UK terminology help (city district with predominantly one background)

My first thought would be Brick Lane - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane

Apparently Southall is sometimes known as Little India, but I have never heard the term used myself.

Hmmm... we don't tend to do that over here. For instance, where I live, the city centre is divided into 'quarters' like the Chinese quarter, the Irish quarter, the gay quarter... but those are more about bars and shops and other businesses rather than where people live.

So yeah, you will have to use the name of an area rather than 'little India'.

Although it may depend on who you are writing for. If your readers will be mostly American, then Little India would work as it would put across the idea.

Brits will curl their lip but at least they will know what you mean.

If you are after something insulting and racist then 'paki town' would work.
Southall is well known as a heavily Sikh/Indian area but I'm not aware of any other names for it.

The thing to remember about UK place names/street names/towns etc is that towns and cities in Britain usually grew organically from much smaller villages. We have very few planned, grid-like towns (Milton Keynes would be a noteable exception). So all the areas in cities usually have names relating to what was once there, or which village that area was before it got sucked into the bigger urban area.

So, I live in a city in the Midlands, and the different areas of the city have different names like Spinney Hill (there's still a hill, and presumably before it was a city there was a spinney on the hill), Knighton (a village name, perhaps), Knighton Fields (the fields around the village of Knighton), Highfields (fields that were high - there's lots of hills), Clarendon Park (perhaps Clarendon was a local landowner, and the word "park" used to refer to the lands/estate surrounding a country house).

Everyone who lives here knows that Clarendon Park is the white, middle-class area, Knighton is super-posh and expensive, St Matthews has a large African community etc etc etc. But because the areas already have names, there's no need to call them "Little Africa" or "China Town". But people know the areas of their local town/city and know if they have a certain 'type' of people living there.

If you want a geographically-themed insult, people are more likely to yell "Go back to India!"

</ rambling diversion>

Not sure about London but the Bradford/Leeds area has a rep for being very 'ethnic' and parts of it are known as 'Little Pakistan'. In fact, this site may help you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Pakistan#United_Kingdom

I do remember a friend of mine who was married to someone from Bradford whose in laws were incredibly (in her words) insular and refused to speak anything but Punjabi...

Some of our towns had a grid once, imposed by the Romans. But we didn't feel any obligation to stick to it....

Psychomacologist said:

But people know the areas of their local town/city and know if they have a certain 'type' of people living there.

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This.
But I do know of a predominantly Asian area which is known as 'the Golden Mile' (a reference to the jewellers, sari shops and Indian restaurants) although I think a lot of people round here would ask where you were talking about if you used that term because it's generally just known by the name of the area. And like mirandashell said, it doesn't refer to the 'living' area so much as the commercial one.
I think there's a couple of areas that go by 'the Golden Mile'- there's definitely one near where I live and, if I remember rightly, one in Manchester (but don't quote me on that one!).
I would also agree with Psychomacologist in that telling someone to "Go back to India" or to "Go home" would be a more 'effective' insult than to refer to the area in which they live...

London has a very definite China Town in Soho http://www.chinatownlondon.org/index.php I think Brick Lane is more Bengali than Punjabi. Thing is that political correctness probably stops some places being given nic names that may be seen as racist. You might find this http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Explore-online/Pocket-histories/where-do-londoners-come-from/ helpful. Over three hundred languages spoken in London schools!

alegory said:

This.
But I do know of a predominantly Asian area which is known as 'the Golden Mile' (a reference to the jewellers, sari shops and Indian restaurants) although I think a lot of people round here would ask where you were talking about if you used that term because it's generally just known by the name of the area. And like mirandashell said, it doesn't refer to the 'living' area so much as the commercial one.
I think there's a couple of areas that go by 'the Golden Mile'- there's definitely one near where I live and, if I remember rightly, one in Manchester (but don't quote me on that one!).
I would also agree with Psychomacologist in that telling someone to "Go back to India" or to "Go home" would be a more 'effective' insult than to refer to the area in which they live...

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You're thinking of the Wilmslow road, colloquially known as "The Curry Mile".

Cyia, I think The Golden Mile is a bad idea. It's the name of the 7 mile stretch of promenade between the piers in Blackpool (Northern Seaside Resort. Think Coney Island but filled with people who've never seen electricity before). The correct insult for anybody of Indian/Pakistan/Sri Lankan/Thai/Bangladeshi/Middle Eastern/Fairly-Pale West Indian origin is "Paki" as in "Go Home You Paki Bastard!" To which the insultee replies, "What? Chigwell?" before breaking into a smart run.

Theo81 said:

The correct insult for anybody of Indian/Pakistan/Sri Lankan/Thai/Bangladeshi/Middle Eastern/Fairly-Pale West Indian origin is "Paki" as in "Go Home You Paki Bastard!" To which the insultee replies, "What? Chigwell?" before breaking into a smart run.

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I think to fully capture the depths of racial ignorance possessed by most racists, the correct insult should be: "Go back to India you Paki bastard!"

To which to correct response is: "Give us back our diamond first!"

Theo81 said:

You're thinking of the Wilmslow road, colloquially known as "The Curry Mile".

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Ah, my bad- thanks for correcting me. My uncle has referred to it on many occassions but I'm damned if I can make sense of what he's talking about most of the time

Cyia said:

Oooh - alegory, you've just helped me with something else with "The Golden Mile". It's perfect the perfect name for a location I couldn't find something suitable for. THANK YOU!

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No problem
I would agree with Theo81, though- if you're thinking of using this for the place mentioned in the OP, it's probably not a great idea but I think you're talking about something other than that, right? In which case, go with whatever you think works.