Making Birmingham an inclusive city

People findings
The People KLOE considered the following overarching question:
How can we maximise the potential of our rapidly changing and diverse population?
The People KLOE team moved away from the established way of looking at diversity and
equality. Instead, it looked at how different people and communities get along and respect each
other’s difference, identifying the things that unite people. It also sought to understand how
Birmingham’s superdiverse communities can contribute to the growth and prosperity of the city,
and how the economic, social and cultural assets within the city’s communities can be
harnessed.
Birmingham is a ‘superdiverse’ city
Birmingham is well known as a welcoming, young and diverse city. Its social, economic and
geographical diversity is well-documented. However, research has shown that Birmingham is in
fact ‘superdiverse’.
Research from the University of
Birmingham indicates that in the
three years between 2007 and
2010, people moved to Birmingham
from 187 different countries. People
come to live here for a variety of
reasons – for employment, to marry,
as migrants, students and, to a
lesser extent, asylum seekers.
While this has had a positive impact
on the city, it also raises significant
challenges for cohesion. Newly
arrived communities are often the
most excluded, because they do not
always know how to access
services or where to go for advice.
The city also demonstrates another of the key characteristics of superdiversity: fragmentation.
Rather than being part of established or emerging
ethnic or community clusters, many of the arrivals
come in such small numbers that they are not part of
a group at all. They may have few or no social
connections in the city and have become isolated
and disconnected.
“People of Birmingham are very
welcoming, helpful and friendly”
Polish migrant, Handsworth