The Geography of the New Ethnicity: Ethnic Residential Segregation in Metropolitan Sydney 1996

The increased volume of international migration is producing a substantial number of multicultural cities with residents drawn from a large number of different birthplaces. Models developed a few decades ago of the intra‐urban social geography of where these migrants live suggested that they were initially concentrated in particular parts of the metropolitan area, reflecting their limited ability to compete in their host societies’ labour and housing markets; later economic integration led to spatial spread and assimilation. This paper evaluates whether that is the case in the context of the ‘new ethnicity’ stimulated by the increased volume of international migration, using Sydney as its case study; almost one‐third of its population of over 3 million was born outside Australia. Analyses of the 94 largest birthplace groups identified by the 1996 Census show that recency of arrival, facility with the English language, educational qualifications and low incomes were all associated with a group’s residential segregation within Sydney – with the major residuals reflecting cultural differences between the groups.