Podcast Summary: Growth and Spatial Distribution of Poverty in London 2001–2011

Podcast: LSE: Public Lectures and Events
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team
Speaker: Alex Fenton (with Amanda Fitzgerald contributing in discussion)
Date: February 24, 2014

Overview

This episode features a lecture by Alex Fenton, focusing on the changes in the spatial distribution of poverty in London between 2001 and 2011. Drawing on a variety of data sources and analytical methods, Fenton explores how the shifts in housing development, employment, and policy have contributed to evolving patterns of deprivation across inner and outer London. The discussion highlights the intricate links between poverty measurements, population growth, housing policy, and social change, with a particular emphasis on the nuanced effects of gentrification, government intervention, and the changing nature of poor neighborhoods.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rationale for Studying the Spatial Distribution of Poverty

• [02:48] Fenton opens by questioning why the spatial distribution of poverty matters, highlighting themes of targeted policy, the effects of concentrated poverty, and notions of social cohesion and justice.
• Targeted interventions: Is it more effective to help the poor by focusing on specific neighborhoods, or should strategies be more universal?
• Resource allocation: Funding and service provision (like school funding) are often tied to local poverty rates.
• Social cohesion and rights to the city: The idea that it is socially harmful if the poor and rich live segregated lives.

"From a poverty relief perspective, how do we tackle poverty? Are there ways we can target local area-based initiatives more effectively to relieve poverty?" – Alex Fenton [05:10]

2. Data Sources and Measures of Poverty

• [07:30] Fenton discusses two primary methods:

  • Benefit claims as a poverty proxy: Offers annual, small-area data but mainly captures out-of-work poverty.
  • Survey-based income data: Better reflects in-work poverty but less geographically detailed.

• Household growth vs. changes in poverty counts: Emphasizes that measuring poverty as a rate can mask underlying trends – especially when household numbers are rapidly rising.

• Importance of housing costs: Poverty rates after housing costs reveal increased hardship not captured in before-housing measures.

"The big problem is that now and increasingly, the majority of people who are in income poverty are actually in work. And we don't have a very good small area measure of in-work poverty." – Alex Fenton [13:52]

3. Shifting Patterns: Inner vs. Outer London

• [18:30] Key observation:

  • Between 2001 and 2011, poverty fell sharply in many inner London boroughs, especially historically poor areas like Hackney, Tower Hamlets, and parts of Islington.
  • Poverty rose (though less dramatically) in some outer London boroughs, e.g., Enfield, Brent.

• Population growth: The inner city, especially its poorer neighborhoods, saw rapid household growth—driven by new, often more affluent residents. This "diluted" poverty as a percentage, even if the absolute number of poor households didn't fall as much as the rate suggests.

"So what's going on there, I think, is that people are building new dwellings ... the majority of the new populations, explaining much bigger populations in those areas, are at least by benefit measures, non-poor, but possibly in rather precarious circumstances." – Alex Fenton [38:23]

4. Housing Development, Gentrification, and Policy

• [27:00] A large proportion of London's 2000s housing growth was concentrated in inner-city areas, particularly in historically poor districts.
• Type of development: New housing tended to be of higher value, linked to "capital-intensive gentrification," not just simple growth but an upgrading of the housing stock.
• Policy drivers: Government encouraged development and market-based solutions, including densification of social housing estates and extended use of housing benefit in the private sector.

"There was a form of kind of capital intensive and type of gentrification of upgrading of the housing stock that's going on." – Alex Fenton [31:36]

5. Changing Nature of Poverty

• [41:00] Nature of poverty shifted from "out-of-work" to "in-work" and from "before housing" to "after housing costs" poverty—especially in inner London.
• Inner London poverty "improvement" is tempered by rising housing costs: employment is up, but so is the share of people struggling due to rent; many are still in precarious situations.
• Outer London becomes home to more poor – driven largely by migration and increased reliance on housing benefit in the private sector.

"There's this sort of picture of at least falling poverty ... more working age households, more households in work, but an increasing proportion of those finding their housing costs putting them into poverty." – Alex Fenton [44:49]

6. Open Questions & Uncertainties

• Sustainability of trends: Will London’s pattern shift further, perhaps toward a Paris-style model, with an affluent center and deprived periphery?
• Policy implications: What do these changes mean for the provision of services, especially as local government budgets are cut, disproportionately hitting poorer boroughs?
• Comparative dimensions: Are London’s processes unique, or do other British (or global) cities show similar decentralization of poverty?
• Political perceptions and action: In Berlin, debates about rent and subsidies are highly visible—is London similarly engaged?

"There's a question here about ... do we understand the kind of differential consumption and inequality in housing consumption as a contributor or as a possible solution to the housing problem of overcrowding?" – Alex Fenton [48:30]

7. Q&A and Discussion Highlights

a. Is this "decentralization" or merely "dilution" of poverty?

