Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
example, the London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham in East
London feature prominently in the most deprived areas together with Southwark and a
number of smaller concentrations in particular wards. Similarly, a report by the New
Policy Institute (Harrop and Palmer 2002) examined poverty and social exclusion in rural
England, noting that in rural areas, 18 per cent of the population were in low income
households compared with 24 per cent in urban areas. This creates particular challenges
for policy-makers in seeking to address exclusion, particularly in terms of leisure
participation.
Not surprisingly, government agencies concerned with leisure (e.g. the Department for
Culture, Media and Sport) have developed strategies to target groups at risk of social
exclusion in terms of tourism, leisure and sport. Many of these initiatives have been
targeted at increasing participation in, for example, the arts and sport through free
museum entry and urban regeneration strategies (i.e. neighbourhood renewal) to address
physical and social deprivation in some of the worst areas focused on health, crime,
employment and education. For example, in Sheffield, a fifteen-year programme of
cultural development has helped to stimulate inner city regeneration based on the cultural
industries and projects to target marginalised groups (Department for Culture, Media and
Sport 1999). The
Count Me In
report (J.A.Long 2002) identified the contribution which
leisure could make to social inclusion through sports, arts, media, heritage and outdoor
activities by increased involvement of social at risk of exclusion (e.g. unemployed,
people, older people and women) through personal development (e.g. self-esteem,
interpersonal skills and relationship building), social cohesion (civic pride, celebrating
one's own culture and relationship building with other cultural and social groups) and in
promoting active citizenship, through taking greater responsibility and in exercising one's
rights as well as promoting human potential
These policy initiatives and evaluative research show that while the spatial dynamics
of deprivation are the result of a complex process, impacted upon by government policy,
local economic conditions, globalisation and the spatial segregation of social group, it is
possible to break the cycle of exclusion. In fact the UK's Disability Discrimination Act
1995 (to have rights of access to premises and services implemented by October 2004 in
the UK—see G.Miller and Kirk 2002), which was prompted by EU legislation on social
inclusion, will force many tourism and leisure service providers to make all services and
facilities accessible to the disabled, improving accessibility at a micro scale.
RESOURCES AND FASHIONS
While models of participation and obstacles to recreation have attempted to predict the
probability of people participating in activities, using variables such as age, sex, marital
status and social variables (e.g. housing tenure, income and car ownership), predictions
decline in accuracy when attempting to identify individual activities (e.g. golf). What
such recreational models often fail to acknowledge is the role of choice and preference
given a range of options. In this respect, geographical proximity to recreational resources
and access to them is a major determinant. This is demonstrated by Burton (1971), who
found that in Britain, people were three times as likely to use a recreational resource if
they lived between half and three-quarters of a mile away, a feature emphasised by
