Immigration and Diversity
- What's happening where you live?

The immigration debate in the UK can at times seem to be more about political 'sound bites' than substance. The increasing impact of immigration and diversity in particular at a local level receives little attention or proper analysis. Local Authorities trying to plan for the future may find it helpful to look at immigration and diversity developments at a local level in the U.S.

South Orange, New Jersey for example, is one of the most diverse counties in the USA. More than 50 languages are spoken in the public schools, and this is what more and more communities across America will look like soon — very soon.

Racial and ethnic diversity is spreading far beyond the coasts and into surprising places across the USA, rapidly changing how Americans live, learn, work and worship together. Cities and towns far removed from traditional urban gateways such as New York, Miami, Chicago and San Francisco are rapidly becoming some of the most diverse places in America, an analysis of demographic data by USA TODAY shows.

The USA is experiencing a “great wave” of immigration — call it a “second great wave.” The first, which stretched from the 1880s to the 1920s, coincided with the opening of Ellis Island and the social and political transformation of the nation. The people in this second wave, arriving roughly since 1970, are more likely to be middle-class and, because of improved transportation and technology, can assimilate more quickly.

The result: For the first time, the next person you meet in this country — at work, in the library, at a coffee shop or a movie ticket line — will probably be of a different race or ethnic group than you.

The Diversity Index

USA TODAY used Census data to calculate the chance that two random people are different by race or ethnicity and came up with a Diversity Index to place every county on a scale of 0 to 100. The nationwide USA TODAY Diversity Index hit 55 in 2010, up sharply from 20 in 1960 and 40 as recently as 1990. In South Orange, the index is 59.

This is just the beginning. Barring catastrophe or a door-slam on immigration, the Diversity Index is on track to top 70 by 2060, according to a USA TODAY analysis of population projections by ProximityOne . That means there will be less than a 1-in-3 chance that the next person you meet will share your race or ethnicity, whatever it is: white, black, American Indian, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Hispanic. (The average citizen in England and Wales has a 1-in-3.5 chance).

Managing the effects of Immigration

As people from varying cultures and races come together or collide, local governments and other institutions deal with a host of new issues, from conflicts over spending and diverse hiring to violence in the streets and language barriers.

This month, health workers in Dallas going door-to-door at the 300-unit apartment complex that housed the first U.S. patient with Ebola had to translate leaflets about the disease into eight languages. Among the tenants, the complex’s owner said, were many refugees being resettled.

Students witness the changing face of the country first-hand: Public schools began the 2014-15 school year with an unprecedented profile: For the first time, non-Hispanic white students are in the minority, according to Education Department projections.

Almost half of the Americans, 49 percent, polled by USA TODAY say the country will be “better off” as communities diversify, racing toward a point where no racial or ethnic group has a majority; 25 percent say the country would be “worse off.”

The fastest change is happening in regions such as the upper Midwest, where there was almost no diversity 30 years ago. Minnesota’s Diversity Index rose from 7 in 1980 to 31 in 2010.

Fair Housing and Community Integration

For decades, much of South Orange’s diversity has been driven by effective “fair housing” laws that opened up affordable housing beyond Newark city limits. Activists have also pushed to keep these suburban neighbourhoods diverse, working with Estate Agents to persuade them to show prospective families a broader swath of houses for sale. In many cases, activists have taken newcomers on a kind of “outsiders’ real estate tour” of their own.

“We wanted to see if we could actually encourage people to live in all parts of the community,” says Nancy Gagnier, executive director of the South Orange-Maplewood Community Coalition on Race.

After a commuter rail line directly connected the area with Manhattan in 1996, diverse families increasingly began settling here from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Jersey City and Hoboken, Gagnier says. “They’re looking for that step out into the suburbs that doesn’t fully remove them from an urban feel and has a level of diversity.”

The change had many locals worried about white flight to more far-flung suburbs. The coalition offered home improvement loans in at-risk neighbourhoods and aggressively marketed South Orange and nearby Maplewood as appealing places to live.

“I guarantee you, you ask any person walking down the street, ‘Why did you move here?’ or ‘What’s the community’s best asset?’ and they’ll use the term ‘diversity,’ “ Gagnier says.

Attitude development

In addition to housing policy, much of the shift to suburbs by immigrant groups can be traced to a subtle change in attitude, says David Dante Troutt, the founding director of the Rutgers Centre on Law in Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). He’s the author of the 2014 book The Price of Paradise: The Costs of Inequality and a Vision for a More Equitable America.

As cities gentrified and urban housing grew more expensive, immigrants whose forerunners had long settled in cities began to rethink that idea, deciding “the city is no longer the place to be,” Troutt says. Add troubled urban schools to the mix, he says, and the result is an explosion of ethnic enclaves, comprised of new immigrants, outside central cities.

“It’s fascinating, and it holds all sorts of promise,” he says. “It both contradicts American ideas about immigration and demographics and supports many long-standing ideas about it, including the belief that the American dream is found in the ownership of a single-family home in the suburbs.”

He says much of the diversity of places such as South Orange will depend on how strongly local attitudes support diverse kinds of housing. “It’s still a delicate balance,” he says. “Let’s not kid ourselves. Even discussion of building workforce housing in some of these progressive towns will meet with a vitriol and an opposition that you can expect from the most affluent, conservative places.”

Future Diversity

If you want to see what the USA might look like in 2040, when the Diversity Index is projected to reach 65, look at Denver, Albuquerque, Austin or Phoenix, which already have reached that level. Counties along the Texas border — notably El Paso — have become less diverse as Hispanics have grown to make up more than 90 percent of the population.

