On the Persistence of Poverty and Segregation

This chapter is concerned with long-run changes in poverty and segregation, starting with the pioneering work of Charles Booth in the late nineteenth century. Despite the major overall reductions in poverty since then, the relative spatial distributions have been remarkably persistent, at least in London, consistent with some of the theories explored in Chap. 3. Models of social interactions, for example, indicate the importance of non-linearity; this, in turn, implies that only large policy interventions are sufficient to bring the most deprived areas to self-sustaining take-off points. As an example, the chapter looks at the influence of one particularly large change, the London Olympic Games. Although it is too early to assess fully the legacy, so far, there appears to have been little effect on relative property prices in the districts where the Games took place. This leads on to a wider discussion of area regeneration initiatives.