to wonder what is happening to London!?

[AisforAria]

Anyone else worried about the sudden rise in acid attacks, moped thieves etc? It feels a bit like the rule of law is breaking down. All this simmering violence - London feels really alien and hostile these days.

Oh, and its not just finance.

Teaching and police fail to represent the ethnic make up of communities.

It is a real issue. Really divisive.

My industry (publishing) certainly isn't mixed at all. It's predominantly based in London and it is predominantly white middle class. Lots of women (though not at the top), but very few people of colour. Now, that may be because most people come from doing humanities degrees and there are fewer black and Asian people studying English or history, I don't know, but ethically (and socially) diverse it is not.

I think that there is just no "glue" holding Londoners together anymore. London is very diverse but the population seems to have become very transient with some very extreme disparities in wealth.

We also have so many different cultures and although they superficially mix, there doesn't seem to be anything bonding them to a sense of being "Londoners", they are just here to work/make money or until they move on, with no loyalty to London (and the housing crisis has exacerbated this because so many people are forced to rent that properties become run-down and areas lose their communities and nobody bothers to invest in making things nice/creating a community because they won't be there long enough for it to be worth their time and money). It is has all become so greedy and myopic and there is a lot of anger and loneliness boiling underneath the surface.

@AisforAria I think you have really summed up the issue - superficial mixing but no cohesive community glue to bind different socioeconomic and cultural groups together.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/12/met-police-warns-of-sharp-rise-in-london-gun-and-knife-crime-budget-cuts

The government can't keep cutting police funding and expect any different outcome than an increase in crime.

Not to mention cuts to services such as CAMHS, adult mental health, youth services etc. Lots of boroughs used to have gangs workers, but they've pretty much been cut now, I think.

hipster I did not say there isn't a problem with diversity, I asked for examples of where people had experienced a lack of diversity. There is a huge difference between the question I asked and the statement you are accusing me of saying.

I am in STEM research. It's really culturally diverse.

OP I agree.
My area in London was as safe as safe could be, there was hardly any crime. That was all in the next area.
It was a nice mix of people, very community like.
Now there's loads of car thefts, trying to steal phones and the crimes that may have been around before I was born. It's really sad.

The CEO of Cancer Research UK wears a turban and has a beard (and is an absolutely gorgeous man, really kind and charasmatic, I've met him a lot) so to suggest that there are ethnicities who don't reach the same professional heights is wrong. I've met plenty of people in religious dress at work or seen them commuting in to the city in the morning.

That is an astounding extrapolation you've made from what she said to something else entirely.

I work in finance, and the trading floors, in London, are filled with a diverse cultural mix. But in Investment Banking there are very few.
Asset managers are now becoming more "aware" of diversity, and the last few years have seen more people who would fall under the "diversity" label being employed.
Senior management in all of these institutions are still stuffed to the gills with white men. Very few women or BME.
In the US, there is much less cultural diversity what have been traditionally white, middle class roles.

I mentor very disadvantaged black girls (16-18), and they already feel disenfranchised, and severely lacking in self esteem. We need to change this at grass root level, and try and equalise opportunities.

I have no idea how to do this, or where you would start!

My local dentist wears a hijab and my gp when growing up was a mr Singh with a beard. This is what I love about the UK.

Are we all on the same thread?

She didn't say "it's so sad that there are no brown people in professional careers " did she? She's talking about different social groups flocking together in various sectors.

Please can you name me professions where it is not mixed?

So, as above, medicine seems to attract more Asian entrants than is community-proportionate. Dentistry even more so.

Law more white entrants than is community proportionate.

Teaching is still too low on all BAME groups to reflect society. And men at primary level.

Afro-carribean women are extremely well represented in Nursing, Social Work and various other public sectors careers notably Local Government and HE administration in London.

Television production and publishing are still very white.

Plenty of chartered accountancy entrants are from Asian communities and some black, but less so in other branches of financial services and banking.

I'm running out of sectors I can comment on now.

I don't have the energy to start on state v private education and career destinations. But I suspect there's less denial about that anyway.

This happened just a few roads away from where I was talking about in my earlier post. Of course everything is hunky dory in London at the moment

[[http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/terrifying-moment-moped-gang-rob-porsche-driver-at-knifepoint-in-southeast-london-a3591041.html]{

NC as this is very outing but I'm a long-standing regular...I remember swmnbn for God's sake.

On Sunday, in my nice suburban area of zone 3, my daughter and her friend, and friend's mum very narrowly missed being caught up in a relatively violent motorcycle robbery a few streets away. On a Sunday afternoon. In broad daylight.

Last week, my three year old narrowly avoided being hit by some fucker on a quad bike when he mounted a pavement while being pursued by police.

