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lines need be drawn, representing the spatial distribution of the movement of the
majority of migrants between those years at the finest available resolution. 20
On the maps shown here each thin line represents, on average, the change
of residence of half a dozen families between two wards. Again they can be
coloured. This could be done according to the nature both of the area being left
and of that being entered, or by any aspect of one or the other. Lines from obvi-
ously different areas should stand out from the crowd. As we can see, the pattern
of movement is deeply embedded in the social structure (Figures 6.18 and 6.19).
What is striking about the images created is the extent to which migration
actually maintains the status quo. The vast majority of movements are within
similar areas and the boundaries can be clearly seen. It appears that there is a
single, overriding spatial social structure to Britain, a social structure encapsulated
by the streams of migration, crossed daily by travel to work. People in Britain
must work together or at least very often work within the same places, but they
can and do live apart. The patterns of their movements testify to this. 21 These
movements are as much part of the spatial structure as are the pictures of who
lives in households or works in offices.
With information in the 1980s being released from the National Health
Service central register, an opportunity then became available to depict how
the flows of migrants were changing over time. A change of flow is a strange
concept. If between 1975 and 1976 two thousand people moved from Liverpool
to London, and ten years later only one thousand did, what does that reveal?
Firstly, one needed to determine whether the overall level of flow throughout the
country had fallen, then whether the flow from Liverpool had fallen in general,
or that to London dropped, and finally what had happened to the movement in
the opposite direction.
Mapping change of flow can involve two images, one showing between which
places, and by how much, the relative increases have occurred and the other
showing where there have been decreases in the number of moves. Circles centred
on the places themselves can show what has happened to their total in, out and
net flows. It is difficult to know whether, with the use of contrasting dark and
light arrows, these two images could be put on a single map. What certainly
20 'Migration to and from London is dominant, even when sensible areal units are used to measure
it. Migration to and from London dominated population movement in much of Britain: 56 of the 67
largest flows in 1971 involved the London SMLA. There was a tendency for migration to London to
come from a rather broader area than migration from London, thus suggesting a process of population
redistribution operating through the Capital ... ' (Johnson, 1984, p. 305).
21 The overall result of all these moves, at a gross scale, was at this time the continued contraction
of the major cities: 'The single most impressive finding of the 1981 Census in relation to population
distribution was the massive decline in population sustained by Britain's larger cities over the
previous decade. The population of Greater London alone fell by almost three-quarters of a million
between 1971 and 1981, a drop of almost 1 in 10 ... . Even bigger relative rates of decline were
recorded by some of the provincial centres, notably Glasgow ( - 22.0%), Liverpool ( - 16.4) and
Manchester ( - 17.5)' (Champion, 1989, p. 121).
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