The Inner City - Sparkbrook
Sparkbrook - Migrants maintain the original infrastructure
In contrast to Lee Bank, other areas of the inner city of Birmingham have not undergone extensive redevelopment. Examples of this are Sparkhill and Sparkbrook to the south-east of the CBD. Here, migration into the inner city by mainly Asian immigrants during the 1970s meant that the community altered, but the infrastructure was maintained and therefore redevelopment was not deemed necessary. Shops and services supporting the new community evolved, and the inner city in these areas remains largely untouched by redevelopment.
 |
A typical road of terraced housing in the inner city area of Sparkbrook. The houses are relatively small and would have housed factory workers when they were built in the 1890s-1910s. Filtering (the process whereby people migrate outwards from the centre of a city) would have left this area in need of development, had there not been immigration by a new community. |
 |
Small, independent Asian food and clothing stores dominate the A34 Stratford Road that runs through the centre of Sparkbrook. The close community spirit that would have been typical of an inner city area remains, although the ethnic mix of this area continues to change with the influx of new migrants to the country. |
|