You are reading a single comment by @bq and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@bq
I have never seen anything that attempts to quantify the cost/benefits of immigration in social cohesion. I wonder if anyone has done this?
Arguments for immigration tend to be economic. Arguments against tend to be xenophobic.
But for example, when a large local employer closes there will often be an assessment of the cost of that closure not just in the jobs and incomes, but in its deleterious effect on social wellbeing and cohesion. Local reaction to large scale immigrant influxes (e.g. Somalians in Barking) seem to me to be an expression of the same thing. If it could be measured, quantified and demonstrably factored into the economic arguments for immigration then public trust in the positive benefits of immigration might rise.