“England is increasingly divided between the rich and the poor, with a 60% increase in poor households and a 33% increase in wealthy households. This has come at a time – 1980 to 2010 – when the number of middle-income households went down by 27%.” In a Londonmapper report that was featured in today’s Observer newspaper we showed how the groups of poor and wealthy and the remaining ‘middle’ have changed in England over the past three decades.

These two charts, showing the absolute and relative changes in the number of households in each group, highlight that poor and middle households have come to being almost equally large groups in the British capital in the period, with a clear trend in growing numbers of poor and wealthy households and a shrinking middle part. These polarising trends of growing inequality are not only prevalent in London, but also continue in the rest of the country. The following cartogram visualisation uses the absolute changes between 1980 and 2010 and shows how the increase in poverty and wealth compares across the regions of England and the Borough of London and looks at the decline in the middle in the same way. How the middle is squeezed out of London becomes particularly apparent in these images, as London dominates much of the map while growing numbers of poor and wealthy households are more evenly distributed across the country:

(click for larger version)

A full analysis of the data that we collected and the underlying methodology that we used to estimate the figures shown in these maps and charts can be found on the Londonmapper website: Poverty and Wealth in England and London 1980-2010. From the London-related data we have also created an interactive cartogram feature that allows to compare all the different cartograms and gives an even more vivid impression of the changes contained in our data. More can also be found in the Guardian/Observer article and a related editorial.

The content on this page has been created by Benjamin Hennig for the Londonmapper Project. Please contact me for further details on the terms of use.