White Flight? London? Who Knew?

Demographic change has really swept over the City of London where the white population now makes up just 45% of residents.

It's estimated that 620,000 white Londoners have left since the turn of the century.

The movement of the white British is often characterised as white flight - the indigenous population forced out of their neighbourhoods by foreign migrants. That may be part of the story, but ...the evidence suggests it is also about working class aspiration and economic success. 

London's dramatic loss of white British residents is represented by a splash of yellow and orange. Outside the capital, the dominant blues tell a story of an increasing white British population. In some places the rise is quite marked.

Polish is the second most common language spoken in England

The years between the last two censuses have witnessed significant cultural change in London, particularly in the outer boroughs. Some white British may have moved because their neighbourhood has been culturally transformed, the tea rooms and restaurants replaced by takeaway chicken shops and halal supermarkets serving the new arrivals.

But there is also a story here of white working class families that escaped from the slums and bombed-out East End in the middle of the last century, found new opportunities in London's outer boroughs and then, in the past decade - often having prospered from the housing boom and the capital's economic growth - cashed in their assets and bought themselves that little cottage in the countryside or by the sea.

It is a story of aspiration. It is a story of success.