28 The trouble with moving upmarket
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Daniel Dorling
Abstract
Poverty rates in Britain declined from 1968 to the late 1970s, but since then have risen continuously. Our report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation1 shows how this trend has been accompanied by a rise in the geographical segregation of the poor from the rich – where the two groups live physically apart.
There is some good news, though. In the most recent period, the number of households with people who are the poorest – income poor, materially deprived and subjectively poor – fell, and such very poor households also became less geographically concentrated. It has become evident that government policy can reduce that gap.
The people in the most geographically segregated social group are those who were so wealthy that they could afford to exclude themselves from the schools, hospitals, cleaning, childcare, recreation and other norms for most people in society. As they grew wealthier, however, the richest did not grow greatly in number, but became corralled in fewer and fewer parts of the country.
At the extreme end are the most affluent parts of, for example, the Mole Valley in Surrey, and Chesham and Amersham, in Buckinghamshire. In 1980, a majority of the population in these places were neither rich nor poor. Now only a quarter of households there are non-poor, non-wealthy, while more than a third in these areas are counted in our most exclusively wealthy category. Today, the majority of people living in the most expensive areas will have moved there over the last few decades, making such places unaffordable to almost everyone else.
Abstract
Poverty rates in Britain declined from 1968 to the late 1970s, but since then have risen continuously. Our report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation1 shows how this trend has been accompanied by a rise in the geographical segregation of the poor from the rich – where the two groups live physically apart.
There is some good news, though. In the most recent period, the number of households with people who are the poorest – income poor, materially deprived and subjectively poor – fell, and such very poor households also became less geographically concentrated. It has become evident that government policy can reduce that gap.
The people in the most geographically segregated social group are those who were so wealthy that they could afford to exclude themselves from the schools, hospitals, cleaning, childcare, recreation and other norms for most people in society. As they grew wealthier, however, the richest did not grow greatly in number, but became corralled in fewer and fewer parts of the country.
At the extreme end are the most affluent parts of, for example, the Mole Valley in Surrey, and Chesham and Amersham, in Buckinghamshire. In 1980, a majority of the population in these places were neither rich nor poor. Now only a quarter of households there are non-poor, non-wealthy, while more than a third in these areas are counted in our most exclusively wealthy category. Today, the majority of people living in the most expensive areas will have moved there over the last few decades, making such places unaffordable to almost everyone else.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents v
- Sources of extracts vii
- Foreword xi
- Acknowledgements xiv
- Introduction 1
-
Inequality and poverty
- Prime suspect: murder in Britain 13
- The dream that turned pear-shaped 31
- The soul searching within New Labour 41
- Unequal Britain 49
- Axing the child poverty measure is wrong 57
-
Injustice and ideology
- Brutal budget to entrench inequality 63
- New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued? 65
- All in the mind? Why social inequalities persist 83
- Glass conflict: David Cameron’s claim to understand poverty 93
- Clearing the poor away 97
-
Race and identity
- Ghettos in the sky 103
- Worlds apart: how inequality breeds fear and prejudice in Britain 111
- How much evidence do you need? Ethnicity, harm and crime 115
- UK medical school admissions by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sex 121
- Race and the repercussions of recession 125
-
Education and hierarchy
- What’s it to do with the price of fish? 133
- Little progress towards a fairer education system 139
- One of Labour’s great successes 147
- Do three points make a trend? 149
- Educational mobility, England and Germany 155
- Cash and the not so classless society 159
- Britain must close the great pay divide 165
- Raising equality in access to higher education 170
-
Elitism and geneticism
- The Darwins and the Cecils are only empty vessels 189
- The Fabian essay: the myth of inherited inequality 193
- The return to elitism in education 199
- The super-rich are still soaring away 209
-
Mobility and employment
- The trouble with moving upmarket 217
- Britain – split and divided by inequality 221
- London and the English desert: the grain of truth in a stereotype 225
- Are the times changing back? 237
- Unemployment and health 243
-
Bricks and mortar
- Mortality amongst street sleeping youth in the UK 249
- Daylight robbery: there’s no shortage of housing 251
- The influence of selective migration patterns 255
- The geography of poverty, inequality and wealth in the UK and abroad 263
- All connected? Geographies of race, death, wealth, votes and births 291
-
Well-being and misery
- Against the organization of misery? The Marmot Review of Health Inequalities 299
- Inequality kills 307
- The geography of social inequality and health 311
- The cartographer’s mad project 327
- The fading of the dream: widening inequalities in life expectancy in America 333
- The importance of circumstance 339
-
Advocacy and action
- Mean machine: how structural inequality makes social inequality seem natural 347
- Policing the borders of crime: who decides research? 351
- Learning the hard way 357
- When the social divide deepens 363
- Ending the scandal of complacency 365
- Our grandchildren will wonder why we were addicted to social inequality 369
- Mind the gap: New Labour’s legacy on child poverty 373
- Remapping the world’s population: visualizing data using cartograms 379
- If I were king 385
- Bibliography 387
- Index 389
