Using Local Statistics and Neighbourhood Classifications to Portray Ethnic Residential Segregation: A London Example

Much has been written about ethnic residential segregation in urban areas, a great deal of it deploying single-index numbers to measure its intensity. These give very little detailed appreciation of the extent to which different ethnic groups live apart from each other, and where, within the city, generating the need for an approach that establishes the extent to which ethnic groups are concentrated in particular areas. This paper suggests that a combination of measures derived from local spatial statistics, which identify the geography of clustering, and a typology of residential areas, which describes the population composition of each area, provides much greater insight into the nature and extent of segregation/concentration. Data for London in 2001 illustrate the potential of this approach.