People 'fleeing' London
Has been in thew news recently, for reasons stretching from the rat-race to crime to immigrants. This Jan Moir article rather stretches it to the limit.
Last year, nearly a quarter of a million decent, law-abiding citizens packed their bags and left the capital for good, seeking what they hope will be a better life elsewhere...While their fairytale, roses-around-the-door belief in the safety of the countryside and the romantic ideal of a thatched cottage for two is touching, it does point to an underlying urban unease.
Er, how does she know they are decent, law-abiding folk who want fairytale, roses-around-the-door places in the countryside?
I've read the same Population Trends as she has (although it should be pointed out that I can't see 2007 figures, which she seems to have access to), and it says nothing about that at all. Might not a reasonable number of the 246,700 (3.3%) of people who left London in 2006 be indecent, or law-unabiding, or even not after a roses-around-the-door countryside idyll? It's hardly unknown for criminals to leave inner London for the surrounding counties, after all.
In any case, it's not much of a new thing. Indeed twenty years previous, in 1986,a not that dissimilar 232,400 people (3.4%) left London for other parts of the nation. It's true that the net position, ie outflows less inflows, of Britons to other parts of the country was a negative 78,800 in 2006, the biggest net outflow since 2005, which itself was the biggest net outflow since 2004, which in turn was the biggest since 2003. Which was a big year.
From the data its almost impossible to see why there has been this small increase. The age profile is much as you would expect - those in their mid-30s with children. The data doesn't tell us where they went to, but if we compare last year with 1981, which saw only a small 32,000 net outflows, the main difference nationwide appears to be that the North, Scotland and Northern Ireland have stopped seeing people leave, presumably on grounds of a better economic situation.
Trevor Phillips' concept of 'white flight' is also hard to confirm. I don't doubt that for some people this is a factor - and hardly a new one. Also the boroughs with the largest outflow tend to be those in East and South East London that have the highest proportion of non-white immigrants, although given over 50% of the immigrants come from mainly white Eastern Europe it is difficult to separate populations and immigrants. Furthermore if there is such a link (either with immigrants per se or non-white ones specificially), then simple economics, that it is inevitable that many immigrants will live in those boroughs and hence its previous inhabitants will choose to sell up and move to 'better' (but proportionately less expensive) regions of the capital, or to cheaper places outside London, would explain much of the movement. Unfortunately the data doesn't - except perhaps to newspaper columinists - tell us specifically where the migrants came from or to where they went.
I don't know also whether London life is deterioating. House prices - a measure of the market's worth of living in London, rather than anecdotal evidence from journalists or bureaucrats - suggest it is much more desirable than 10 years ago. The city as a whole - in my opinion - looks a lot smarter now than at anytime previously. Transport on the whole is easier, although obviously for drivers more expensive. Crime figures are mixed.
Labels: London
posted by Matthew @ 1/16/2008 07:24:00 AM
Comments: 1
