London's Neighborhoods Segregated by Religion

Stephanie Branson
SOC 202 10/5/07

London’s Neighborhoods Segregated by Religion
http://www.24dash.com/socialhousing/27064.htm


Reading the article “London’s Neighborhoods Segregated by Religion” I learned that research has been done showing the impact of this segregation. The capital alone has become a patchwork of religious enclaves, with minority religions making up 80% of the population, based on the University of East London with only 3% of London’s seven million residents living in areas classed as “racially segregated”, although 25% live in religiously segregated neighborhoods. It continues to go into questioning the ministers about the 2001 race riots and bombings, which were attempts to tackle segregation. They found that living in segregated communities could some what benefit some of the minorities that were involved. For example, the Jews, Hindus, and Sikhs seemed to do better living in areas that were dominated by their own religion with the exception of Muslims who seemed to do worse the more they became segregated.
After reading this article I was able to get a little insight into what they were talking about and what really interested me was the fact that they discussed how the different religious groups seemed to do better when they lived in areas that were dominated by their own religion with the exception of Muslims of course. I just thought that this was interesting because when you think about it when you are around people of the same whatever it may be you tend to feel more comfortable so maybe this is why they were able to flourish as they did. The only thing that I see is that there would be no differences, everyone would be the same. But I guess if it working for them then you can’t really say too much more. Now for the Muslims why were they not able to flourish as well? The article did not go into much detail about this, just saying that they continued to decline. Further information would have to be collected to understand why everyone else was doing so great and the Muslims so poorly.