Spatial segregation and population dynamics: evidence, data sources and research priorities
Nick Bailey¹, Helen Barnes², Mark Livingston¹ & David Mclennan²

¹Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow ²Social Disadvantage Research Centre, University of Oxford

Two of the challenges for researchers examining possible neighbourhood effects are to take account of individual residential mobility and of changes in neighbourhood context over time. At the first seminar, Galster noted that residential mobility was a factor affecting 'exposure' to particular neighbourhood contexts while Bergstrom linked both issues in a holistic framework to identify specific methodological challenges that arose as a result. These issues are also of great interest to policy makers involved in area-based interventions. Achieving a reduction in concentrations of deprivation and in overall levels of segregation are both long-standing (albeit minor) goals of public policy in the UK and many other countries, while residential mobility or turnover may be seen as a barrier to achieving that goal. In the US, by contrast, the same issues are viewed somewhat differently; individual mobility has often been the goal of policy as in the Moving-to-Opportunity programme. This paper reviews recent research evidence on residential mobility and neighbourhood change for the UK. It identifies data sources which could be used to understand these processes better, and provides some initial findings from some of these. It concludes with a discussion of research priorities.