Key findings

• • Britain's cities are more ethnically diverse than ever before. Slough, Luton and Leicester are the first local authorities outside London that are already plural, where no ethnic group is in the majority.

• • The census itself has changed how Britain's diversity is measured, by dividing White into White British, Irish, Gypsy or Irish Traveller, and Other White.

• • Cities labelled by politicians as ‘segregated’ are, in fact, the most diverse. For example, Bradford and Leicester both have more than 1,000 residents from each of 15 ethnic categories measured in the census, and over 30,000 residents from diverse groups that the census labels as ‘Mixed’ or ‘Other White’, ‘Other Asian’, ‘Other Black’ or simply ‘Other’.

• • Increased diversity over a decade is small but steady: every local authority district except Forest Heath has increased its diversity since 2001.

• • A projection of ethnic diversity suggests that the future will include many local authorities where White British is not the largest group, but no other single ethnic group is likely to become the majority of any city's population.

• • The future of Britain is a greater variety of diverse areas.

Introduction

Plural cities is a concept used in discussions about how local government policies might change when the population is so ethnically mixed that no one group is the majority.

Local government deals with diverse areas on an everyday basis: not only ethnic and cultural diversity, but also the needs of young adults and older people, those in rural and urban neighbourhoods, those with powerful organisations to represent them, and those without. The changing ethnic composition of an area is a guide to changing needs inasmuch as it may indicate a variety of preferences for housing size, for types of school meals, for care of older people, for cultural and entertainment facilities, for funereal procedures or for other aspects of local services. Increasing ethnic diversity may also require and indicate resilience and an ability to cope with change, including the arrival of new migrants. Diverse areas offer a variety of resources and cultures to visitors and traders.

Managing ethnic diversity through appropriate services and by making connections between diverse cultures is an established area of study and practice in the UK and internationally (Wood et al, 2006; Reza, 2012). Needs are best measured directly by a variety of social indicators (see also Chapter Two, this volume).