chicky_pie
POTATO HEAD ROXON
SYDNEY's inner- and medium-ring suburbs have become a patchwork of religious enclaves, with minority religions making up to 40 per cent of the population in some areas.
But the city's outer regions, made up mainly of aspirational white-collar workers and blue-collar tradesmen, remain bastions of mainstream Christian faiths.
The data, compiled by the Bureau of Statistics, suggests that developments of schools and cemeteries on cheaper sites on Sydney's white-bread fringes will continue to fuel protests while they run ahead of religious settlement patterns.
In Camden, where residents rejected a Muslim society's proposal for a school, a Catholic organisation's plans to build a school have been welcomed because, as one resident put it, "Catholics are part of our community".
Muslims comprise less than 0.2 per cent of the population and remain a largely unknown religious group. One-third of the population is Catholic, another third Anglican.
Maps plotting the concentration of faiths by postcode were produced for the Herald by the bureau based on data collected for the 2006 census.
They show that up to 40 per cent of Auburn and Lakemba identify as Muslim. There are also large Muslim populations in Greenacre (30.7 per cent), Silverwater (27 per cent), Roselands (22.1 per cent), Arncliffe and Turrella (21.7 per cent), and Bankstown (21.6 per cent).
Ethnic and religious forces converge in Cabramatta, where more than 40 per cent of the population identify themselves as Buddhist and Vietnamese.
Sydney's Jewish population is the most concentrated in Rose Bay, Vaucluse and Watsons Bay, where up to 30 per cent identity with the Jewish faith, and to a lesser extent in Bondi and Bondi Junction and around the Ku-ring-gai local government area.
These communities have not reached the levels of religious dominance found in London, where minority religions can make up to 80 per cent of the population in some areas and are generally more dispersed.
But the statistics suggest they are on the move, with emergent ethnic religious communities being established in other centres of Sydney where there is cheaper land or new ethnic beachheads.
The director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research and reader in sociology at Monash University, Bob Birrell, said Sydney had distinct neighbourhoods with different characteristics. But he expects that in the normal course of the city's development, as second and third generations of migrants leave the nest of their early communities in search of cheaper housing, there will be greater dispersal and migrant settlement on the fringes. This could possibly aggravate religious tensions.
Liverpool, Mount Druitt, Bonnyrigg and Parramatta are showing signs of large migrant population shifts that include Muslims and Buddhists.
The Pentecostal church message has taken root among aspirational Sydneysiders, with the Hillsong church spreading deep into Sydney's north-west. Parklea, Stanhope Gardens, Rouse Hill, Kellyville and Annangrove are at the geographical heart of the Pentecostal faith.
Leichhardt may be Sydney's little Italy but Pope Benedict would have likely got a more rousing reception in Horsley Park, where almost 70 per cent of residents identify as Catholic.
Catholics are also concentrated in Haberfield, Five Dock, Abbotsford, Kingswood, Rooty Hill, Bringelly and Rossmore.
Those of Protestant faith are much more dispersed, but Anglicans have the tightest grip on Gosford, Wyong, Sutherland Shire, Camden and Wollondilly.
The heart of atheism appears be in the inner west. Residents of Camperdown, Erskineville, Enmore, Newtown and Annandale are more likely to shun religion than any of their other Sydney neighbours.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...ing-same-psalms/2008/10/12/1223749845518.html
God bless you people who live in Camperdown, Erskineville, Enmore, Newtown and Annandale.
