Comparing Geodemographics with IMD

Table taken from "Perceptions of crime and anti-social behaviour:Findings from the 2008/09 British Crime Survey"

In the last post but one I discussed the English Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). In this post I introduce the Geodemographic Classification created from the 2001 Census by various academics for the Office of National Statistics. It originally was classified at Output Area but I am using the larger unit classification of Lower Super Output Area that was published in 2008. Guidance can be found here and the data here.

National Statistics 2001 Area Classification of Lower Super Output Areas showing Supergroups, Groups and Subgroups in the London Borough of Camden

Comparing Area Classification with IMD ranks (the lower the rank the higher the deprivation)

The reason I have used the LSOA scale is that it allows comparison with the IMD. I have shown this above. I have devised a hybrid scatter graph to display the combination of ordinal data - IMD and nominal data - the geodemographic to aid in understanding the similarities and differences between the two datasets.

The table above gives an example of IMD and Area classifications being used for analysis purposes. This comes from a relevant and interesting recent publication that I will return to in later posts.

An introduction to Geodemographics and a little bit more

The word geodemographics is a real word that is not recognised by spell checkers so I think it requires some explanation. Demographics on the other hand sails through with no problem. Demographic data are of course details or characteristics of human population. The "geo" in front adds location to the demographic data to create the simple definition that geodemographics is the analysis of people by where they live. Commercial companies use it to sell their products. For instance, if you are selling lawn mowers that you can sit on and drive whilst mowing the lawn it is useful to know where the people who are likely to have large lawns live. Equally if you sell coffee you want to place your outlets where people want and can afford your coffee. A tip if you are thinking of opening up a a coffee shop (or any other type business) open it it next to a like business that is doing well, that's where your customers will be, not where there is no competition.

With the magic of a google map search you can find the locations of various chains of outlets. I have tried Starbucks, Nero Coffee, Lidl, Waitrose, Pound Shops, Loch Fynn, Carluccios, Pizza Express and even Polish Shops to discover the offices in London and the richer and poorer areas of London based on the cliental these companies are trying to appeal to. Now I need to find proxy identicators of variations crime and disorder.

Introduction

Perhaps it will be helpful if I briefly explain who I am and why I am writing this blog.

I am a retired police officer from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in London having done my 30 years. I joined on 20th November 1978, my mother's birthday and retired on 5th December 2008, father's birthday. So as of today I have been retired exactly a year. I was fortunate enough to successfully apply for a MPhil/PhD 3 year research project at the Department of Geography at University College London (UCL) funded by the Economic Social Research Council (ESRC) and my former employee, the MPS as part of a CASE award ( I have yet to discover what CASE stands for). The title of the award is "Real time geodemographics for reassurance policing and crime prevention."

I have spent my first year trying to work out what the title means and to reduce it down to a PhD thesis. Now that I have done alot of reading and learnt a few new skills, I have enough confidence to presume to think I have something different and hopefully original to write. I will obviously be also relying heavily on my police knowledge and experience.