By David Dubas-Fisher-BM,Jane Haynes

Copyright birminghammail

Birmingham is one of the most diverse cities in the country, home to more than 1.1 million people that call our city home. Many were born here, some chose to move here, a small number were sent to live here. But every single one of our residents is different, every one unique, every one much more than their defined ethnicity. But given that Conservative MP Robert Jenrick has shone a light on our city’s diversity this week, we thought it was important to remind readers of some of the crude facts about our population. READ MORE: Flags removal ‘blitz’ in Birmingham as council recruits staff for night-time operation The 2021 Census confirmed the city’s population is now officially ‘super diverse’, with those classified as White accounting for 48.6%, or about 550,000, of the population. That’s down from 57.9% ten years ago. Asian and Asian British people made up the next largest group at 31.0%, up 4.3% on a decade ago; while the Black or Black British population has risen slightly from 9% to 10.9%. It means there are plenty of areas of the city that you can visit where white people are in the minority; just as there are areas where the opposite is true. Earlier this week, a recording emerged of shadow justice secretary Jenrick highlighting how he had been concerned at the ‘lack of white faces’ he saw during a whistlestop visit to Handsworth. To an audience of fellow Conservatives at a dinner in the Black Country constituency of Aldridge-Brownhills, he conflated that observation with his belief that it signified a ‘failure of integration’. He said he wanted to see people ‘living alongside each other, not parallel lives’. The truth is that Birmingham’s population is an incredibly diverse mixture of ethnicities, beliefs and faiths, rooted in multiculturalism. What is also true is that some areas of the city are dominated by some ethnicities, and others not so much. We have dug into the data and produced a map providing the ethnic make-up of each of the 69 council wards that make up the city. You can view the interactive map below – just click on any of the areas to see a summary of its population. The map, based on data from the 2021 Census as collated by Birmingham City Observatory, and created by the Reach data unit reveals a range of fascinating facts and information about where people have chosen, or been able to afford, to live. It shows that areas which have a majority white population are concentrated in the city’s north and south; while areas clustered around the centre tend to have a majority Asian or mixed population. Edgbaston and Moseley emerge as the areas with populations that most closely mirror the city’s overall ethnic breakdown. The wards that make up Sutton Coldfield all have big white majority populations, alongside Northfield , Longbridge and West Heath, Rubery and Rednal, Castle Vale, Frankley Great Park, Bournville and Cotteridge, Highters Heath, Kings Norton North and Shard End, where around four out of five residents are white. Had Robert Jenrick made a whistlestop tour of Sutton Walmley and Minworth, instead of Handsworth, he would have found a population where he might have struggled to see a black or brown face. The ward is made up of 85% white people, with 8% Asian and Asian British residents, 3% Black, and 5% other. That’s the closest Birmingham gets to Jenrick’s own Newark constituency, where 96% of the population is white. Eight of the ten most prosperous areas of Birmingham , based on multiple indices of deprivation, have a white majority population. But not every white majority area is thriving. Castle Vale, where 80% of the population is white, ranks a sorry fifth on the deprivation league table, based on multiple factors. Also particularly struggling are the people who live in Shard End (77% white population), Kingstanding (70% white), Bartley Green and Kings Norton South, both 72% white. Eight wards in the city have populations where white residents make up less than 10% of the community. They are Lozells (6%), Alum Rock (6%), Small Heath (6%), Sparkhill (8%), Aston (8%), Bordesley Green (9%), Handsworth (9%), Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath East (10%). In each case the majority population is Asian and British Asian. Jagwant Johal, from Birmingham Race Impact Group, said it was exhausting to keep having to discuss integration, or lack of it, through a prism of agitation and confrontation. “We have had this debate over a dozen times in the last two decades and yet the ones that want to create a toxic environment keep raking it up again and again. “How can you talk about ‘seeing no white faces’ and then say it’s not about race? How can Badenoch defend his talking about wanting multi racial integration, without also accepting multiculturalism, which includes faith, tradition and accepting each other’s foods and the like. “Had Jenrick gone to some of Birmingham ‘s predominantly white neighbourhoods, with higher poverty rates than Handsworth, would he have complained about seeing no Black and Asian faces? We all know the answer.” There have been calls for Jenrick to apologise for his comments about Handsworth and the city. But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch picked up the mantle during an interview on Channel 4 . She said the integration issue was not confined to Handsworth, but to ‘Birmingham as a whole’. Her evidence for this was that the city has ‘elected sectarian MPs’ and this appeared to demonstrate to Badenoch that people live in Birmingham who may not necessarily want to be here, who don’t contribute and who don’t share British values. She did not clarify who she was referring to but the city has eight Labour MPs, one Conservative MP and one Independent. Perry Barr MP Ayoub Khan stood on a pro-Palestine ticket; other MPs in the city, including Tahir Ali, Hall Green and Moseley , and Jess Phillips, Yardley , have spoken out over Gaza. Badenoch also claimed her observation was ‘not about skin colour’. Locally, the host of the Aldridge Brownhills Conservative Association event, Wendy Morton, has rejected our requests for comment.