4A.4C Priorities for Regeneration
There are priorities for regeneration due to significant variation in both economic and social inequalities, (gated communities, 'sink estates', commuter villages, declining rural settlements.)
Social segregation and residential sorting are a common feature of inequalities, and is self-reinforcing as conditions decline in struggling neighbourhoods - the most extreme example is the 'white flight' in urban USA.
In both rural and urban areas there are significant inequalities between places that are often spatially very close. This is especially true in urban areas where very deprived areas can often be found next to areas with almost no deprivation.
In Reading there is:
Areas that need regeneration can be found next to those that have no need of it at all:
Social segregation and residential sorting are a common feature of inequalities, and is self-reinforcing as conditions decline in struggling neighbourhoods - the most extreme example is the 'white flight' in urban USA.
In both rural and urban areas there are significant inequalities between places that are often spatially very close. This is especially true in urban areas where very deprived areas can often be found next to areas with almost no deprivation.
In Reading there is:
- In some places very highly deprived areas are right next to the least deprived ones
- in the north east, there is an area in the 10% most deprived next to one in the 10% least deprived (of the country as a whole)
- Areas close to the town centre Central Business District to the south and to the west are most deprived
- Northern areas of Reading are the least deprived
- Some areas of high deprivation are towards the edge of the urban area
Areas that need regeneration can be found next to those that have no need of it at all:
- Rich, gated communities can be found right next to 'sink estates' in cities and towns
- Gated communities are wealthy residential areas that are fenced off and have security gates and entry systems. They are increasingly common in the UK.
- Sink estates are council housing estates that are the least desirable to live in and have the shortest waiting lists for housing. They are characterised by high levels of economic and social deprivation and crime, especially domestic violence, drugs and gang warfare. They tend to house the lowest income, most in-need residents.
- Examples of sink estates are the Barracks in Glasgow and Broadwater Farm in North London.
- Redruth was the first town in the UK to introduce a temporary curfew for youngsters centred on a sink estate of just six streets known as Close Hill.
- Up to a third of families claim benefits in the ex-mining area of small rural towns in Cornwall's 'Camborne Corridor'
- In rural areas, successful, prosperous commuter villages may be only a few miles away from less attractive rural villages suffering population decline and service deprivation