Cities Produce Inequality

Drawing on material from the Connecting Lives strand, explain how qualitative and quantitative types of evidence can be used to support the claim that cities produce inequality.

Inequality in cities exists for a variety of interconnected reasons—economic, historical, political, and social. ‘The wealthiest 10% of households had household wealth of £1,200,500 or more, while the least wealthy 10% had £16,500 or less.’ (Office of National Statistics (ONS) 2025) Nowhere more so is this disparity of riches more prevalent than in the cities of this country where wealth and poverty are concentrated and exist side by side. Cities produce inequality and in this essay a variety of quantitative and qualitative evidence shall be examined to illustrate the claim that cities produce inequality.

A good example of inequality in the city is the New York Street People. Here, a social experiment was conducted whereby qualitative evidence was gathered by Raban.The Street People are an identity group of homeless within America’s largest urban area.. ‘Most of the Street People didn’t have a choice about where to live.’ (Taylor and Hassan 2022:28). Raban lived out the role of the Street People by exploring what it felt like to be observed sitting on a fire hydrant as the world moved on. He empathised with the identity and looked at how this group functioned. It is clear that the Street People are a very marginalised group of poor people within New York City. They are a product of the city and have their own unique collective identity.

Immigration into mainly cities can lead to inequality. Many migrants move to working class areas. A quaiitative examination of this led Michael Collins to comment: ‘to argue that many white working-class people have lived experiences of Black people which are ‘honest, more intimate’ and ‘varied’ in all aspects of life and relationships. (Collins 2004:223). Immigrants often arrive into new countries and cities with few possessions and are among the most poor and marginalised. Their enclaves include the poorest areas in most cities.

Looking at the siting of the Olympics in East London, one of the best gathered pieces of quantitative evidence to examine inequality in cities is touched upon. For the case of London, there exists Booth’s Maps. ‘Since Charles Booth first completed his survey of the social conditions of every street in London in 1889 (Booth, 1902-3), East London has been home to some of the poorest communities.’(Woodward, Staples and Hassan 2022:58). Booth’s graphic depictions of wealth in cities, clearly demonstrate on a microscopic and macroscopic level the level of inequalities produced by the city. These maps were often used by urban planners to demolish and reconstruct slum areas where despair was high and there was little hope.

Booth’s Maps were also explored by the BBC in the case of one of London’s current poorest shopping streets, Deptford High Street. The progress of the area since the late nineteenth century is charted quantitatively. ‘The ebb and flow between enormous wealth and terrible poverty. How easily desirable or well-to-do neighbourhoods could descend into the haunts of the vicious and semi-criminal, and back again. Now the maps can help us reveal the changes that have shaped all our lives and made the story of the street the story of us all.’ (BBC2, 2012). The descriptive features of Booth’s Maps meant that they have been a quintessential piece of evidence in exploring inequality on the streets of London.

One of the lasting legacies of the Olympics in London is to regenerate the deprived areas of East London. This involves regenerating employment. Statistics are given that are good quantitative evidence of the inequality in this city as: ‘unemployment within the host boroughs is still among the highest in the region and resident employment rates are currently 5.5 per cent below the regional average. (House of Lords, 2013:69). One of the main aims of regenerating permanent employment in East London wasn’t really fully met after the Olympics. The estimates of the influence of the Games were too high and many of the jobs created were just temporary or went to workers from out of town.

Housing projects in the East end also fell short of the promised legacy of the Olympics. Good solid quantitative statistics back up this claim.‘The original figure of 4000 new homes was scaled back in the wake of the credit crunch to 2800 units (MacRury, 2009:70) Of these units many were sold off as private renting housing to a partnership of Qatari Diar… ‘but only 675 of these are social housing. (Watt, 2013:104)

Cities are divided up by class which is a good indicator of wealth and class boundaries redefine inequality, indeed they produce it. Owen Jones writes extensively on ’Chavs’ who have become to be recognised in modern society as part of the most poorest and marginalised sections of the urban community. ‘And what this will do in particular, will attack people in council estates and indeed an acronym people have created for chav is ‘council housed associated vermin’. It will also attack people who work in what is regarded as low prestige jobs like supermarket workers or people who work in fast-food restaurants, for example.’ (Jones, 2012). Are our modern cities full of chavs? What are the impacts on this qualitative example of inequality produced by the city?

