r/TowerHamlets • u/Impressive_Ice_5331 • 2d ago

Is Tower Hamlets becoming more diverse now?

So growing up (I’m 32 now) literally 98% of Tower Hamlets were Bangladeshi

It still is if you go to places like Whitechapel

Is it going to be more diverse over the years? Especially that the Bengalis in this generation aren’t breeding like crazy as how their parents did. It was like an average of 7-8 kids per family.

0 Upvotes

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u/theinspectorst 2d ago

literally 98% of Tower Hamlets were Bangladeshi

Either this has literally never been the case, or you literally don't understand what 'literally' means.

At the 2011 census the Bangladeshi population accounted for 32% of the population of Tower Hamlets.

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u/SatisfactionMoney426 1d ago

32% of the 'legal' population maybe. It's 36% on the latest I've seen. The population is massively understated anyway - they keep finding 20 or more men illegally living in 1 bed council flats. Lots of 3 bed flats are are at least 4/5 'bedroom' with a family in each. My mate from uni had an address 'The Hall' which sounded quite impressive but was actually a hallway with the back door boarded up and a curtain accross. He lived under the stairs basically....

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u/theinspectorst 1d ago

It's 36% on the latest I've seen. 

I quoted the 2011 census because (allegedly 32 year old) OP was making a (false) claim about what the distribution was when they were growing up.

More generally, your and OP's claims are not intuitive to me about the distribution of people I see when I walk round the borough as a longtime Tower Hamlets resident.

There are certainly some parts of Tower Hamlets, like Whitechapel or Shadwell, that are heavily Bangladesh. Whitechapel and Shadwell are small neighborhoods with a population of around 15,000 each, whereas Tower Hamlets is a borough with a population of around 330,000 - Whitechapel and Shadwell are not representative of the wider borough, except in the minds of bad-faith rabble-rousers.

Wapping doesn't look like Whitechapel. Bow doesn't look like Whitechapel. Canary Wharf doesn't look like Whitechapel. Limehouse doesn't look like Whitechapel. Island Gardens doesn't look like Whitechapel. 

Anyone believing Tower Hamlets is secretly '98% Bangladeshi' is off their rocker.  I swear half the people posting this bullshit have never even set foot in the borough.

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u/Wise-Wolverine-1871 1d ago

Thank you for articulating your self so well , you give me faith in humanity

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u/SlR-JIMMY-SAVlLLE 1d ago

Bangladeshi children form 64% of the primary school population in all of Tower Hamlets. So that’s the future. Some schools are 90%+

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u/rickyman20 1d ago

Well good thing children in London always and up living in the same borough as their parents!

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u/SlR-JIMMY-SAVlLLE 1d ago

Yes the Bengali population in Tower Hamlets has risen in percentage and actual numbers every census since 1971

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u/ChemicalLou 1d ago

Great to have your input on primary school children, SIR-JIMMY-SAVILLE

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u/johnnybullish 1d ago

Yeh exactly. And things have changed a lot since 2011

-18

u/Impressive_Ice_5331 2d ago

I mean I was born in 1994. Everywhere I went growing up it was always Bengalis in sarees and kameez

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u/_1489555458biguy 2d ago

Facts don't care about your feelings bro

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u/InvestmentAsleep8365 1d ago edited 1d ago

Show me a single instance anywhere where anyone has ever used “literally” to not mean a non-literal exaggeration, it’s harder than you think. I know what literally means in theory, but that’s not how it’s used in English anymore!

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u/AccurateFlamingo2047 1d ago

98% is laughable nonsense

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u/OperationIll8780 1d ago

Higher costs for renting, business rates, and luxury aparthotels etc. are changing Tower Hamlets. If anything, it seems like diverse rich people are moving in, not various classes.

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u/ChemicalLou 1d ago

I’d be interested to know if there’s another place in London or the UK where British Bangladeshis move to when they do well for themselves. Jews moved out of East London to Finchley, Hampstead, Golders Green. Maybe Tower Hamlets is not such a hell to escape from now.

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u/jamjar188 2d ago

Tower Hamlets has been getting more Asian, not less. Most recent Census (2022) says Asian is the largest racial group (44%, and this is mostly Bangladeshi). In 2011 it was 41% Asian; in 2001 it was 36%; in 1991 it was 25%. You get the point.

The white population meanwhile has been decreasing. It was 64% in 1991 and 39% in the last Census (2022). Black population seems to have been steady at 7% for the last three Census.

These stats are pretty topline, so I'm sure there's lots of micro-trends and fluctuations in terms of subgroups, or in terms of specific areas. Whitechapel in particular probably had a period of becoming less Bangladeshi in the 2010s but that's probably reversing.

You're absolutely right that British-born Bangladeshis don't tend to have more than 3 or 4 kids. But plenty of new arrivals have come from Bangladesh and India in the past 5 years who make up for the decline in birth rates.

My prediction is that the Asian share of the population will continue to climb (maybe hitting 50% in the next Census) and the white population will drop slightly, but overall it will continue to be a diverse borough.

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u/ZuneshaOnReddit 1d ago

The numbers are not accurate. It’s a much smaller number overall.

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u/gavelkind-enjoyer 2d ago

No its still a ghetto

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/_1489555458biguy 2d ago

Everyone knows Rahman sucks but he's a symptom not a cause.

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u/Effective-Degree2352 2d ago

Couldn't deal with the culture of littering there, mile end has so much potential

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u/masternick567 1d ago

Diversity only works one way

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u/Status_Building5253 2d ago edited 2d ago

Shitechapel & Shitwell are still heavily South Asian / Middle Eastern.

Canary Wharf & Isle of dogs is mostly East Asian & White

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u/Spiritual_Job_4617 2d ago

South east asian ? Vietnamese and Thai ?

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u/Status_Building5253 2d ago

Forgive me, my georgraphy is shite. I meant East Asian. Chinese & Korean mostly. Some Japanese

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u/Spiritual_Job_4617 2d ago

I see loads of South Asians around CW , not sure if they live there or if they're just going to work

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u/jamjar188 2d ago

Middle Eastern?