Creating Small Area Measures of Urban Deprivation

In recent years, the scale and pace of urban change have been associated with fine-scale fragmentation of the lifestyles of urban populations. One manifestation of this is that households of diverse means and circumstances may be found living in proximity to one another, particularly in urban areas. In this paper we argue that in these changed circumstances conventional deprivation indicators fail adequately to detect within and between small area variations in socioeconomic and environmental conditions. Using a case study of Bristol, England, we develop an analysis around Gordon and Forrest's Breadline Britain indicator in order to reveal the diversity of economic conditions that exist within wards that might be labelled as either affluent or deprived. We argue that adequate representation of diversity requires a greater sensitivity to difference at fine scales. In this context, we begin to evaluate the claims of marketeers who use commercial sources of data to model incomes at unit postcode and even household scales. We undertake an evaluation of such data and extend their application to calculation of Breadline Britain index scores. The results suggest some potential for using unconventional sources of data to ‘freshen up’ census information and provide direct, meaningful, measures of deprivation.