fact of life. Always has been. What the writer has identified is an economic divide - the fact that London community is increasingly stratified. My family lived in a Georgian terrace in Camberwell before WW2, working class people, but no one ordinary could afford that these days.

Oh yes, 'good school' = white pupils!
Tell that to my daughter's school, where all the kids in the top sets for English happen to be bilingual..

What is it that stops everyone who is not white from moving out too?

I live in what would be described as a white county and we do get people moving here from London all the time, its just they're all white.

Is it just money? I find that hard to believe because London is expensive. Even the cheaper stuff is expensive and would get more outside London. Is it jobs? Again doesn't make sense as everyone needs jobs. We do get Eastern Europeans but they come straight here and aren't ex Londoners

It's change Acton Vale into Acton Veil

yy ParistoBerlin, at the weekend we get on the bus for 10 minutes to the MC 'village' nearby and shop at the artisan bakery and traditional butchers before going for coffee in one of the naice patisseries and letting DD loose on the lovely playground on the green. If I dress smartly and put a bit of slap on I can pretend I'm a yummy mummy for a bit and can afford to live in a tiny terrace that's twice the price of our much bigger house down the road... :)

My cousin has lived in Acton for at least the last 30 years, although there's a sizeable Irish population it's always been very mixed!

it is not possible to compare london to detroit. detroit, i am guessing, only existed as a major city for about 100 years due to the car industry. london has existed for 1000 years as a centre of government and business. the population has always been refreshed with new immigration and people moving out to the suburbs when they wanted more space to live in.

Funny she isn't objecting to the Japanese community in West Acton, they even have their own school . Maybe she prefers Japanese food or they sell nicer curtains?

the people pictured - the one pressing or Sharia Law - are certainly quite active in that part of London.

I've only ever been to Westfield at Shepherd's Bush twice and both times I saw them there shouting and pushing leaflets on women they thought were inappropriately dressed.

I think it's a thoughtful, well-written personal account.

...oh, the picture was only used in the print edition. Not online.

TomDudgeon, non white people are moving out of London for bigger houses, better schools etc. I wouldn't. I worked out of London for a couple of years and it was like going back to the seventies the way people looked at and treated non whites.

chazs!!! EXACTLY!!! they are middle class I guess!???

Nancy, you have been unlucky, I have NEVER experienmced what you describe

lovecat

As a non white I echo what creighton said! There are places IN London I don't like to go to for this same reason!

I think people are getting lost in a touch of propoganda here! Ive thought long and hard and can not think of an area with the exception of Southall and perhaps Tower hamlets thats not majority white! Please enlighten me if I'm wrong....

My family have been here for 4 generations and I don't want to go into a history lesson to explain just how much the vast majority of 4th and 3rd generation 'immigrants' have contributed to this society (and I guess regardless of me knowing no other culture outside of 'british' I am still considered an immigrant in these so called non racist articles) but I find the very fact that there is no diffrentiation between recent immigrants and people who are in fact British but of a different colour to the majority of british people here offensive I'm itself. I guess my family and I would be considered as part of the reason she dosent feel at home but this is my home and it's people like her that ruin it!

It's true that she seems to focus on the muslim community, but then I am not aware of any Japanese groups that are handing out leaflets to scantily clad women or trying to ban alcohol from the streets outside their shops, and it is this sort of 'disapproving' behaviour that she seems to find objectionable in the main.

I'm not saying she's right, I've no idea because I rarely visit London, but if she feels like that then so do other people, who are maybe staying silent for fear of being called racist. Saying 'she's wrong' is only half of the argument, because the other half is getting to the bottom of why she feels like that and talking about what can be done to change these wrong perceptions.

aduecalione
I have lived in London for decades and I know the part of West London she is talking about quite well. I have never been hassled by anyone handing out leaflets etc from any religion.

I grew up in an area of outer london which has seen a dramatic demographich change in recent years. I can't speak for anyone else, but i can list some of the reasons i decided to move away:

Lots of my old schoolfriends & many family members had already left by the time i had dc1, so no old ties.

House prices. OMG.

Pace of life.

Feeling a lack of shared history/ common ground with those around me.

Being a new parent is tough: i needed support & for whatever reason, that sense of community & cameraderie just wasn't there. It's not about race & it's not about religion, necessarily. Growing up in that area, i had sikh, hindu, jewish, christian & buddhist friends whose parents had arrived in London from all over the world. In all honesty, I never became particularly close with anyone who was muslim (not for want of trying on my part!) but that's not proof of anything. It's probably more about the fact the immigrant families i was close to were settled & long established - they weren't having to deal with the immediate aftermath of arriving in a strange country.

First cousin marriage is an imported practice? I assume you've never read Jane Austen.

You are worried about people of a particular skin colour leaving "our cities"? That's inherently racist.

FWIW, you could say that I left Hackney because of a "white influx", although I would never put it that way. Increasing middle class gentrification ruined the vibrant, multi-ethnic alternative scene that I loved so much.

Also, "white flight" is an American term used to describe a stage in the death throes of failing cities such as Detroit, taken from the assumption that all middle-class people who are able to flee an inner city are white, whilst all the poor ones who have to stay are black.

You cannot draw parallels with London, which if anything is a victim of its own success