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Report

Overcoming deprivation and disconnection in UK cities

The poorest areas of towns and cities do not always benefit from economic growth. They can remain disconnected from the prosperity experienced by residents of wealthier neighbourhoods in the same region.

Written by:
Alasdair Rae, Ruth Hamilton, Rich Crisp and Ryan Powell
Date published:

This research looks at these issues from the perspective of housing and labour markets in the 20 per cent most deprived neighbourhoods across the UK. It finds that there is a need to reconnect economic growth strategies with poverty alleviation initiatives.

The research includes an interactive map which reveals how disconnected regions are spread across the UK, and also shows the areas affected by ‘double disconnection’, across both housing and labour markets.

The research finds that:

  • Local jobs do not mean local employment for residents of deprived areas – in many poorer areas jobs are filled by residents from more prosperous areas.
  • Some areas experience ‘double disconnection’; they are not well connected to jobs or housing in their cities – there are 524 of these areas across the UK.
  • The geography of poverty matters. There is often a mismatch between where people live and where jobs are located.

The report includes maps of major UK cities, but the team also produced maps of every area in the UK with at least one neighbourhood falling within the 20 per cent most deprived on the respective deprivation indices.

Further maps

View the residential typology maps

Please note: In the residential typology maps in the original version of this study, the Escalator and Gentrifier categories were labelled incorrectly. Escalators were labelled as Gentrifiers, and vice versa. This was corrected in January 2018, and a revised report made available. JRF and the authors apologise for this error.