• [50:33–52:14] Discussion clarifies that, while percentage rates of poverty in the center are down, actual numbers remain high. Part of the shift is due to added affluent residents, not the out-migration of the poor.

b. Mixed communities agenda and area-based policies

• [52:24] Fenton argues mixed communities are less a major plank of poverty reduction and more a way to address uneven conditions ("spatial justice"):

"I think about area-based policies and targeted policies really as being more important for addressing difficult conditions ... than it really is about hoping that it will be the major plank of a poverty reduction strategy." – Alex Fenton [54:41]

c. Defining Spatial Justice

• [55:10] Fenton: Spatial justice is about equal access to spatially-located public goods (like schools), but acknowledges the concept is contested:

"...certain goods and things that are publicly provided, natural goods are spatially distributed ... we'd want access to those spatially located goods not to be ... unduly equal. And it has the same confused concept in that well, how much inequality is tolerable." – Alex Fenton [55:23]

d. Role of housing stock regeneration

• [57:30–58:17] Much regeneration was driven by the physical decline of postwar social housing, not an explicit mixed communities agenda, but policy targets and funding (like the Decent Homes standard) accelerated change.

e. Data limitations and the financial crisis

• [59:47–61:47] Using 2001 and 2011 census data limits ability to analyze short-term shocks, e.g., the 2008 crisis. Many datasets are “household insensitive,” limiting detailed understanding by gender or across household types.

f. Actual Community Mixing?

• [64:22] Fenton agrees that policy—intentionally or otherwise—has increased social mixing in poor areas by bringing in more affluent residents:

"It's not that this was happening ... in a few regeneration projects but was really a widespread effect ... the rich became less segregated which ... is a slight reversal of what other people suggest was happening UK wide ..." – Alex Fenton [65:33]

g. Outer boroughs resisting, but receiving, poverty

• [66:06] Despite resistance to social housing, outer boroughs have seen rising poverty due to the expansion of the private rented sector and housing benefit claimants.

h. London in longer historical context

• [70:03] The redistribution of London’s poor is part of a much longer process tied to deindustrialization and the loss of working-class jobs in central London.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "From a poverty relief perspective, how do we tackle poverty? Are there ways we can target local area-based initiatives more effectively to relieve poverty?" – Alex Fenton [05:10]
• "The big problem is that now and increasingly, the majority of people who are in income poverty are actually in work." – Alex Fenton [13:52]
• "I put gentrification in quotes, but we don't really have a better word for it." – Alex Fenton [31:36]
• "There's this sort of picture of at least falling poverty ... but an increasing proportion of those finding their housing costs putting them into poverty." – Alex Fenton [44:49]
• "I think about area-based policies ... as being more important for addressing difficult conditions and the uneven experience of difficult conditions and poor services than ... being the major plank of a poverty reduction strategy." – Alex Fenton [54:41]
• "The rich became less segregated which is a slight reversal of what other people suggest was happening UK wide ..." – Alex Fenton [65:33]
• "Despite resistance to social housing, outer boroughs have seen rising poverty due to the expansion of the private rented sector and housing benefit claimants." – Alex Fenton [66:06]

Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic | |----------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00–02:48 | Introduction, speaker background, lecture structure | | 05:10–07:10 | Why study spatial poverty | | 13:52 | Measurement issues (benefit claims, in-work poverty) | | 18:30–23:00 | Population and poverty trends; maps of shifting deprivation | | 27:00–34:00 | Housing development, “gentrification” patterns | | 38:23 | Dilution vs. reduction of poverty in inner London | | 41:00–44:49 | Changes in nature of poverty (housing costs, employment) | | 50:33–54:57 | Q&A: Decentralization vs. dilution; mixed communities | | 55:10–56:03 | Defining “spatial justice” | | 57:30–61:47 | Housing stock, data limitations, and the impact of the crash| | 64:22–66:06 | Actual effects on community mixing and segregation | | 66:06–70:03 | Outer London poverty, historical trends, affordable housing |

Concluding Summary

• The 2000s saw the spatial distribution of poverty in London change notably: inner London’s poorest areas saw declining poverty rates, while some outer areas experienced increases.
• These shifts are partly about “diluting” poverty percentages via rapid, often affluent, household growth—especially via policy-driven housing development and gentrification in the center.
• Importantly, the character of poverty itself shifted, with a growth in in-work poverty and post-housing-cost hardship.
• These changes prompt complex questions about the future direction of London’s urban structure, the efficacy and aims of area-based vs. individual-based policy, and broader issues of justice, service provision, and social cohesion.

"I would like to do ... is really to try and connect the traditional classic poverty studies to the housing policy, an analysis of both the market and the degree of marketization."
– Alex Fenton [48:10]