The geography of an EthniCity: Residential segregation of birthplace and language groups in Sydney, 1996

Many contemporary cities have a diverse ethnic-cultural mix as a result of different international migration streams, with implications for the reside ntial distribution of various ethnic groups within those cities. Boal recen tly suggested a series of scenarios against which the pattern in any one pl ace could be evaluated. These are applied to Sydney in 1996, when over 34 p er cent of the residents reported a birthplace outside Australia and 30 per cent reported using a language other than English at home. Lacking data on ethnic status, the birthplace and language data are used to explore Sydney 's residential geography at two spatial scales, and to identify the degree of residential segregation of each birthplace and language group. Regressio n analysis, used to assess the relevance of human capital to observed level s of segregation, suggests that Boal's assimilation scenario accounts for m ost of the observed geographies, with some additional pluralism but little evidence of polarisation. These results suggest that the dynamics of Sydney 's housing market facilitate movement into most areas of demand, subject on ly to labour market constraints; differential access to sections of the lab our market, and hence to housing market sections, is a major factor in the residential segregation of birthplace and language groups in Sydney.