From 1940 to 1980 the urban population had more than doubled and the physical spread of the city of Sydney had more than tripled. Over a quarter of the population was foreign born. The single largest group was British, but there were also large populations of Italians, Greeks, and Lebanese. There significant numbers of East and Central Europeans, Germans, Dutch, Maltese, and Turks. The newest immigrants are Vietnamese.
The residential patterns of the immigrant groups has been influenced by general social forces in action since about 1960. Before then, most were attracted to the inner suburbs, with their traditional working class inhabitants, low rent, and low environmental quality. However, Sydney has not seen the tight concentrations of ethnic groups which commonly developed in other world cities, such as New York. Immigrants managed to buy up the vacated homes of an aging population. Ethnic groups shifted their focus from the inner city to the outer suburbs. Some of the older suburbs such as Redfern, Marrickville, Leichhardt and Drummoyne have been areas of above average overseas immigrants. "They constitute the eastern section of the east-west discontinuous belt (see Map) from Bondi on the east side near the ocean front through the middle of the metropolitan area all the way to Parramatta and Liverpool, whereas the northern suburbs and the greater portion of the southern suburbs are dominated by Australian-born residents."(4) This belt is roughly the same pattern of the low socio-economic residences in the western suburbs, and the high-status concentrations on the north shore. The south and east have pockets of low status populations. However, when looking at the individual ethnic groups, "the index of residential segregation of Sydney's population is only slightly higher for the overseas born as a whole (20.9%) than for the Australians born of Australian-born parents (19.4%)." (and stats below)(5)
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