Last week the 2010 Index of Multiple Deprivation was released. It showed that, even though cities power the national economy, deprivation is a real problem for many urban areas, particularly the North West’s cities.
Cities are important for people not least because they provide jobs – 62 percent of all of the jobs available in England are in cities. But, although urban neighbourhoods make up 58 percent of England’s neighbourhoods, 92 percent of those in the most deprived 1 percent of all neighbourhoods can be found in urban areas.
England’s most deprived neighbourhood is in Tendring, in the East of England. But, when we look closely at the most deprived 1 percent of neighbourhoods we find that actually, over half of these are located in the North West’s cities.
In Liverpool, 11 percent of city’s population were living in the most deprived 1 percent of all England’s neighbourhoods. This means that 85,800 people were living in some of the most deprived areas in the country. If you look at the map below you’ll see that these high levels of deprivation can be found in neighbourhoods in wards like Everton in Liverpool.
But, Liverpool isn’t the only city in the North West with deprived areas. In Blackburn, 9 percent of the city’s population – or 12,100 people – were located in the most deprived 1 percent of all neighbourhoods and in Blackpool 7 percent – or 23, 600 people.
The number of people living in deprived neighbourhoods is large and if, as is often the case, many of these people are workless, then the scale of the challenge faced by Government’s policies like the Universal Credit and The Work Programme is large.
However, there are also prosperous areas in the North West’s cities. Looking back at the map of Liverpool above, it’s easy to see that some neighbourhoods perform comparatively well – Childwall ward in Liverpool for example. I’ll blog next on what the IMD reveals about relatively less deprived urban neighbourhoods.
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