
Why Great Britain Residents Live Where They Do - ingve
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/11/why-people-live-where-they-do/414873/?utm_source=SFTwitter
======
SpeakMouthWords
A lesson in how to lie with graphs in this article. The percentage supposedly
represented by the boxes is indicated using the width of the box, but the
human eye instinctively uses the area. That's how you can make 30% look 4
times larger than 15%, through the cunning manipulation of square laws.

~~~
elthran
Yeah - whenever I see things like this, I make the assumption that they are
deliberately trying to deceive - there's no way you can accidentally design a
graph like that

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leoedin
The graphs here were completely useless to me, so I made my own.

[http://imgur.com/4Qk0zHB](http://imgur.com/4Qk0zHB) (an area chart)

[http://imgur.com/4Qk0zHB](http://imgur.com/4Qk0zHB) (normalised so the Y axis
is always 100. A bit of a kludge as the data didn't add up to 100 (suggesting
the survey respondents could answer more than one reason), but it gives a bit
of a picture of the data)

Data here:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gMUU38OPlt4hMbUUdDCe...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gMUU38OPlt4hMbUUdDCeAQew0uORM6-eM1SI6QTLxSM/edit?usp=sharing)

~~~
stdbrouw
Stacked graphs are really hard to parse. You have all of these lines going up
and down even when no upward or downward trend is present. It would probably
be better to just create 10 small barcharts (one for each reason) and then put
those underneath each other.

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pjc50
Not very much surprising in here, including the overwhelming preponderance of
London. London is popular not only because of job availability but because it
has much better public transport than almost every other UK city. This is
because it gets a disproportionate share of public money for it.

[http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2013/12/london-is-
different...](http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2013/12/london-is-different-
the-government-will-spend-money-there/)

[http://www.transportnorth.org.uk/london-versus-the-
regions/r...](http://www.transportnorth.org.uk/london-versus-the-
regions/report-how-uk-public-transport-subsidies-entrench-inequality/)

~~~
lmm
London has the density to make public transport schemes effective. The same
objective BCR criteria are used everywhere - it's just that the benefits of
building e.g. a train line between two villages of 100 people are never going
to add up.

~~~
pjc50
Hmm. [citation needed] on the cost/benefit being applied evenly in practice, I
think. As the sibling comment says, it's something of a self-fulfilling
prophecy, the limit case of which would be an arcology of extremely dense,
extremely expensive housing surrounded by cardboard slums.

And I'm not talking about "two villages of 100 people", I'm talking about such
remote, unknown locations as Manchester and Birmingham
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxZ1xn2ml10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxZ1xn2ml10)
may help explain Birmingham to Americans)

A very big factor is that London gets to have a proper state-owned local-
government-controlled integrated public transport service, TfL. Most other
places have to put up with private local monopoly bus services run by
Stagecoach.

~~~
lmm
> the limit case of which would be an arcology of extremely dense, extremely
> expensive housing surrounded by cardboard slums.

If having people live close to each other is economically beneficial - and it
seems to be - then social policy should encourage that. It's much easier to
move the people to the jobs than the other way around (see e.g. the report
discussed in
[http://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2008/aug/13/timetoaband...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2008/aug/13/timetoabandonnortherncitie)
). Even in the "crazy" limit, if we ended up abandoning the rest of the
country and moving everyone to London because we were more productive when we
were all closer together... well, why not?

(cardboard slums are unlikely; houses outside London are cheap and large
precisely because they're less well connected. More likely outside the
arcology would be retirement mansions or the like)

> A very big factor is that London gets to have a proper state-owned local-
> government-controlled integrated public transport service, TfL. Most other
> places have to put up with private local monopoly bus services run by
> Stagecoach.

Manchester has a very similar body, and the other PTEs are also fairly
similar. Several cities had referenda on establishing elected mayors with
similar authority to that of London. A lot of TfL's advantages are simply a
reflection of London's willingness to spend money funding them (e.g. Crossrail
is partly funded by an extra business levy).

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osullivj
I'm a white middle class professional who grew up in the suburbs, launched
career in urban environments, lived in London for 12 years, then fled to the
country. I now live in a totally rural location. Moving out of London to live
in the country is a common middle class trajectory in the UK, but this article
completely fails to capture that.

~~~
mcguire
The charts place the move-to-the-country stage of life at age 55+.

~~~
osullivj
I made the jump at 44, after three burglaries and one knifepoint mugging in
the same year. Ahead of the game for once!

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Agustus
Stories like these are great to look for what the author is omitting and what
propaganda is being pushed.

    
    
      "Residents in suburbs, who tend to be over 30 with children, said they live 
      there because of the cost, size and type of their housing, to be close to 
      good schools,and because of the safety and security of the neighbourhood."
    

The city infrastructure, the very things it is supposed to do, is inadequate
for its citizens needs: it cannot provide good schools, safety, or security.

I would like to note that this article is not the usual puff piece from
Citylab and this documents with further evidence a common theme that we all
know:

a. young: live the hipster lifestyle in the city

b. mid-age: live the family lifestyle in the suburbs

c. old-age: live the retirement lifestyle in the country.

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known
You can say British instead of Great Britain Residents;

~~~
calpaterson
Not everyone who lives in the UK is a British National

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bechampion
but aren't they residents anyways?(not tourists for course) as in British
resident someone that resides/lives in GB?

~~~
pjc50
Some of the most expensive housing in London is owned by people who aren't
British, aren't resident, and don't even live in the houses.

[http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/31/inside-
london...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/31/inside-london-
billionaires-row-derelict-mansions-hampstead)

