Leeds, ghetto life and an academic paper!

There is a paper that you can find online by clicking here all about the history and sociology of Jews in Leeds. Written by Vaughan and Penn in 2001 it is titled: The Jewish 'ghetto': formation and spatial structure. It looks at the Jews of Leeds from the perspective of being an immigrant group who settled in an area of Leeds known as the Leylands. The analysis focuses on such factors as spatial segregation in the ghetto, poverty and social rank, and compares that to non-Jewish people living in the area. It asks how such an immigrant group acquires economic and social mobility.

Here is the abstract to the paper:

Research into patterns of immigrant settlement has consistently indicated that certain areas of cities are prone to settlement by immigrant groups. This paper proposes that immigrant settlement of such areas may have a particular spacial pattern. Taking the case of the settlement of Leeds, England by Jewish immigrants in the latter six decades of the nineteenth century, we describe the formation of the immigrant Jewish settlement in the area called Leylands. The paper shows first, that Leylands was spacially segregated in comparison with the city overall; and second, that the pattern of settlement was one of intensification of particular streets through time, whereby initially the main, relatively integrated streets were settled, with occupancy moving as time went on to more segregated streets.Analysis of social class defined by occupation suggests that the whole population of Leylands was much poorer than that of Leeds overall. This paper suggests that since the poverty difference was present and possibly more pronounced for the majority, non-Jewish population, that the socio-economic form of the area settlement in Leeds was more likely to have been related to its spacial segregation than to the social and economic segregation of the immigrant group. It is suggested that the particular characteristics special to certain immigrant groups allowed the Jews of Leylands to overcome their spacial segregation by employing strong social networks on the one hand and through economic mutual help on the other.

Is Jewish settlement spatially concentrated only in the early stages of settlement or later on to? Is there a change between segregation and integration over time? How can an immigrant group spatially and economically integrate? How do keep their identity as a separate group once this has been done?

The authors conclude:

it is possible to conclude that Jewish settlement is not just characterised
by the sink estate phenomenon, which may occur in the initial period of
settlement, but by the opposite phenomenon, whereby through an historical
process of economic and subsequently, spacial and social integration, an
immigrant group can improve its situation over time by maintaining spatial
concentration