Islam in Europe: perception and reality

[Thumpalumpacus]

I see MW is bringing his insightful thinking to the thread now ... complete with Hashtag Mentality.

It raises the question -- are these enclaves bent on expansion, or are these ghettoes where undesirables find themselves?

Only judging by my own experiences in my own environment. Run down houses in the Red Light district, where the whores used to offer themselves in the streets in the 80ies and 90ies. By day the noisiest, most frequented and polluted parts of the city, where an elevated train runs through every three or four minutes. Also highrises on the outskirts of the city, quite modern in the 70ies, but now only populated by people who can't afford any better.

It's also an urban myth that they band together. There's a turkish community, the traditional one, moving in during the 60ies and 70ies, and there are all the other ones, who came in later. The Turks are the only ones having some community clubs.

Yeah, here in America we don't have the concentration that Yeauleaux points to being the case in the UK -- immigrants in the large coastal cities will gather into neighborhoods (and historically have), but once you get into the hinterland it's a negligible phenomenon.