On Monday, I witnessed police chasing moped drivers down a road I was trying to cross on my way to a gym.

A couple of days ago, a man was helped by passers-by at a set of traffic lights as someone tried to wrestle him off his moped.

This is getting worse, it's not the media, I'm seeing it with my own eyes. It wasn't like this even last year.

Our local park is no longer safe for local teenagers, particularly boys. It terrifies me and much as I love this city, yes, it makes me wonder whether or not it's a good place to continue to raise my family.

Thanks for the posts re. sectors. Really interesting.

Apologies for the fact I work in quite a closed (but diverse) sector; I rarely get to mix with other professional sectors in a professional capacity. Really interesting to see where the diversity lies and where it doesn't.

Sorry @HurtleTheTurtle I thought you were doing performance scepticism

A lot of people are very invested in not discussing this city as it really is. I can never entirely pin down all the reasons why.

I love London and it's irritating beyond words when people do the fingers in ears "La la la. Shalwar Kameez are CUTE, everything is VIBRANT and it's all lovely in the garden" thing.

You need to read up on London history if you feel it's unsafe now

That's all very well, but quite frankly, unhelpful. I know London's history and yes, I'm very glad I wasn't trying to raise children in a Victorian tenement, but I would also quite like to not have to worry about walking my child along our street on a weekend afternoon.

I think the points on this thread about the disparities in wealth and opportunity are it. There's a undercurrent of resentment. I've been living and working here for 17 years, and while it was always there (I used to work in a very deprived part of East London with people who were on the New Deal), it's worse now than it was then.

Serf

No, just suffering from professional narrow mindness (and my partner is a medic in a pretty diverse setting too). It was definitely curiousity!

serf totally agree. Drives me mad when people go on about how much they "love the diversity" of London and when you question them further this is mostly rooted in the fact they really like Carribbean food.

Thanks for the support @SerfTerf

@HurtleTheTurtle I'm glad STEM research is pretty diverse, is it pretty balanced M/F as well?

I don't think the tech start up scene is representative of London ethnicity as a whole either. That is white male dominated.

I can't really add on any other sectors to those Serf listed as I mainly work with corporate finance and associated professions.

Sorry @HurtleTheTurtle I didn't mean you personally looked like you were doing the whole "La la La". Was just warming to my theme

It's interesting that STEM sectors seem to do better. I wonder why.

when you question them further this is mostly rooted in the fact they really like Carribbean food.

Oh yes!

Britain bans guns, people who want to carry a weapon use knives.
Knives get banned, so they carry knuckle-dusters and batons.
Knuckle-dusters and batons get banned, so people move to carrying acid.

I'm not saying the government should legalise the carrying of firearms and knives although I am increasingly thinking it but the point is, people who choose to carry a weapon, for whatever criminal or misguided reason, will find the next "best" thing. It's ironic that a life-ruining acid attack might lead to 5 years or less for the perpetrator, whereas the act of carrying a knife - but not using it - can lead to 4 years.

Acid attackers are pathetic cowards who feel above the law. The best thing would be mandatory life sentences for anyone who carries acid without good cause, and a life sentence with added life-changing "restorative justice" for anyone who actually uses it in an attack.

We live in a pretty diverse area too.

Should add, diversity decreases in STEM as you go further up - I am still "early career". Not much diversity in Professorships in London though which is a shame. Largely due to funding stipulations I think.

Also, M/F is better balanced but not equal - it's quite hard for females who want families due to fixed term contracts in early years. Actually, exceptionally hard.

There appears to be a rise in crime, or reported crime, during the times of lighter evenings.

@HurtleTheTurtle that's really interesting about fixed term contracts. Is it driven by uncertainty in funding?

I was ignoring the history people last night but FFS
I know my history of London very well thank you
However, for the purposes of this thread, I am not concerned with what my area was like in the 1840s!
It's like when people start telling you how high the population was before the war
So much whataboutery

Anyway, I was thinking about this in the way into work
If you commute from a nice part of town to central London it's highly likely you won't notice a difference
If you live in a place that's not great, or rapidly downhill, of course you'll notice

Now that some other posters have shared stories I will add that one reason the neighbours were chatting about it in the first place was because of three physical attacks in broad daylight here, two for handbags, one presumably for cash, because the guy wasn't carrying a briefcase but looked smart. This is just on my flats. The management company actually wrote us a letter about gangs operating in the area, mostly because the attacks were were violent and they run a few blocks here so thought they'd notify residents who might not have heard.

For people who are not worried, great, no one is asking you to worry. For people who are worried, there's definitely a few of us around who are having the same experience locally and understand the worry.