Disadvantaged communities are not seeing significant benefit from years of urban regeneration in east London and local residents report feeling more insecure than ever about their livelihoods, finds a new report by UCL researchers.
The report, "Prosperity in East London 2021-2031" looked at living standards across five east London Boroughs where there have been significant physical, economic and social changes in the last few decades.
The researchers developed their Citizen Prosperity Index (CPI) to carry out a comprehensive study of how residents' opportunities and quality of life are impacted by regeneration, measuring people's prosperity beyond strictly economic factors to include their reported sense of livelihood security, community, access to services, health and wellbeing, and life satisfaction.
The study found that long-term residents of the study's disadvantaged neighbourhoods failed to see many 'spillover' prosperity benefits from urban regeneration efforts because of persistent structural inequalities including gender, ethnicity and age.
Newer neighbourhoods that have been the target of regeneration efforts are generally more prosperous, but this is because they're 'importing' prosperity from other parts of the city as new, well-off residents move in, the report added.
The team found that the deep-rooted challenges of livelihood insecurity persist across all areas and demographics. A person's livelihood security extends beyond simply work and income, drawing on a range of additional factors including affordable housing, food and energy security, internet access, affordable local childcare, public transport, and local networks of family, friends, and neighbours.
Lack of access to basic services such as public transport and affordable childcare also contributed to a widespread sense of insecurity among the 4,000 households surveyed in neighbourhoods including the Royal Docks in Newham, the Teviot Estate and Coventry Cross Estates in Tower Hamlets, Heath in Barking and Dagenham, and the areas around Olympic Park, the report says.
Lead author Dr Saffron Woodcraft (UCL Institute for Global Prosperity) said: "Our findings show that livelihood security is the foundation of prosperity and depends on more than income and employment. Livelihood insecurity is becoming entrenched in east London and people from all demographics and income brackets are struggling.
"There has been economic uplift as a result of physical regeneration in east London. But the communities that are most in need are not seeing the benefits.
"Our hope is that this research can help us better understand the links between livelihood insecurity, loneliness and anxiety, or the factors that are keeping people in part-time work, to help to lay the groundwork for any future policies or urban regeneration."
In addition, the study found that gender and ethnicity were significant factors, with female and minority ethnicities reporting lower incomes on average in nearly all the studied areas.
Overall, women reported lower levels of prosperity than men, people from non-white backgrounds report lower levels of prosperity than those from white backgrounds and older people tend to be less prosperous than younger people.
Men were likelier to report feeling more secure about income and work, and freedom from financial stress, while women are more likely to report feeling more secure about social and community-related aspects of prosperity.
The report also found that housing costs are the biggest economic challenge across income levels, with even higher earners reporting concerns.
Published by the IGP's Prosperity Co-Lab for the UK (PROCOL UK), the study used the newly-collected CPI data and a 'citizen scientist' approach to get a hyper-local look at the lived experiences of east London residents.
Around the Olympic Park, which stretches across four boroughs and has been the subject of significant infrastructure investment, different neighbourhoods faced different challenges.
Gascoyne Estate in Hackney featured some of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the study, as well as the lowest senses of community and life satisfaction, and worst adolescent transitions to work or study of all areas investigated.
Leyton in Waltham Forest showed the highest rates of food and energy insecurity and by far the highest rate of loneliness, with 67% of residents reporting they feel lonely most of the time, compared to Teviot Estate West in Tower Hamlets which reported the second highest level at 11%.
About 37% of Chobham Manor residents anticipate having to move out of their local area because of housing costs, whereas public service accessibility, childcare and digital access are big concerns among Tower Hamlets residents.
About the study:
Prosperity in East London 2021-2031 is a 10-year mixed-methods study conducted by the Institute for Global Prosperity (IGP) at University College London through its Prosperity Co-lab for the UK (PROCOL UK), and in conjunction with the London Prosperity Board.
The study tracks the overall prosperity of 4,000 households in 15 designated Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) across five east London Boroughs that have been the subject of significant physical, economic and social changes in recent years. It analyses the impact of various strategic regeneration initiatives in these areas that have sought to improve the standards of living through investments in housing, business spaces and transportation.
Over the decade the project is running, data will be regularly collected in three waves to map the changes and progress of the different areas. This first report comes from the initial round of data, collected between 2021 and 2022.
Data was collected through the Citizen Prosperity Index, a new way of measuring prosperity that was developed in conjunction with a team of citizen social scientists. The Index draws on the survey of more than 4,000 households and measures a range of five different indicators including perceived levels of prosperity, health, culture, opportunities and ability to influence decision-making. Additional qualitative data was collected by local residents trained by the UCL Citizen Science Academy to work as social scientists in their neighbourhoods to ensure the most authentic responses about what makes the most meaningful differences in people's lives.
The report was developed in collaboration with the London Prosperity Board.
