Editing Leicester (section)

===Contemporary===
The years after [[World War II]], particularly from the 1960s onwards, brought many social and economic challenges.

====Urban expansion; central rapprochement====
[[File:Aerial-Leicester 2.017.jpg|thumb|upright 1.5|Central Leicester (looking WNW)]]
Mass housebuilding continued across Leicester for some 30 years after 1945. Existing housing estates such as Braunstone were expanded, while several completely new estates – of both private and council tenure – were built.{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}} The last major development of this era was Beaumont Leys in the north of the city, which was developed in the 1970s as a mix of private and council housing.{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}

There was a steady decline in Leicester's traditional manufacturing industries and, in the city centre, working factories and light industrial premises have now been almost entirely replaced. Many former factories, including some on [[Frog Island, Leicester|Frog Island]] and at [[River Soar#Donisthorpe Mill|Donisthorpe Mill]], have been badly damaged by fire. Rail and barge were finally eclipsed by automotive transport in the 1960s and 1970s: the Great Central and the Leicester and Swannington both closed and the northward extension of the [[M1 motorway]] linked Leicester into England's growing motorway network. With the loss of much of the city's industry during the 1970s and 1980s, some of the old industrial jobs were replaced by new jobs in the service sector, particularly in retail. The opening of the Haymarket Shopping Centre in 1971 was followed by a number of new shopping centres in the city, including St Martin's Shopping Centre in 1984 and the Shire Shopping Centre in 1992.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.localhistories.org/leicester.html |title=A History of Leicester |access-date=29 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150704145750/http://www.localhistories.org/leicester.html |archive-date=4 July 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The Shires was subsequently expanded in September 2008 and rebranded as Highcross.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.highcrossleicester.com/website/tm_highcross.aspx |title=Highcross - Highcross |access-date=8 January 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120117114435/http://www.highcrossleicester.com/website/tm_highcross.aspx |archive-date=17 January 2012}}</ref> By the 1990s, as well, Leicester's central position and good transport links had established it as a distribution centre; the southwestern area of the city has also attracted new service and manufacturing businesses.

====Immigration====
[[File:Leicester city council advert on Ugandan Argus.jpg|thumb|left|upright|1972 advertisement in the ''[[New Vision|Uganda Argus]]'' newspaper to discourage Ugandan Asians from settling in Leicester]]
Since World War II Leicester has experienced large scale immigration from across the world. Many Polish servicemen were prevented from returning to their homeland after the war by the communist regime,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/982.html |title=Poles |website=Encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org |access-date=9 February 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180210034745/http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/982.html |archive-date=10 February 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> and they established a small community in Leicester. Economic migrants from the [[Republic of Ireland|Irish Republic]] continued to arrive throughout the post war period. Immigrants from the [[Indian sub-continent]] began to arrive in the 1960s, their numbers boosted by [[South Asia|Asians]] arriving from Kenya and Uganda in the early 1970s.<ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/around_leicester/2002/09/ugandan_asians_leicester_changes.shtml Leicester's Ugandan Asian success story.] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120401011706/http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/around_leicester/2002/09/ugandan_asians_leicester_changes.shtml |date=1 April 2012 }} Retrieved 28 November 2010.</ref><ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2005/10/10/al_leicester_backgrounder_feature.shtml A history of Leicester.] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111108054953/http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2005/10/10/al_leicester_backgrounder_feature.shtml |date=8 November 2011 }} Retrieved 28 November 2010.</ref>

