Understanding London's Resident Metabolism
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis
Abstract
In biology, metabolism refers to the chemical transformations occurring in the cells of an organism which allow it to survive. The concept has been applied to cities before (see Kennedy et al., 2007 or Gandy, 2004), but this project will adopt a slightly narrower definition to consider the role of the population transformations associated with residential dynamics in the health of the city.
Individuals embody social, cultural and economic capital and where homophilic tendencies lead to clustering, this capital permeates the city leading to the distinct characteristics of neighbourhoods. In London, while these tendencies have led to areas like Stamford Hill, Brixton and Mayfair all conjuring quite different images, the city is not static. A constant but spatially and temporally varying residential churn means that the flows of people are continuously evolving the city with varying implications.
For some, inhabiting the city means jumping on a socio-economic escalator (Fielding, 1992, Champion et al., 2013), but the speed and direction of this escalator is not universal. Residential mobilities within the city will interact with the socio-economic escalator, and in turn these interactions will help to characterise neighbourhoods, however, our knowledge of this process is limited. An understanding of this is vital if we are to fully appreciate the likely long-term prospects of new large scale residential developments such as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Old Oak Common - c.35,000 homes.
Against a macroeconomic backdrop of economic uncertainty and a housing affordability crisis in the city, this project will seek to fully understand the structure and processes of residential mobility amongst different (socio-economic) population groups within the city, paying particular attention to the implications for new large-scale residential developments.
The core of this PhD will be in the analysis of key migration and residential mobility datasets to unpick the evolving population dynamics within the city and the implications this has for its social, demographic, economic and/or cultural wellbeing. It is expected that innovative computational and quantitative analysis methods will be developed to define, for example, micro-level community areas based on local residential mobilities.
Individuals embody social, cultural and economic capital and where homophilic tendencies lead to clustering, this capital permeates the city leading to the distinct characteristics of neighbourhoods. In London, while these tendencies have led to areas like Stamford Hill, Brixton and Mayfair all conjuring quite different images, the city is not static. A constant but spatially and temporally varying residential churn means that the flows of people are continuously evolving the city with varying implications.
For some, inhabiting the city means jumping on a socio-economic escalator (Fielding, 1992, Champion et al., 2013), but the speed and direction of this escalator is not universal. Residential mobilities within the city will interact with the socio-economic escalator, and in turn these interactions will help to characterise neighbourhoods, however, our knowledge of this process is limited. An understanding of this is vital if we are to fully appreciate the likely long-term prospects of new large scale residential developments such as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and Old Oak Common - c.35,000 homes.
Against a macroeconomic backdrop of economic uncertainty and a housing affordability crisis in the city, this project will seek to fully understand the structure and processes of residential mobility amongst different (socio-economic) population groups within the city, paying particular attention to the implications for new large-scale residential developments.
The core of this PhD will be in the analysis of key migration and residential mobility datasets to unpick the evolving population dynamics within the city and the implications this has for its social, demographic, economic and/or cultural wellbeing. It is expected that innovative computational and quantitative analysis methods will be developed to define, for example, micro-level community areas based on local residential mobilities.
