Migration and prices

One of the topics on the GCSE syllabus for RE is race and migration is a subset of that. Here's a new argument to add to those already covered.

prices in a city with an average proportion of new immigrants were 2.6 percent lower in December 1990 than in cities where no immigrants settled.
While the effect was consistent for almost all product categories, Lach found that the immigration effect was significantly stronger for products for which FSU immigrants constituted a larger share of the market, such as pork and vodka.
As Lach argues, newly arrived immigrants may be more price sensitive because of lower income and lack of brand loyalty. Immigrants, who may initially be unemployed, may also have more time to compare prices, and stores will tend to lower their prices to attract these new customers.

Immigration is bad for society ... at first

My erstwhile colleagues in Bradford need to assimilate this research. Frankly, I was surprised at first (as an advocate of the benefits of diversity) but then thinking about the Bradford experience realised that it is probably right. First the bad news.

Put crudely, the more ethnically diverse the neighbourhood, the less likely you are to trust your local shopkeeper, regardless of his or her ethnicity. He warns that, however uncomfortable this conclusion might be, 'progressives can't stick their head in the sand'.
But the killer punch of his research is that diversity not only reduces social capital between ethnic groups but also within ethnic groups. Diversity leads not so much to bad race relations as to everyone becoming more isolated and less trustful. In the jargon, it kills off both the 'bridging capital' between different groups and 'bonding capital', which is the connections among people like yourself. Putnam calls it 'hunkering down' as people withdraw from all kinds of connectedness in their community.

Clearly, the worry is that this apparently scrupulous research could be seized upon and used by retrogressive political forces.So the bigger picture should be seen.

What makes Putnam nervous now is how this could be seized upon by rightwing politicians hostile to immigration. So he insists his research be seen in the context a) that ethnic diversity is increasing in all modern societies and is not only inevitable but is also desirable, a proven asset in terms of creativity and economic growth; and b) that "hunkering" can be short term and "successful immigrant societies create new forms of social solidarity".

And, actually, Bradford history offers hope on that score. German and Italian migration was a cause of tension in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but now you wouldn't know it. The difficulty will be to manage the processes well without stirring things up further. Perhaps education about the normal processes can help, like it can help to know the normal stages of bereavement. It wouldn't mean you could side-step going through the processes, but it would mean framing them so they are not so threatening and being able to work with them more productively.

I think I'd add a further framing: chaos /turbulence. It is the edge of turbulence where the productive, creative and life-giving things take place: new patterns are forged and growth can occur.
However, as often the case with these opinion pieces, the comments help flag up the caveats.
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Immigration is bad for society, but only until a new solidarity is forged:

Britishness and community cohesion

In this opinion-piece an intriguing thought reflecting on second gen children of immigrants from Pakistan: "They felt negligible pride in their Pakistani heritage but had never seen much reason to affirm their Britishness: after all, the people around them didn't seem so keen on it. 'If you denigrate your own culture you face the risk of newer arrivals looking for one elsewhere,' wrote Taseer. Into that hole where Britishness should be, an Islamist identity had flowed instead. The obvious contrast was with the United States, where Muslims felt both strongly Muslim and strongly American - and where there was no homegrown jihadist movement."
And a bit later, a wider contextual reflection: "Britons are retreating into niches, rather than spending time with those around them, the way they once did. Now a 14-year-old can play World of Warcraft with a pal in Seattle as easily as kicking a football with the kids next door. It's not so much Britishness which is fraying, but the very idea of a society defined by the place where we live."
Worth pondering.
OK, let's have a Britishness test. But it must be for everyone, migrant or not | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited:

Food for thought: Muslims and integration

Just a little food for thought. It raises a host of questions.

Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Centre, told a press conference that the estimated 2.4 million Muslims living in the US were "decidedly American in outlook", believing that hard work could lead to advancement.
But the survey, called Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream, did disclose pockets within the community who are disaffected and sympathetic to violence and extremism.
The poll found that 8% of American Muslims regard suicide bombings against civilian targets as justified. Twice as many Muslims in Britain, Spain and France see such tactics as justified. But the poll showed that among American Muslims under 30, sympathy for suicide bombings jumped to 30%. In Britain it jumped to 35%, Spain 29% and France 42%.

Is this down to the kind of immigration and indeed migrants? I can't help thinking that the fact that Britain, France, Germany, Holland etc have been dealing with migrants from former colonies or allies is significant whereas, I suspect, US immigrants are more diverse and were more attracted to the ethos of the USA rather than it being a relatively easy place to migrate to, but I'm just hypothesising in some ignorance here.
US Muslims more assimilated than British | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited