Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
variations in quality of life in the USA and
Gordon and Whittaker's (1972) study of
prosperity for local areas of southwest England.
Smith (1973) employed a set of forty-seven social
variables relating to income, health, housing,
education, social order and social belonging to
create a map of social well-being for the
coterminous states of the USA, which highlighted
the relative poverty of the southern states (Figure
29.3).
More recently, analysis of a number of
deprivation-related indicators from the 1991
census illuminated the contrasting geographies of
poverty and affluence among local authority
districts in Britain. Compare, for example, the
position of Glasgow district and the spatially
contiguous suburban district of Bearsden and
Milngavie in Tables 29.2 and 29.3. Green (1994)
has also shown that in terms of unemployment
and inactivity rates the gap between the best and
worst wards in the UK increased between 1981
and 1991 to accentuate an already significant
degree of polarisation. Significantly, the socio-
spatial incidence of poverty exhibited a high level
of consistency over the decade. A similar
conclusion was demonstrated at the conurbation
level by Pacione's (1995a; b) analysis of multiple
deprivation in Strathclyde, which revealed the
spatial and temporal consistency of deprivation in
specific localities. As well as illuminating regional
variations in well-being, these studies also
provided further support for the examination of
socio-spatial variations in poverty and deprivation
at the intra-urban level.
POVERTY AND DEPRIVATION WITHIN
THE CITY
The problems of poverty and deprivation
experienced by those people and places marginal
to the capitalist development process have
intensified over recent decades. A substantial
proportion of the disadvantaged live in towns and
cities. In the countries of the North, large areas of
many of the older industrial cities have been
economically and socially devastated by the effects
of global economic restructuring, de-
industrialisation, and ineffective urban economic
policy (Pacione 1990a). For many of the residents
of cities in the UK and USA, the nature and extent
of multiple deprivation represents a contemporary
urban crisis (Box 29.2) (Pacione 1997b).
In order to understand the incidence and
impact of poverty and deprivation on
disadvantaged communities, it is necessary to
complement national- and regional-level analyses
by working at the lowest possible spatial scale; a
scale that draws closest to the context of people's
daily lives. In general, the finer the spatial scale of
analysis the more detailed and more policy-
Figure 29.3
Social
well-being in the USA.
Source:
Smith 1973.
