The number Britain’s South Asians who live in segregated enclaves has risen significantly, adding to concerns of their social isolation, a study indicates. Over the last decade, Indians in segregated enclaves in Leicester rose by a third; the Pakistani ghetto in Bradford and Oldham trebled its numbers as well.‘‘It’s alarming that UK cities are rising up the world rankings in terms of segregation,” Mike Poulsen, a lecturer in geography at MacQuarie University in Sydney, Australia, told the annual meeting of the Royal Geographical Society.Having analysed UK census data from 1991 and 2001, Poulsen found about 13.6 per cent of the Indian community in Leicester now lives in isolated communities, up from 10.8 per cent in 1991. Similar enclaves in Bradford account for 13.2 per cent of the city’s Pakistani community, up from 4.3 per cent a decade ago.According to a Times report, multiculturalism revealed a high degree of variation across the UK. London’s Bengalis, for instance, live increasingly in exclusionist enclaves, but those in Manchester and Birmingham live side by side with other groups.There was little evidence of segregation among black ethnic groups in any city.
