Hackney : the place - Diversity and Cohesion
Culturally Hackney is remarkable. Its 200,000 residents come from every part of the world.
Historically Hackney is a place where migrant communities arrived as transitory residents, then stayed and settled. That process continues today. The Afro-Caribbean community developed fully from the 1950s, but there has been a Black presence in Hackney since at least 1630. Similarly, people from the Indian subcontinent came to Hackney in numbers only after the Second World War, but Asian nurses of British children, visiting Britain with their employers, had been staying in Hackney since 1900.
There are major Turkish, Vietnamese and West African communities living side by side. Jewish people have been living in Hackney since 1684. The Jewish community in Stamford Hill is the largest Charedi community in the world, outside New York and Israel.
Diversity has been accompanied by tolerance and community cohesion. In the 2006 MORI survey of residents, 76% said that Hackney was a place where people from different backgrounds got on well together. This is much higher than other areas with similar population profiles.
Page updated: 18 Jan 2008