RURAL RACISM

[findingthepremise]

So, I live in a predominately white area, an affluent area also. It has become apparent to me that even after decades have passed, the mixed or otherwise non white minority has never developed. I ask myself why? I find that in many rural areas this is the case and I cant understand why. Is having a housing stipulation under the council that requests that only people with family ties to the area can apply to put their name forward for the housing association schemes? is that possibly an undercurrent of racism?

Do you mean ‘never developed’ as in their numbers have not increased in rural areas?

Yeah, pretty much. Certainly in and around the Cotswolds

Maybe because they have roots elsewhere & that's where they choose to live. Councils certainly can't discriminate against race. But I'm sure you have to live in an area first before you can apply for a council property. You can't just pick an area you fancy & apply for a property.

Are you suggesting that non-white people can only move somewhere if the council provides them with housing????

I dont really think it is racism when housing is in such short supply - otherwise you get lots of locals who cannot live where they were brought up and their family is. And that causes a lot of resentment and problems.

Maybe they don't want to live there or can't afford it.

Given the choice, all things being equal, people rarely choose to live in an area where they're a tiny minority, so culturally homogenous areas often tend to stay that way and indeed get more so.

There are other drivers but that's one of them.

I don't think it's because of racism. Let's take the case of immigrants from Asia as an example. They choose to live in places where there are more jobs and housing, large towns and cities around the Cotswolds such as Oxford, Bristol, Swindon, etc. There are not much job opportunities in the Cotswolds rural area compared to cities and towns.

People of all colours/races can move there if they so desire - they don't have to apply for public housing.

Maybe they don't want to live in those places.

If I was moving to a foreign country, I'd want to live in a city with easy access to shops, banks and an airport so I could go back home to see family. I wouldn't want to live in the middle of nowhere where I was dependent on a car etc. to get around.

I say that as someone who lives very rurally btw. I love it here but it can be incredibly isolated and you need a really strong local support network if you're unwell or can't drive etc.

Maybe it’s because the communities are so underdeveloped. If I moved to another country and had the choice of living somewhere with no British people or a small British community I would live somewhere with a small British community.

I imagine it’s the same for anyone. For example there’s a big Polish community where I live - many Polish shops, advertisements for rented property in the Polish shops in Polish, easy to find Polish language groups, lots of Polish children in schools etc. So it makes sense that Polish people would want to live there since they have opportunities they wouldn’t have if there were no Polish people. I’m sure it’s the same wherever there’s a significant community of people from the same place.

But then I’m British and moved to England, and I wouldn’t want to be rural either! I’ve heard villages especially can be quite cliquey and although I live in a small town I have easy access to trains into big cities etc and wouldn’t want to always be reliant on driving a long way to get places, especially now my kids are getting a bit older.

As an ethnic minority, I wouldn't move to an area that is predominantly white as I would worry about my kids getting picked up on at school.
When people talk about white privilege, this is one of the biggest things for me - I can't have my pick of where to live in the western world as I have to take into account whether I will be welcomed there purely because of how I look. I wish I didn't have to but that's the reality.

I don't live rural but my mother does! She under estimated what life would be like by far!

Agreed @Kanaloa villiages are cliquey, it's a tight knit community, people are very likely to have inherited wealth and have family/friends links in and around the villiage area. So to try and move into a wealthy villiage is unrealistic for most surely. But as an ethnic minority... I wouldn't take a house for free in a posh villiage!

I don't know about the Cotswolds but I know in some villages in Cornwall some social housing you do need to live and be from the area to qualify for. Even some houses to buy have conditions attached that you must be from, live and work in the local area to buy. To be honest, I agree with the conditions, it can be incredibly difficult for local young people to find somewhere to live although much of this is due to second homes rather than new comers. These rules limiting some social housing and sales to locals would exclude ethnic minorities though.

Having a local link to social housing isn't solely villiage areas. A lot of housing associations request that especially new builds for social housing

I live in a very rural area and some Syrian refugees were assigned to our area.I'm not exactly sure how the process works but the civil service were involved in arranging for the infrastructure and support arrangements.
The families were welcomed into the area by the local community but they made it clear they preferred city life and were very unhappy at being isolated from their friends and relatives who were at least 3 hours away by public transport.
Racism played no part in this, it was all about personal preference and that's exactly how it should be.

Who says they are moving to a foreign country? There are plenty of ethnic minorities that were born in the UK….

Reasons why our family would not move to a very white rural area:

Racism. Honestly, white rural dwellers deciding it can’t possibly be a reason why ‘they’ don’t see and hear what goes on. Our multicultural family has a rural branch and we have had experiences that I thought were abolished in the 70s. I’m not saying racism doesn’t happen in our home city (London), it does, but your kids are not isolated in the face if it, and socially (friendship circles etc) it is easy to avoid.

General cultural vibe.

Just no reason to. Jobs, leisure interests, social life is in London. Types of work our family do don’t tend to be rurally based. Or if they could be (e.g accountant), still prefer the buzz of city living, snd enjoy rural for weekends away.

I am Indian by ethnicity and live in rural Norfolk. It is lovely here and there is far less racism than in larger cities (I am originally from Birmingham). There are more minorities living and working in rural areas but there is some reluctance I agree. There is a perception of racism (I do not think this is founded) and also Indian communities tend to be bigger and intertwined- so many related families will settle in large areas with access to food,culture and religious facilities.

As for HAs looking for local connections, I do not have an issue. Rural poverty is a big but largely hidden issue (heating oil and transport costs hit us harder and quicker). Why should we not support rural families to live rurally?

If your family are living in a village you are likely to want to live near them. Local people often cannot afford to stay as house prices are bumped up by wealthy income residents, due to locals need help to buy in the area they were raised in.
Rural areas have a different culture to urban ones for sure. People moving from urban to rural communities often don’t understand the culture and complain of not being made to feel welcome but it is usually due to them not understanding the local community and not making efforts to fit in - instead they expect everyone to bend to their expectations.

Oh, and everyone in my family is British English, not at all foreign.

In Norfolk and the Lake District (rural areas I have family in) you can be viewed as an incommer for a whole generation, with someone from the next county viewed practically as an alien!

It doesn't make much difference whee you go in the world, if you go to big cities they will have more, different kinds of cities. Whereas if you go to more rural, hard to get to places they will tend to have a more local, homogeneous population.

This has been all the more intensified because of the general movement of people out of rural areas to cities in the last 150 years or so.

When new immigrants come to a country they also very often prefer to be settled where there is already a good number of people from their own community.

The same thing can be at work in cities. Have a look at Trevor Phillips film, which talks, among other things, about the extent to which cities are in fact divided by ethnicity.

Are you talking in general or about tenants in council and HA properties? In our council if you are applying you can tick any area within the city that you’d like to bid for properties in but preference is given to those with links to each area. So I could tick one of the nice little villages in the county, but somebody with family or other links to those villages would come way above me who just wants to live there because it’s pretty than they area I have links to. There’s also a list of areas you don’t want to be considered for properties in and you have to give a reason why you don’t want to live there - no links, too far from your religious community, transport issues etc.

Generally, people tend to want to be around other people like them, or at least enough people like them, not to stand out and risk not being accepted.

I tend to agree btw that it can be difficult to fit in in rural communities if you are not local, generally. People may be very friendly, but it's not always easy to become part of their daily lives and build friendships. People have their routines and friends and family, things move slowly compared to city life, it's less transient. They can often be very self-sufficient.