Unpopular Places? : Area Disadvantage and the Geography of Misery in England

The current emphasis given to the concept of social exclusion in contemporary social policy debates has led to a renewed interest in the mechanisms by which disadvantaged areas are identified.

Using data from the annual Survey of English housing in combination with Census data, Unpopular places? maps out areas in England where residents are likely to display high levels of dissatisfaction with their neighbourhoods.

The authors analyse the reasons for this dissatisfaction, which include crime, vandalism, litter, problematic neighbours, noise and racial harassment.

The report examines whether areas identified as being disadvantaged by existing indices are the same areas which would be identified as such by the people who live in them - close and systematic attention is paid to what residents say about their local environments.

This measure of neighbourhood dissatisfaction should be used by policy makers and researchers interested in relating neighbourhood influences to a range of social outcomes.