摘要：The London School of Economics has a founding commitment to
understanding the causes of social and economic change. It works to show
changes in patterns of development internationally, whether at a large or
small scale. Within the UK and in the capital in particular, it tries to keep a
finger on the pulse of change and to influence both directly and indirectly
the development of policy. This series of briefs on the 2001 census will
present findings on population, on changes in the size and distribution of
minority ethnic groups, on tenure and household change and on
employment change, explaining their significance for wider changes. It will
also look at these changes at neighbourhood level, with a particular focus on
poorer neighbourhoods and how they have fared in comparison with their
surrounding district, city, region, and the country as a whole.This first brief
looks at changes in the distribution of population, focusing on urban and
regional growth and decline. It relates these trends to government policy in
the fields of economic growth, distribution of wealth, urban regeneration
and social policy.
Changes in population distribution and composition help to shape and are
shaped by wider trends both within the country and internationally. We
focus mainly on cities and built up areas because that is where the
overwhelming majority of the population live, but also because that is the
focus of our work at LSE in the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion
(CASE). Poverty, deprivation and social policy activity are all heavily
concentrated within cities and towns. Problems of social exclusion are far
more heavily concentrated in urban than in rural areas and the problems
appear more stubborn and intractable, partly because of their very
concentration. Urban areas are also central to most economic and cultural
activity, including most higher education. Therefore the strength of urban
areas largely dictates the strength of the overall economy. All of these
reasons make cities and towns of great importance to government,
particularly a government committed to eradicating social exclusion, child
poverty and inequality of opportunity.
For a long time British cities have been in decline economically and in
terms of their populations, and since the early 1970s successive
governments have focused on attempting to reverse this decline. By 1991,
there were signs that population drift was slowing and cities were beginning
to recover, but the signs of growth were small - many thought insignificant
- and on many counts the decline was continuing.
