Sydney's Ethnic Geography: new approaches to analysing patterns of residential concentration

Most studies of ethnic residential segregation in Australian cities have used single-measure indices of dissimilarity and segregation, which access the degree of unevenness between two maps. Segregation is a multi-dimensional concept, however, and in this paper we introduce an alternative way of measuring residential concentration which incorporates several of the key dimensions. The procedure is illustrated using birthplace and language-used-at-home data for collection districts in metropolitan Sydney in 1996. Results show no evidence of extreme spatial concentration of ethnic groups.