The London Index of Multiple Deprivation
The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is a measure of the “deprivation” of any given area. A combination of indicators covering a range of economic, social and housing issues, allow for a single deprivation score to be constructed, and these scores are then ranked. The data for the 32,482 Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs) that make up England was released in March 2011 for the 2010 IMD. This showed the rank of each LSOAs deprivation, ranging from 1 to 32,482. Fortunately due to a similar methodology being used to construct the 2010 IMD, it possible to compared it with the previous IMD released in 2007.
Instead of focusing on a national scale I have re-ranked the data for London’s 4,765 LSOAs for both the 2007 and 2007 IMDs. Each of the 4,765 LSOAs have had their new ranks split into deciles, which is what is displayed on the maps below. This means there are roughly 476 LSOAs in each decile, or one tenth of all the areas in the dataset.
Move your mouse over the picture, to swipe between the 2007 and 2010 London IMD.
Show dividing line?
I was inspired to use the “scrubber” technique by Oliver O’Brien, who used it to display the changes to the Olympic Park in London on Google Earth. This demonstrated the technique can be useful at showing various types of change, not just before and after pictures of areas in the world devastated by natural disasters.
The problem with these maps, is, while some differences can be spotted, the number of LSOAs London contains makes it very difficult to spot a lot of the changes that have occurred. So in order to help this interpretation I have also created a map displaying the relative change of deprivation in each LSOA.
Both this map and the ones above have inherent problems. They are displaying the rank of all London’s IMD scores, so you do not know to what extent each area is deprived. For example you would have no way of knowing from these maps if the most deprived area in London is only marginally “worse” than the second most deprived area or 100 times “worse”. It is also possible for an area to receive the same IMD score in 2007 and 2010 and be assigned to a lower decile in 2010. If other areas in London have become less deprived their IMD scores will improve and receive a better ranking. In comparison, an area whose IMD score has seen little change could now be ranked lower and considered a relatively more deprived area of London.
But what is deprivation? Definitions are open to debate but to construct the IMD 7 domain indices are used that cover a range of topics. In the slideshow below I have mapped each of these 7 indices in 2007 and 2010 and the change between the years. Each index contributes towards the overall IMD, but have different weightings. By displaying individual indices some interesting patterns emerge. For example it looks like the major driving factor for the borough of Barnet becoming less deprived in 2010 compared to 2007 is a large shift in the Barriers to Housing and Services index, from being one of the more deprived areas in London in 2007 to one of the least deprived areas in 2010. You can also see clear differences between Borough boundaries for indices where policy and other decisions made at Borough level have a major impact on how deprived that Borough is. On the flip side indices like Crime, which naturally flows between Boroughs there are no well defined borders and is a lot more random, something which is to be expected.
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For all the maps that I have created it is important to remember that the IMD is a measure of deprivation, and just because an area of lower deprivation it does not automatically make it an affluent area. The same is true for individuals, people that live in more deprived areas will not necessarily be deprived. Conversely, there will be people who would identify themselves as being deprived living in less deprived areas.