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Research finds no bias in allocation of social housing

Social housing allocation and immigrant communities

The independent research by ippr found that social housing policies are targeting those in most need including the homeless, the elderly and families with children. It found no evidence to support the perception that new migrants are getting priority over UK born residents. Nor was there any evidence of abuse of the system, including 'queue jumping' or providing false information.

"Much of the public concern about the impact of migration on social housing has, at its heart, the failure of social housing supply to meet the demands of the population. The poorer the area, the longer the waiting lists, therefore the greater the tension. Government and social housing providers need to work with the communities they serve to address these issues.”

GLA-LSE research on the impact of an amnesty for irregular migrants

Economic impact on the London and UK economy of an earned regularisation of irregular migrants 

In 2007, the UK provided a home to an estimated 618,000 irregular migrants - of these 442,000 live in London. GLA Economics commissioned the London School of Economics to research the potential economic impact of allowing those with an irregular status to become regularised.

Summary

LCC and the Lost Quarter of London

Community: Photographs of the Elephant and Castle

Venue: The Cuming Museum, The Old Town Hall, 151 Walworth Road, London SE17 1RY                Free Admission

An exhibition by students from MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication (LCC). Elephant & Castle is home to thousands of people who will be affected by the regeneration.  An area described as 'The Lost Quarter' of London will be utterly transformed over the next decade. Each year the MA students are set a project to document the area.

Gallery

Previous exhibition Home, The Elephant and Castle

BBC RADIO 4 ON CITIES

Thursday 20th November - Listen on line now available

20:00 Our First Plural City

Tim Whewell reports from the city of Leicester, which in the next few years is predicted to become Europe's first 'plural city', where no one group is in a majority.

He explores the 'Leicester Model' of successful race relations, and the way in which different ethnic communities coexist alongside a dwindling inner-city white population. Tim finds out where the power lies in the government of the city and how the multicultural fabric of the city will fare as the newer arrivals jostle with the white and Asian communities in a time of looming recession.

20:30 Analysis

World Cities, Urban Nightmares?

Mukul Devichand asks if the megacities of the developing world are going to follow the model of London and New York, privileging a global elite and marginalising the poor.

He travels from London to Mumbai and Delhi to meet thinkers, planners, architects and city leaders and discovers that many of the world's biggest cities are making uncannily similar choices about housing and architecture as they compete to attract global companies.

"Rivers of blood" 40 YEARS ON...

Paul Gilroy reflects on dealing withg the Powell legacy.

"From all sides, we're told that years of hate-fuelled immigration-talk can be effectively "de-racialised" at a stroke without giving attention to the political baggage that it has accumulated. This aspiration reassures all who dwell comfortably within the bubble of official politics that they are right to believe they can make anything mean exactly what they want it to mean. "

Trevor Philips argues the interrelationship of integration and (managed) migration.

"... our history shows that immigration and integration are reciprocal. That is to say, that if we needed, perhaps for economic reasons, to admit more immigrants we would have to work harder at integration;  but equally, that if we are better at our integration, we can probably accommodate more immigrants."

MIGRANTS: mapping, marginality & the metropole

Mobile masculinities: Men, migration and low paid work in London

The latest paper from the Global Cities at Work programme.

Also available online:  Brazilians in London. A report for the Strangers into Citizens Campaign.

Show Invisibles? migration / data / work

The latest edition of Mute examines invisibility, the campaign for a migrant amnesty, and the attempts to 'destroy the legal and informational grey zones in which the poor shelter and organise'.

A controversial and stimulating read!

"An amnesty might represent a real and substantial gain for migrant communities and a limited number of individuals, but at the cost of the re-inscription of life into the state and the legitimisation of the state's role in managing the tension between, and circulation across, borders and boundaries."

God is a Londoner!

Religious London

  London has more religious groups than any other city in the world and together they weave a wonderfully rich tapestry, producing communities teeming with diversity. This extraordinary mix of faiths in London is a phenomenon and which listings magazine Time Out explores and celebrates.

WANTED: a black-british urbanism

No Leaders  Bonnie Greer in New Statesman

Black urbanism is not only an understanding of urban culture and experience from a black perspective - it also requires the active involvement of us, the black communities in cities and neighbourhoods all across the UK. Black communities should be more engaged in the process of designing and creating the very neighbourhoods and spaces of the metropolitan areas they have done so much to help revive over the past half-century.

PEOPLE MATTER TOO

People Matter Too: The Politics and Method of Black Liberation Theology

Download fergusonnew.pdf

The 2007 Samuel Ferguson Lectures will be given by Dr Anthony Reddie of the Queen's Foundation, Birmingham on Thursday 18th October at 5pm, at Flowers Theathre, Chancellors Conference Centre, Fallowfield, Manchester.

SOUL AND THE CITY Urban Ministry and Theology 1956-2006 Ken Leech's 2006 Samuel Ferguson Lecture is still available on URBLOG.