I think I see your point but I also thinks that the white flight phenomena can be pretty misleading. Generally poor people don't move into affluent areas. Liverpool for instance had / has a largely black community in and around the Liverpool 8 area that would have been one of the more salubrious areas 120 years ago. However as transport and communications improved it enabled the owners of the larger industries to move further from the city center and enabled single unit occupancy households to be replaced with multi-occupancy units when large 3 and 4 story houses were turned into 10 flats. This was not about the rich moving out because the poor moved in it was about the poor moving in once the richer white community moved out. Like white flight happens but it also happens when poorer white move into more affluent areas as can also be seen in Liverpool and Dublin when grand houses effectively become slum tenements with poorer people living one household per room.LACE wrote: Good points, but there is one missing factor in all this, and it's the ''White Flight'' phenomena..
Throughout history, in the US and parts of the UK, once a minority moves into the community, the majority (white people) move out, further leading to the polarization of their culture and society.
I know little outside the areas where I have lived but it seems reasonable to assume that this is not the only cases where once rich areas become poorer.
I also think that there are very valid reasons why people from a shared ackground move into the same area, migrant communities of all types tend to be insular intitially as a defence mechanism, when you have people from communities with a really strong community ethic they will tend to congregate especially when you consider the indigenous community has become less community focused which has happened a lot in England. Like how many times do you hear someone say they don't know or speak to their neighbours where previously everyone would know each other. You also find that employment opportunites will attract people with skills they picked up in their country of origin. People who work in the same industry and the industry is local tend to live locally especially when people have moved specifically for employement opportunities and are looking to save money to send back.
I don't disagree that there is a benefit to society that people working abroad learn the local language but I disagree strongly that we should be depriving people of their entitlements if they are unable / unwilling to. I also think that while economic opportunities will be greater when people speak the local language that's not always necessary.
