Super-diverse Streets: Economies and spaces of urban migration in UK Cities

This project explores the intersection between city streets, social diversity and economic integration. It is a multidisciplinary, comparative analysis of 'super-diverse' high streets that aims to explore how urban retail economies and spaces are shaped by and shape migrant entrepreneurial practices. The project focuses on five high streets within the UK's most diverse cities including: London, Leicester, Manchester, Birmingham and Bradford. Two questions at the heart of urban life and political debate in the UK provide the project's orientation. The first question - 'What is the future of the British high street?' - has publicly resonated since 2008, as high streets struggle with the aftermath of the global economic recession and a parallel increase in technological innovations in online purchasing. The second question focuses on increasing migration into UK Cities over the past two decades, and extends to how urban concentrations of migrants locate, invest in and transform the economies and spaces of UK cities, in particular its urban high streets. The pertinence of 'the changing nature of the UK high street', and questions of 'social diversity' have been highlighted in recent ESRC research initiatives and investments, but as separate rather than related subjects. This project therefore explores macro societal changes, combining migration and shifts in urban retail economies, through the transformation of micro worlds.

In comparing the social, economic and spatial compositions of five high streets in the UK's most diverse cities, the project aims to address empirical and policy gaps in detailed understandings of how contemporary high streets are transformed though urban migration. By focusing on social diversity and urban retail economies the project empirically explores the role of migrant proprietors as part of the UK's high street landscapes, and engages with larger questions of migrant incorporation and urban adaptation. The overarching objective is to define and analyse the 'super-diverse' high street as a complex urban assemblage: to explore connections between the diverse origins and networks of the shop proprietors; their range of retail activities and practices; and the spatial infrastructure that supports and is altered by their endeavours. In developing a comparative evidence base, the research aims to input into policy on high street futures, and to contribute more broadly to understanding how migration transforms our streets and cities.

Three key questions frame the project:
1. What are the appropriate definitions of a 'super-diverse' high street, and how can the composition of spaces and practices provide an analytic lens on the relationship between the retail activities of a high street its migrant proprietors?
2. What broader lessons can be drawn from the comparison of five super-diverse streets, for understanding the role of migrants in transforming urban space and economy?
3. What methodological aspects of this research are replicable for larger comparative studies of migration and urban change?

Five core aspects of the high street will be explored including: social diversity, retail activity, measures of value, spatial infrastructure and stewardship. The project will commence with a socio-economic survey of the proprietors of each street and will include GIS spatial mapping and data visualisation. Focus group workshops will be held with respective local authorities, traders and local organisations to understand how these streets are organised, managed and imagined. The project will be based at LSE Cities, and national and international collaborations will be developed with the 'High Street Future' centre, the 'Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity', and the 'Global Diversities' unit. Public engagement will be actively sought through seminars with academic, policy and third sector organisations, and project information will be shared through a 'Super-diverse streets' project website.

This project aims to engage with the wide public interest in 'the future of the high street' that currently abounds across the UK, by introducing the largely unrecognised role of migration in reshaping street-based retail economies. Through the commonplace notation of the street, the project also aims to interject in more narrow political and public debates on migration, by productively engaging with migration as central to urban landscapes and futures across the UK. The ambition is to produce a systematic evidence base to input into policy, to innovate comparative urban methods by incorporating qualitative and quantitative dimensions and data mapping and visualisation, and to conceptually enrich the emerging research field of urban 'super-diversity'.
To fully advance the societal and economic impacts of this research project, the project proposes various platforms of exchange to engage a wide array of users and beneficiaries including: focus group workshops, seminars, an online project site, and publications in both academic and public arena, including where possible, policy recommendations. Further, the project will generate a detailed and comparative database to be publicly available through the ESRC archive.

Who will benefit from this research and how?
1. Academic sector
The collaborative dimensions of this project are founded in relationships with three leading research centres or units: 'High Street Futures' (University of Southampton), the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (University of Manchester) and the 'Global Diversities' unit at the Max Planck Institute. To increase the potential impact of the methodological approach and the research findings, I will meet with these centres at project inception (year 1), project analysis (year 2) and project dissemination (year three stages). I aim to publish three papers in leading academic journals and develop a research monograph proposal to expand the larger empirical and conceptual findings of the project.

2. Government and Policy sectors
There is a distinct policy and planning gap in understanding the role of migration and migrant economies in the composition of UK high streets specifically and in processes of urban transformation more generally. During the third year of the project, three seminars will be arranged to explore dimensions of street economy, street stewardship and street policy. Each seminar will include academics, policy makers and third sector organisations. More particularly, in the second year of study, interviews and focus group workshops will be conducted by the 'Social Life' social enterprise, with local authorities and proprietors from two of the selected streets, to explore how streets are organised, managed and imagined. Reports will be shared with respective local organisations. I aim to write policy-oriented recommendations for government agencies and/or blogs such as the LSE Policy and Politics blog.

3. Third sector and broader publics
In year two and three of the research I will meet with third sector organisations concerned with the policy and planning of streets, such as the Association of Town Centre Management (ACTM) and the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS). Project findings will be more broadly disseminated, from the second year of the project through the 'Super-diverse streets' online project site within the LSE Cities.net website, where aspects of data visualisation will allow the complexities of the study to reach a broader audience. The LSE Cities website currently attracts 12,000 users per month, of which 6,500 are new users.