The inner geographies of a migrant gateway: Mapping the built environment and the dynamics of caribbean mobility in Manchester, 1951–2011

Laurence Brown, Niall Cunningham

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Between the 1960s and 1990s a series of urban redevelopment projects in Manchester radically transformed ethnic settlement in the city. The ward of Moss Side, which had been a gateway for Caribbean and African immigrants, experienced repeated slum clearances in which whole communities were relocated and large tracts of housing stock were demolished and redesigned. The relationship between these physical and demographic changes has been overshadowed by the persisting stigmatization of Moss Side as a racialized “ghetto,” which has meant that outsiders have constructed the area as possessing a fixed and homogenous identity. This article uses geographic information systems in conjunction with local surveys and archival records to explore how the dynamics of immigrant mobility within Moss Side were shaped by housing stock, external racism, family strategies, and urban policy. Whereas scholarship on ethnic segregation in Britain has focused on the internal migration of ethnic groups between administrative areas, using areal interpolation to connect demographic data and the built environment reveals the intense range of movements that developed within the variegated urban landscape of Moss Side.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)93-120
Number of pages28
JournalSocial Science History
Volume40
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Jan 2016
Externally publishedYes

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