Using population surfaces and spatial metrics to track the development of deprivation landscapes in Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester between 1971 and 2011

Measuring change in the spatial arrangement of deprivation over time, and making international, inter-city comparisons, is technically challenging. Meeting these challenges offers a means of furthering understanding and providing new insights into the geography of urban poverty and deprivation. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to mapping and analysing spatio-temporal patterns of household deprivation, assessing the distribution at the landscape level. The approach we develop has advantages over existing techniques because it is applicable in situations where i) conventional approaches based on choropleth mapping are not feasible due to boundary change and/or ii) where spatial relationships at a landscape level are of interest. Through the application of surface mapping techniques to disaggregate census count data, and by applying spatial metrics commonly used in ecology, we were able to compare the development of the spatial arrangement of deprivation between 1971 and 2011 in three UK cities of particular interest: Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. Applying three spatial metrics – spatial extent, patch density, and mean patch size – revealed that over the 40 year period household deprivation has been more spatially dispersed in Glasgow. This novel approach has enabled an analysis of deprivation distributions over time which is less affected by boundary change and which accurately assesses and quantifies the spatial relationships between those living with differing levels of deprivation. It thereby offers a new approach for researchers working in this area.