Quality of life in Leicester
This case study will show us how inequalities exist in the city e.g. access to housing, shops/services and open space. I will refer to: -
- Residential segregation – people who have different incomes live separated and apart from each other.
- Social Class – this is a way of distinguishing groups of people using factors such as wealth, education, attitudes, language, and behaviour.
- Tenure – who owns the property, is the house owner occupied, privately rented, and council rented.
Leicester is located in the Midlands, below is a map of Leicester.
In this case study I have studied four different areas of Leicester in the east suburbs Evington, the east side inner city Wycliffe, the west side inner city Westcotes and the west side suburbs North Braunstone.
The houses in Evington were built in the 1950’s. They were built in the suburbs and were mostly built as detached houses. The houses are of a decent size and are very spacious. There is a front and back garden. As these houses are built in the suburbs there is more space and therefore things like parks and even a golf course exist in this area. The wealthier community populates Evington as they can afford these spacious houses an estimate of 75% of the residents living here owned their properties. The wealthier people can also afford to commute to work every day. 71% of the residents here owned at least 1 car that is more than half. The majority of the residents living in Evington are all over 15 therefore causing less crimes and theft. There is also the fact that 66% of the people living here are retired and the older people like to keep the area clean and looking pleasing therefore giving the area a pleasant welcoming look.
As we move closer to the inner city we come to Wycliffe. In the 1960’s/1970’s many flats “streets in the sky” were built as part of a redevelopment scheme. These flats were made to create more space and make the area look cleaner. These high storey flats caused many problems and many of the people living in them disliked them. The lifts were unreliable and the people on the top floor felt imprisoned in their own homes. 17% of the resident had no central heating. There was a lot of theft and crime in these areas. Many people complained about the noise and smells as everything went through the walls. There were also the problems of no private gardens and some of these flats provided no parking for the residents. There were no nice views or trees to look out onto, as there was a lot of littering. These areas soon became very run down and many people left. This then caused problems of no money coming into the local authorities so they then rented out many of the flats to the local university. The university used these flats as accommodation for many students. Some of the flats blocks were knocked down, as they were not bringing in enough money. There was also a huge number of unemployed people living in this are 33% were unemployed and 75% of the people did not own cars therefore depended on public transport. 53% of the residents could not afford their homes and therefore all lived off the local authorities.
