[Wylug-discuss] Leeds

[Dave Fisher]

On Sat, Mar 05, 2005 at 07:08:13PM +0000, Imran Javeed wrote:
> On Monday 07 March 2005 11:59, Dave Fisher wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 11:29:27AM +0000, G Quested wrote:
> > > >1. Sorry about including the WHOLE Digest in the reply
> > > >
> > > >2. I meant Chapeltown - very sorry to Chapel Allerton
> > >
> > > I live in Chapeltown. What's wrong with it?
> >
> > I lived in Chapeltown over two decades, and while it's certainly not the
> > hell-hole that the socially ignorant would have you believe, it's
> > certainly not without its problems.  Without denying those problems, I
> > can't help feeling that Chapeltown would have a much better image if its
> > population were less colourful and people actually looked at the
> > objective social statistics.
> >
>
> Could you please explain exactly what you mean by this
>
> "Chapeltown would have a much better image if its
>  population were less colourful and people actually looked at the
> objective social statistics."

It's dead simple.

If you look at the most common statistical indicators of social
well-being, Chapeltown does pretty well compared with large areas of
East and South Leeds.

Yet Chapeltown is typically (and very unfairly) the first place
mentioned when outsiders ask about the city's rough areas.

There is obviously mismatch between objective reality and popular
perceptions.

My guess is that this has something to do with Chapeltown's greater
visibility and I can think of several reasons for that:

 1. It has hosted waves of newly immigrant populations for over a
 century (Irish, Jews, Poles, Serbs, Ukrainians, Sikhs, Kashmiris,
 Bangladeshis ... and a host of others).

 2. These populations always got more attention than their numbers
 justified, in part because they were visibly distinctive,  whether by
 dress, religious practice, business pattern, skin colour, or whatever
 ...

 3. Deplorable though it is, visible 'difference' attracts hostility and
 the areas that house 'different' people get negative images attached to
 them.  No matter how unfair and ridiculous it sounds, the credibility
 of such images is enhanced by repetition over the course of a century.

 4. Chapeltown has been considered a 'black area' since the 1960s,
 despite the fact that it has had a majority 'white' population
 throughout most of that period.  And despite the fact that the non-white
 population consists of quite distinctive ethnic and social groups, many
 of whom would not choose to describe themselves as 'black'.

 5. Given the widespread occurance of racism (however subtle and
 unconscious) it is hardly surprising that Chapeltown has been tarred
 with many of the negative stereotypes associated with 'blackness'.

 6. Chapeltown sits on the confluence of North Leeds's three main arterial
 roads (Scott Hall Rd, Chapetown Rd, and Rounday Rd), which means that
 the middle-class suburbanites who dominate the city's institutions and
 social discourse pass it just about every weekday morning and evening.

 7. By contrast, huge areas of crime and poverty (like
 Bermantofts-Gipton-Seacroft or Middleton-Belle Isle are virtually
 invisible to the city's chattering classes and opinion formers).


Dave