In 1972, [[Idi Amin]] announced that the entire [[Ugandan Asians|Asian community in Uganda]] had 90 days to leave the country.<ref name=uganda4>{{cite web |title=From Kampala to Leicester |url=http://www.leicester.gov.uk/ugandanasianstory/ |publisher=Leicester City Council |access-date=7 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120919184349/http://www.leicester.gov.uk/ugandanasianstory/ |archive-date=19 September 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Shortly thereafter, Leicester City Council launched a campaign aimed at dissuading Ugandan Asians from migrating to the city.<ref name=uganda1>{{cite news |last=Lowther |first=Ed |title=Government warned not to repeat 'folly' of Uganda anti-immigration adverts |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21259047 |access-date=7 April 2013 |newspaper=BBC |date=30 January 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130320225345/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21259047 |archive-date=20 March 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> The adverts did not have their intended effect, [[Streisand effect|instead making more migrants aware]] of the possibility of settling in Leicester.<ref name=Uganda2>{{cite news |title=Leicester City Council to thank Indian immigrants |url=http://www.immigrationmatters.co.uk/leicester-city-council-to-thank-indian-immigrants.html |access-date=7 April 2013 |work=Immigration Matters |date=10 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121101045949/http://www.immigrationmatters.co.uk/leicester-city-council-to-thank-indian-immigrants.html |archive-date=1 November 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Nearly a quarter of initial Ugandan refugees (around 5000 to 6000) settled in Leicester, and by the end of the 1970s around another quarter of the initially dispersed refugees had made their way to Leicester.<ref>{{cite book |last=Huttman |first=Elizabeth D. |title=Urban housing segregation of minorities in Western Europe and the United States |year=1991 |publisher=Duke University Press |location=Durham |isbn=978-0822310600 |editor1=Blauw, Wim |editor2=Juliet Saltman}}</ref> Officially, the adverts were taken out for fear that immigrants to Leicester would place pressure on city services and at least one person who was a city councillor at the time says he believes they were placed for racist reasons.<ref name=uganda3/> The initial advertisement was widely condemned, and taken as a marker of anti-Asian sentiment throughout Britain as a whole, although the attitudes that resulted in the initial advertisement were changed significantly in subsequent decades,<ref>{{cite book |last=Marett |first=Valerie |title=Immigrants settling in the city |year=1989 |publisher=Leicester University Press |location=Leicester |isbn=978-0718512835}}</ref> not least because the immigrants included the owners of many of "Uganda's most successful businesses."<ref>[http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/years-ago-today-tyrant-s-whim-boosted-city-s/story-16647839-detail/story.html] {{dead link|date=December 2017|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>

Forty years later, Leicester's mayor Sir [[Peter Soulsby]] expressed his regret for the behaviour of the council at the time.<ref name=uganda3>{{cite news |title=Ugandan Asians advert 'foolish', says Leicester councillor |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-19165216 |access-date=7 April 2013 |work=BBC News |date=8 August 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121124050308/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-19165216 |archive-date=24 November 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In the 1990s, a group of Dutch citizens of [[Somali people|Somali]] origin settled in the city. Since the 2004 [[enlargement of the European Union]] a significant number of [[East European]] migrants have settled in the city. While some wards in the northeast of the city are more than 70% South Asian, wards in the west and south are all over 70% white. The [[Commission for Racial Equality]] (CRE) had estimated that by 2011 Leicester would have approximately a 50% ethnic minority population, making it the first city in Britain not to have a [[white British]] majority.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |url=http://www.cre.gov.uk/Default.aspx.LocID-0hgnew0cq.RefLocID-0hg00900c008.Lang-EN.htm |title=Scoring goals for integration in Leicester: CRE helps kids and coaches use football to bring communities together |date=30 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930020356/http://www.cre.gov.uk/Default.aspx.LocID-0hgnew0cq.RefLocID-0hg00900c008.Lang-EN.htm |access-date=27 June 2022 |archive-date=30 September 2007}}</ref> This prediction was based on the growth of the ethnic minority populations between 1991 (Census 1991 28% ethnic minority) and 2001 (Census 2001 – 36% ethnic minority). However, Professor Ludi Simpson at the [[University of Manchester]] School of Social Sciences said in September 2007 that the CRE had "made unsubstantiated claims and ignored government statistics" and that Leicester's immigrant and minority communities disperse to other places.<ref>[http://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/unilife/1007/research/#d.en.124216] {{dead link|date=July 2017|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/research/mrpd/events/documents/BSPS07SimpsonFinneyMinorityWhiteCities.doc |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071129182053/http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/research/mrpd/events/documents/BSPS07SimpsonFinneyMinorityWhiteCities.doc |url-status=dead |title=Research2 |archive-date=29 November 2007}}</ref><ref name="auto"/>

The Leicester Multicultural Advisory Group<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.media4diversity.eu/ |title=Media4diversity |access-date=30 November 2020 |archive-date=3 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203004835/https://www.media4diversity.eu/ |url-status=dead}}</ref> is a forum, set up in 2001 by the editor of the ''[[Leicester Mercury]]'', to co-ordinate community relations with members representing the council, police, schools, community and faith groups, and the media.

====Coronavirus====
The [[COVID-19 pandemic]] has brought many social and economic challenges across the country and across the world. Leicester has been particularly badly affected in the United Kingdom; from July 2020 during the imposition of the first local lockdown which saw all non-essential retail closed again and businesses such as public houses, restaurants and hairdressers unable to reopen. Businesses such as these in areas such as Glenfield and that part of Braunstone Town which outside of the formal city council area, have since been allowed to reopen following a more tightly defined lockdown area from 18 July 2020.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-53447863 |title=Leicester lockdown: 'I needn't have cancelled our holiday' |work=BBC News |date=18 July 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/754/contents/made |title=The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Leicester) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 |website=Legislation.gov.uk |access-date=27 June 2022 |archive-date=9 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220709023008/https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/754/contents/made |url-status=live }}</ref>