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Using spatial statistics to identify and characterise ethnoburbs: establishing a methodology using the example of Auckland, New Zealand

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Abstract

Recent studies in the United States and other Pacific Rim countries have identified a new form of ethnic minority group clustering within the residential mosaic—ethnoburbs. These are suburban in location, occupied by relatively high-income, predominantly Asian, immigrants, and low density in their nature: many migrants move directly to those suburbs rather than the inter-generational outward migration from central city clusters typical of other migrant streams. Although ethnoburb residents tend to cluster in particular segments of the built-up area they do not to form large percentages of the population there. As yet, no methodology has been developed to identify these clusters, as a prelude to identifying their characteristics. This paper offers such a procedure, based on local statistical analysis. It is applied to six Asian groups in Auckland, New Zealand.

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Notes

  1. Immigration data are available at http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/general/generalinformation/statistics/.

  2. About 40% of the University of Auckland’s undergraduates and 25% of its postgraduates are of Asian ethnicity. Some are domiciled in the country, but many are ‘overseas students’ in the country for a higher education only.

  3. It provides this definition for respondents: ‘Ethnicity is the ethnic group or groups that people identify with or feel they belong to. Thus, ethnicity is self-perceived and people can belong to more than one ethnic group. Ethnicity is a measure or cultural affiliation, as opposed to race, ancestry or citizenship. An ethnic group is a social group whose members have the following four characteristics: share a sense of common origins; claim a common and distinctive history and density; possess one or more dimensions of collective cultural individuality; and feel a sense of unique collective solidarity’. Because people could claim more than one ethnic identity and the total claiming each was enumerated in the census, the sum of all ethnic identities could exceed the total population. This was the case in Auckland, but not substantially so: the total enumerated population in 2001 was 1,062,134 and the total number of ethnicities was 1,183,932—a ratio of 1.11. Thus just over one-tenth of the population there claimed a multiple identity.

  4. We have not combined any of the categories. For example, in 2006 as well as 68,409 who claimed Indian ethnicity there were small numbers who identified as Bengali (87), Gujarati (9), Indian Tamil (132), Punjabi (183), Sikh (120), and Anglo-Indian (123) as well as 294 who combined Indian with another category, and the separate category of 4,128 Fijian Indians. We have not combined these, focusing just on the very large percentage—other than the Fijian Indians—who simply identified themselves as Indian.

  5. In the absence of census cross tabulations to match the ethnic group data set used for exemplification of ethnoburb location here, we note from the Longitudinal Immigration Survey: New Zealand (LisNZ), wave 1, surveyed 6 months after taking up residence in New Zealand in late 2004, that: migrants to New Zealand are more likely to have worked in professional occupations in their previous country than in other types of jobs and that generally, migrants are well educated, with 62% reporting 14 years or more of full time education. www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/general/generalinformation/research/lisnz/accessingthedata.htm. Accessed 11 June 2010.

  6. Unfortunately, the issues have been substantially mis-represented recently (Simpson and Peach, 2009; Peach, 2009).

  7. For these analyses, we selected a distance band of 1,000 m as the most appropriate: on the issue of scale in such work see Poulsen et al. (2010).

  8. Usually, several adjoining areal units will have a Z-value greater than 2.58. However, it is feasible for only one unit to have such a significant value: although it and its nearest neighbours have an above-average percentage in the group, this is not also the case for those nearest neighbours. The single areal unit is thus the core of a small cluster which does not extend far beyond its own borders.

  9. Auckland’s Chinese Community Centre is located in the city’s southeastern suburbs.

  10. One areal unit, isolated from the two clusters, had 26.4% of its population claiming Chinese identity.

  11. They also contained 23.8% of the small Korean population in 1991, though this involved only 129 individuals and Koreans averaged less than 1% of the local population.

  12. There is a Korean Christian church on the north shore, and most of Auckland’s Korean restaurants are located there.

  13. New Zealand has a magazine aimed at the local Japanese market, with an Auckland circulation of 8,000 (see http://www.wr2eat.co.nz/restaurants/restaurant_307.asp).

  14. Because of the very low density of the clusters identified in Auckland, we have not undertaken a classification of the constituent areas within the clusters—as suggested in other studies (Johnston et al., 2009, 2010). That may well be relevant in other situations, however.

  15. The issue of scale is attracting considerable attention in recent studies of segregation—not least the recent work of Reardon et al. (2008, 2009: see also Kaplan and Holloway, 2001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Ron Johnston

  2. Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Michael Poulsen & James Forrest

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  1. Ron Johnston
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  2. Michael Poulsen
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  3. James Forrest
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Correspondence to Ron Johnston.

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Johnston, R., Poulsen, M. & Forrest, J. Using spatial statistics to identify and characterise ethnoburbs: establishing a methodology using the example of Auckland, New Zealand. GeoJournal 76, 447–467 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-010-9366-6

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