Changes Can Lead to Tension & Conflict (Edexcel A Level Geography)

• Places are dynamic and constantly changing, which can lead to new challenges or opportunities for local people and their lived experience of place 
  • In all changing situations, there are winners and losers
  • For example, building a new place of worship may benefit some locals but may cause tension with other locals, who disapprove
• Changes to the land use of a place are often caused by competition for space, especially in urban areas, from:
  • Different community groups, who want to improve their local neighbourhood
  • Local governments, who identify and deliver on local priorities e.g. increasing local housing stock and regenerating town centres
  • National governments, who identify national priorities e.g. in the UK the current government aims to build 300,000 new homes every year and make the UK net zero by 2050
  • Transnational Corporations (TNCs), who aim to make as much profit as possible
• 85.5% of the UK’s population live in urban areas, with numbers increasing every year, resulting in the expansion of urban areas to accommodate new:
  • Housing
  • Services
  • Retail
  • Industrial and office parks
  • Recreation
  • Transport infrastructure

The Impacts of Changing Land Use

• In the UK, not all people welcome diverse communities
• This can lead to tensions over living space between people (e.g. long-term residents) seeking continuity and people who want change (e.g. recent in-migrants)
• In 1950, the UK was almost 100% white British compared to 83% in 2021; this change can lead to tensions because:
  • Some UK citizens are concerned about this change and the threat to “British culture”
  • Some people believe that migrants don’t want to integrate due to evidence of social clustering 
  • Incoming ethnic groups can be accused of forcing the existing population out of an area and creating white flight
  • Migrants often face racism and are victims of hate crimes
    • 70% of hate crimes are racially motivated 
  • Ethnic minorities living in deprived areas with high levels of poverty and few opportunities experience resentment over their treatment
  • These feelings between different ethnic groups can occasionally lead to racially motivated riots:
    • The Notting Hill race riots (1958)
    • The 1981 riots - Brixton (London), Handsworth (Birmingham), Chapeltown (Leeds) and Toxteth (Liverpool)
    • The Broadwater Farm (London) riot (1985)
    • The Bradford riots (1995 and 2001)
    • London riots (2011)
  • Ethnic minorities also face prejudice in rural areas
    • Long-term rural residents might not welcome those in search of the rural idyll
    • Increased numbers of international migrants can create social challenges:
      • More pressure on small rural schools
      • More pressure on limited healthcare services

Tensions in Luton

• Luton (a town in Bedfordshire) experiences tension between long-term residents and new in-migrants
• Statistics from the 2021 Census state:
  • This is one of the highest proportions of non-UK born residents outside of London
  • This has increased to 17,067 (7.6% of the population in Luton), up from 12,739 in 2011
• Nearly two in five of Luton’s residents were not born in the UK
• Pakistan was the most common non-UK birthplace
• Almost 4% (8,666) of Luton’s residents were born in Romania, a more than 2000% increase since the 2011 Census
• Of Luton’s non-UK born residents, 37,391 (43.2%) have arrived since 2011
• Almost 45% of Luton’s non-UK born residents were aged between 18 and 29 when arriving in the UK
• Luton has been linked to Islamic extremism after a BBC report identified the town as the second largest source of jihadists travelling to Syria in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2016
• This can lead to increases in Islamophobia among residents
• The English Defence League (EDL), a far-right Islamophobic organisation, is based in Luton
• The EDL has been accused of creating tension between the Muslim and non-Muslim community
• In reality, the majority of Luton’s residents feel they get on well (82% of respondents in a local survey); it is only a minority of:
• White British people who feel threatened by the pace of ethnic change
• Muslims who take an extreme religious position

• Changes to the built environment can lead to new challenges and opportunities for different groups of people in the community
  • Some groups will benefit from these changes to the built environment
  • Other groups can feel hostile about these changes and perceive migrants as a threat to their culture
  • For example, some groups will welcome the addition of a new building used for a particular faith, but other groups might disapprove
  • The hostility can make migrants feel a sense of social exclusion, especially if they are isolated from friends and family in an unfamiliar place
• The feelings of social exclusion and resentment are amplified when the area suffers from acute poverty and deprivation, e.g. Glasgow

Poverty, hostility and social exclusion in Glasgow

• In 2020, the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) found that:
• 331 zones in Glasgow (out of a total of 746) are classed as some of the most deprived in Scotland
• 43% of Glasgow’s citizens are living in areas classified amongst the most deprived in Scotland

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Glasgow’s health inequalities

• In the above map of Glasgow, decile 1 shows the highest level of deprivation and decile 10 shows the lowest level of deprivation
• In some of the most deprived areas in Glasgow (especially areas close to the city centre), there are high concentrations of ethnic minorities, which can lead to tension:
  • Stealing their jobs
  • Diluting the Scottish culture
  • The unemployment rate for ethnic minority groups is higher than that of white groups (11%), with 32% of the African population unemployed
• The white British residents perceive that the immigrants are:
• The migrants feel they are being ignored and discriminated against,  leading to a sense of social exclusion
• Living in poorer neighbourhoods, where unemployment levels are already high, further restricts migrants’ employment opportunities 
• Rising numbers of immigrants and terror attacks (e.g. The Glasgow Airport attack in 2007) have increased ethnic tensions in Glasgow
• For example, a report into racism showed that half of BAME students have been harassed at Glasgow University (2021)