Friedrich Engels studied Manchester’s working classes in a famous work of his. He made direct contact with the workers of the industrial city, reflecting in a qualitative manner in his descriptions of the working classes: ‘ women made unfit for childbearing, children deformed, men enfeebled, limbs crushed, whole generations wrecked, afflicted with disease and infirmity, purely to fill the purses of the bourgeoisie’ (Engels, 1969:194). His study also introduced much quantitative data from how he examined slum constructions to how he mapped out inequality.

In the case of Belfast inequality is produced not just by standard factors at present in other urban areas but also there is a divide along sectarian lines. Due to the troubles, Catholic areas and Protestant areas are divided off from each other using walls and barriers. As we move away from the troubles, these barriers are sometimes coming down with for example, a focus on redrawing the city’s murals. ‘As Northern Ireland moves towards a new post-conflict era, the murals that represented overtly martial expressions of political identities are gradually being replaced with alternative representations.’ (Dixon, Hinchcliffe and Hassan 2022:129)

Migration can have a tremendous impact on society. Often migration is a flashpoint in the news with many people holding strong views. Migrants often move to cities where they disproportionately form inequality, settling into the poorest areas and enclaves. Migration gathers much data although it is often subjective and can be difficult to collate. Here is an example of a headline that demonstrates quantitatively the effect of migration upon the native population: ‘True toll of mass migration on UK life: Half of Britons suffer under strain placed on schools, police, NHS and housing. (Slack, 2013)

Urban inequality is the result of layered and often deliberate systems that benefit certain groups at the expense of others. Fixing it requires more than just economic growth—it needs deep structural reform, inclusive policies, and a shift in how cities are built and governed. In this essay various pieces of quantitative and qualitative evidence have been examined in order to prove the notion that cities produce inequality. This evidence is core to the centre of the lives of urban planners and in order to fully understand and remediate inequality it is essential for social scientists to continue to gather evidence and to provide solutions.

1240 words

Bibliography

Collins, M. (2004) The likes of us: a biography of the white working class. London:Granta Books.

Dixon, J., Hinchliffe, S. and Hassan, I. (2022) ‘Connecting people and places’, in Clarke, J., Doye, Z., Hassan, I. and Woodward, K. (eds) Understanding Social Lives, Part 2. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 93–140.

Engels, F. (1969) The condition of the working classes in England. London: Panther Books.

Jones, O. (2012) Chavs: the demonisation of the working class. London: Verso.

MacRury, I. (2009) London’s Olympic legacy. London East Research Institute: London

Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 24 January 2025, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Household total wealth in Great Britain: April 2020 to March 2022

Parliament. House of Lords (2013) Keeping the flame alive: The Olympic and Paralympic legacy, Select Committee on Olympic and Paralympic Legacy. (HL Paper 78). London: The Stationery Office. Available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201314/ldselect/ldolympic/78/78.pdf (Accessed: 11 April 2022).

Slack, J. (2013) ‘True toll of mass migration on UK life: Nhalf of Britons suffer under strain placed on schools, police, NHS and housing.’ Mail Online, 4 July. Available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2355208/Toll-mass-migration-UK-life-Half-Britons-suffer-strain-places-schools-police-NHS-housing.html (Accessed 26 January 2014)

Taylor, S. and Hassan, I. (2022) ‘Identities’, in Clarke, J., Doye, Z., Hassan, I. and Woodward, K. (eds) Understanding social lives, Part 2. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 1–43.

The Secret History of our Streets (2012) BBC Two Television.

Watt, P. (2013) ‘It’s not for us’, City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 17(1), pp 99-118

Woodward, K., Staples, M. and Hassan, I. (2022) ‘Bodies, places and rules’, in Clarke, J., Doye, Z., Hassan, I. and Woodward, K. (eds) Understanding social lives, Part 2. Milton Keynes: The Open University, pp. 45–91.