Ghetto and Suburb
This chapter examines patterns of migrant settlement in London. The visibility of migrants in London often became associated with concentration in what contemporary observers often essentially regarded as ghettoes — from the Irish ‘rookery’ in St Giles during the eighteenth century to the Jewish East End by the late Victorian period to the ‘coloured quarter’ immediately after the end of the Second World War, focused especially upon the East End, but increasingly moving to other parts of the capital, including South London, especially around Brixton. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the ethnic concentrations which had characterized the history of London became a feature of the entire metropolis, as a patchwork of ethnic concentrations developed. This apparent universalization of settlement based upon ethnic lines reflected the increasing numbers of migrants moving to London, as well as the growing diversification of these newcomers. Ghettoization, to the extent that it exists, offers just one way of understanding the living patterns of migrant populations in London.