Fragile race ties exposed

Only a fortnight ago Birmingham was named European City of the Future, beating Copenhagen and Warsaw among others for a title that owed much to the city's apparent success in building a harmonious multi-racial metropolis.

After the weekend's disturbances, the question being asked was whether that was wishful thinking. Given the outbreak of violence involving black and Asian youths, municipal leaders wondered if there had been so much focus on encouraging the white majority to accept the changing make-up of the city that not enough attention was paid to the inter-ethnic tensions that had developed over the years.

Some community leaders blamed criminal elements for the violence and did not wish to draw any wider conclusions.

However, the local newspaper, the Birmingham Post, suggested that the city should "have a long, hard look at itself''.

It said that in addition to the events most widely reported the violence that left a young man dead and involved 30 serious injuries a street in suburban Handsworth had been terrorised by armed young black men picking on Asian households.

The paper said: "For years Birmingham has celebrated the renaissance of the city centre, as if this masked the impoverished ghettoes divided largely along racial lines that exist just beyond the ring road.''

That description finds an echo in other cities. Last month Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, said the country was "sleep-walking'' towards a society of segregation, ethnic enclaves and potential conflict. Ethnic communities were increasingly concentrated in ghettos.

He said that tolerance of diversity had hardened into the effective isolation of communities, even when they lived cheek by jowl.

However, demographers suggest that the problem is more one of economic deprivation, with Asians being attacked by black youths possibly because they are more successful and business-minded.

The government often cites the term as a "key driver'' of its approach to race and community relations. But the tensions between minority groups in Birmingham suggest that it has a long way to go.

- The Telegraph Group Limited