The second wave of immigration is putting its own stamp on the makeup of communities across the country.

Access to transportation and a wider geographical swath of jobs means immigrants are not just showing up in big coastal cities and staying for generations. They’re moving to “new destinations,” as demographer Jacob Vigdor calls these places — not just suburbs but rural parts of the South, Midwest and West.

While this second wave brings tensions and battles over school districts, religion, public spaces, law enforcement and affordable housing, it also brings new energy: The immigrants have higher birth rates, ensuring a steady supply of workers for future generations. They bring new role models, new foods and traditions, new sports, a tremendous entrepreneurial energy and, perhaps most significantly, intact, religiously devout families that place a heavy emphasis on education.

In other words, true Americans.

“We should be really happy that we have this large minority growth in the United States,” says Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, author of the upcoming book Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America.

Frey says “new minorities” — Hispanics, Asians and multiracial Americans — are arriving as the USA’s white population is growing quite slowly and actually declining for the younger part of the population. “So it’s in fact a tonic,” he says. “We’re going to need this as we look ahead.”

Implications for the UK?

With the new growth in diversity, Frey says, should come a new attitude about ethnic and racial minorities. “This is everybody’s business to make sure we have a productive multi-ethnic population in the United States,” he says. “And we should be so thankful that they’re here, because if we didn’t have the immigration and the fertility of these groups in the last 20 years, we would be in the same situation as Japan, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, which are facing a declining labour force and an aging population.”

Frey puts it rather bluntly, noting that Census projections show that in about 10 years, the USA’s white population will not only be crowded out — it’ll start to shrink. “A lot of people don’t realize this,” he says. “It’s the full-scale demographic scope of all this that’s really important for us to get our arms around because it’s really important for our future as a country.”

Original article from Greg Toppo (USA TODAY), Paul Overberg and John Andrew Prime. Thanks to USA TODAY, The Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and Amazon.co.uk.

Immigration and diversity in the UK
Review & Planning Programme for Local Authorities

With opposition to immigration in England and Wales reportedly at 80%, a recent publication by Professor Eric Kaufmann, 'Changing  Places', identifies that white British opposition to immigration is lower in areas with more minorities and immigrants. The report makes recommendations about how the Home Office disperses refugees, House building policies and revisiting what we mean by Britishness and the future for English ethnicity.

Des McCabe (a Member of DWP Equality and Diversity Customer Reference Group) is currently working with Local Authorities in all parts of the UK to help them to develop meaningful immigration and diversity strategies.

The three month process for a team of local Managers is supported by three one day workshops which deliver a local strategy, detailed implementation plan and monitoring criteria.

STAGE 1 - An initial one day workshop (see content below) with managers/key personnel to identify local factors and priorities.

STAGE 2 - One day workshop in month two to work up, develop and coordinate individual components of the strategy.

STAGE 3 - Third workshop in month three to complete the action plan with responsibilities, timescales, key performance indicators and outcomes.

STAGE 4 - Report produced with detailed action plan and monitoring criteria.

Key Topics for Local Authorities

The initial workshop covers the following :
- Developing a local strategy for immigration and diversity (local factors, current trends and future scenarios).
- UK diversity index - where are we in this area?
- A values based approach?
- Producing an immigration and diversity policy.
- Community planning - creating our local demographic map 2020 (and reviewing its implications).
- Housing policies review - housing allocation approaches, new build priorities and minimising ghetto mentality.
- Engagement of immigrant communities.
- Preferred integration strategies and approaches.
- Leveraging diversity in economic development.
- Learning together - education challenges for all.
- Policing and justice initiatives.
- Mapping of Health and Wellbeing service provision.
- Promoting the best of new communities - food, music, arts, leisure and sport.
- Case Studies - including Immigration in the U.S. & Social Cohesion in Australia.
- Challenges for local democracy and representation (elected members and council staff).
- Key components of an immigration and diversity plan for our local authority area for 2016-2020.
 
This is an important review and planning process for all local authorities in the UK.

Practical points
- Number of participants on workshops: 8-24
- Cross department & Senior Management representation recommended.
- Total cost of the process is £4,950 (inclusive)

To discuss this process for your Local Authority please call Des McCabe on 07717 203325 or email [email protected]

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Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America

In April 2011 a New York Times headline announced, "Numbers of Children of Whites Falling Fast." As it turns out, that year became the first time in American history that more minority babies than white babies were born.

The concept of a "minority white" may instil fear among some Americans, but William H. Frey, the man behind the demographic research, points out that demography is destiny, and the fear of a more racially diverse nation will almost certainly dissipate over time.

Through a compelling narrative and eye-catching charts and maps, eminent demographer Frey interprets and expounds on the dramatic growth of minority populations in the United States. He finds that without these expanding groups, America could face a bleak future: this new generation of young minorities, who are having children at a faster rate than whites, is infusing our aging labour force with vitality and innovation.  In contrast with the labour force-age population of Japan, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, the U.S. labour force-age population is set to grow 5 percent by 2030.

The Price of Paradise: The Costs of Inequality and a Vision for a More Equitable America

Many American communities, especially the working and middle class, are facing chronic problems: fiscal stress, urban decline, environmental sprawl, failing schools, mass incarceration, political isolation, disproportionate foreclosures, and severe public health risks. In The Price of Paradise, David Dante Troutt argues that it is a lack of what he calls “regional equity” in our local decision making that has led to this looming crisis now facing so many cities and local governments. Unless we adopt policies that take into consideration all class levels, he argues, the underlying inequity affecting poor and middle class communities will permanently limit opportunity for the next generations of Americans.  

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