Geddes, I.; (2007) The Housing Forms and Urban Morphology of Poverty Areas in the London Borough of Islington. Masters thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This research compares the urban morphology and house forms of three areas in the London Borough of Islington. It assesses their level of poverty and compares them with Charles Booth’s survey of the London poor at the end of the 19th Century. The objective of the research is to identify and analyse the similarities and differences in the urban and housing characteristics of poverty areas between Booth’s and modern times, with the aim of understanding the spatial distribution of poverty in present day Islington. The analysis gives an insight into the underlying spatial elements and issues that characterise the distribution of poverty in these areas and how these issues are related to the different housing forms found within the areas. More specifically, it addresses the question of whether there is any meaningful relationship between the localised distribution of poverty and any specific spatial or housing element. The analysis is contextualised within the socio-economic framework of the study areas provided by Neighbourhood Statistics (www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk) through 2001 Census and other surveys’ data. The methodology focuses on devising a system to summarise and analyse poverty data at the street block level and highlights the need for such summaries in order to relate these social data to the urban environment. The analysis shows that a number of spatial, architectural, market, and policy factors interact to shape the distribution of poverty and identifies them in order to evaluate their relationship to people’s ability to create wealth. The research concludes that, although much of the spatial distribution of poverty is dictated by the intervention of the Welfare State as well as being driven by the private market, this is also related to: a) a particular spatial property of the built environment, known as choice1 in space syntax2 theory, and, b) specific characteristics of housing forms: the frontages of the built form and the space-use division of the public realm.

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