Ghetto Britain

Writer: David Rosenberg

Ghettos – myth and reality | Who lives where and why? | Economic deprivation and race relations | White power in the cities | Can we get along?

White power in the cities

BNP members may win some council seats but their support is concentrated in the economically squeezed, skilled white working classes. True white economic power lies elsewhere.

The number of ethnic minority businesses has grown in recent years to 7% of UK businesses. Cranfield School of Management estimates, though, that only 2% of board members of the largest companies on the Stock Exchange are from ethnic minorities.

Dr Robert Beckford talking to a woman in the programme Channel 4

The number of ethnic minority members within Britain's higher paid professions – whether barristers, MPs, or media executives – may be gradually growing, but they represent a tiny elite and there is little indication that the institutions they are entering are changing. Most African-Caribbeans and Asians in Britain are located within lower paid sectors. The recent Rowntree Foundation study found that 25% of white children in Britain live in poverty, compared with 56% of Black African children, 60% of Pakistani children and 74% of Bangladeshi children. Small wonder that these minorities are failing to achieve the educational success that might bring more opportunities.

London Metropolitan University has more Black Caribbean students than the entire 19 institutions of the Russell Group which includes Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and which provide the pool for elite recruitment. These 'Oxbridge' universities also produce many graduates who go on to work in the media industries, the City or in 'high culture', such as art, literature, theatre, or as curators of museums and galleries.

In fact the most aggressive move towards geographical ghettoisation comes from people within the middle and upper income bracket – overwhelmingly white – increasingly housing themselves within gated communities. On the pretext of security from crime they guard their wealth and power by limiting their physical contact with people from less privileged classes. While not yet on the same scale as the USA, where 4 million people live within gated communities, Atkinson and Flint's study in 2004 found that Britain has 1000 gated communities.

Can we get along? >