Introduction

Processes of urban change and growth in Britain have seen the population take flight from the inner city with suburbanisation representing the most significant part of this urban de-concentration. Outward migration to the suburbs has often signified social aspiration and has been seen as an indicator of social mobility resulting in what Pacione (2001: 84) refers to as the ‘modern message of difference’. As outward movement from the city gained momentum in the post-war period the working classes suburbanised and a large proportion of public sector residents through slum clearance programmes were re-housed on the periphery as well as the inner city. This exodus from the inner city concentrated deprivation and left many inner-city neighbourhoods in decline. Contrary to this ‘exodus’ minority ethnic groups often settled in inner-city areas. The literature on this topic relates minority ethnic movement into poor housing in the inner city to the economic and social conditions in which their early migration was rooted (Phillips & Karn 1991; Smith 1989; Peach 1998; Miles 1982). These conditions were characterised in terms of their labour market position, often in unskilled jobs to meet labour shortages, were they acted as a ‘replacement population’ for the upwardly mobile majority population. This has been further complicated by difficult-to-access council housing and a weak position in the market. Despite their reasonably long history of settlement in Britain, the residential differentiation of South Asian households, in areas of core settlement in the inner city, has been maintained. It is only in recent times we have seen the small-scale movement of some South Asian households into the suburbs. It is with both these patterns of residence, inner-city clustering and suburbanisation, that this thesis is concerned.