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/N509577/1 | 01/10/2016 | 24/03/2022 | |||
| 1827316 | Studentship | EP/N509577/1 | 01/12/2016 | 31/03/2021 | Boyana Buyuklieva |
| Description | Migration, specifically residential mobility, is a time-relevant topic and an interesting example of an interdisciplinary field with a special niche for geographic information science. It is also an area where stakeholders, by definition, come from different backgrounds and conventions. The growth in the popularity of Open Source software and open code repositories mean that methods once obscured through discipline-specific technical jargon can now be easily accessed and are indeed necessary to gain a holistic picture of migration processes. There seems to be no agreed baseline or common starting point for understanding mobility processes. This raises the issue of reproducibility, specifically related to dearth access to migration data and ambiguous computational implementation. The lack of a grounded framework for approaching mobility phenomena is problematic, because without an academically grounded context, area specific case-studies risk being anecdotal. |
| Exploitation Route | The main utility for others is the conclusion that being clear as a researcher or demanding methodological clarity as public body is important because formulas on their own cannot help with data structure. The latter is important because not having a clear handle on data can lead to subtle mistakes and further complications as datasets become bigger. Being explicit, especially in the interdisciplinary academic setting is paramount. This is the case as 'blog - tutorials' can be ephemeral (subject to link-rot) and lack peer-review. Academia addresses these points through an established system of record keeping, however standards need to be raised in terms of literate programming, length and consistency. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Retail,Transport |
| Description | Research in progress has been shown to the GLA (Ben Corr, Demography Manager) and ONS (Clair Rayner, Output Content Design- 2021 Census Outputs & Dissemination) to inform their operations informally. |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Community & Economic Development: Applicable Urban Infomatics |
| Amount | £5,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | MacArthur Foundation |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | United States |
| Start | 05/2019 |
| End | 01/2020 |
| Description | EPSRC-Funded PGR Training Award |
| Amount | £6,500 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 156822 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 04/2019 |
| End | 08/2019 |
| Description | Data Partnership with Office for National Statistics |
| Organisation | Office for National Statistics |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Trained to become an ONS Safe Researcher and publish my results. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided data. |
| Impact | The aim of this research is to understand London's population dynamics and how this has evolved over time and in the context of England and Wales, with a focus on household and housing conditions. Outputs will be papers published based on the data provided. |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | London Borough of Waltham Forest - Govtech Catalyst Challenge |
| Organisation | Waltham Forest Council |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Address methods of, and data generated from, current monitoring processes that are deemed sufficient to tell the council essential information of activity within the planning system and housing market. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Data provision. |
| Impact | Internal consultancy report and feedback for the council. |
| Start Year | 2019 |
| Description | Conference Presentation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Title: Affordable Housing and Big Data: New Perspectives on Analysing Housing Markets and Data Purpose: 'consider how merging affordable housing with big data can provide dynamic solutions to current affordable housing problems' Impacts: I was asked for my slides. Encouraged a discussion about mobility when considering measurable outcomes of housing markets. Context: A former master student of mine (now PhD at the Bartlett School of Construction, Planning and Management) was the lead organiser. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/construction/events/2019/jun/bscpm-doctoral-conference-2019-affordabl... |
| Description | Invited to Greater London Authority Expert Mappers Panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The London Infrastructure Mapping Application is a web-tool developed by London City Hall that visualises expected future investment in development and infrastructure, as well as relevant context and capacity layers. The IMA team and data providers convened this Expert Mappers Panel to advise on the next phase of development, which will upgrade IMA Version 2.0 to include 'smart' functionalities (Version 3.0) so that the IMA can produce useful insights. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Making Metrics Meaningful: A Discussion of Implementation and Reproducibility Using Measures of Migration |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Two dozen academics attended my presentation at the paper session, which sparked questions and discussion afterwards. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | https://aag.secure-abstracts.com/AAG%20Annual%20Meeting%202018/abstracts-gallery/13339 |
| Description | National Media Coverage of Research Project |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Gave an interview, which then translated into a new article. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/21/build-commuter-villages-near-train-stations-green-belt-s... |
| Description | Organised a Conference Session at RGS-IBG 2020 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Activity: Early career, PopGRG and GIScRG co-sponsored session at the international annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG 2020) Purpose: Provide a supportive and encouraging space to showcase research in progress and connect with peers interested in similar methods and approaches Impact: Strengthened the academia link: the session was filled, including some submissions from previous master students of mine now in industry. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | http://conference.rgs.org/CallForPapers/View.aspx?heading=Y&session=191ef82c-0b3b-4680-b581-703d488b... |
| Description | Organising Paper Session at RGS-IBG Annual Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | 4 papers were shortlisted for a session sponsored by the Population Geography Research Group the RGS-IBG Annual Conference (London, August) to showcase PhD/early career work. In my role as co-organiser and session chair, I intend to spark discussion and encourage collaboration between the session presenters. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Paper Presentation at GISRUK 2018, Geo-Computation Session |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | about 20 researchers attended my presentation, which sparked questions and discussion afterwards |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://leicester.gisruk.org/programme/ |
| Description | Paper Presentation at RGS-IBG 2018, 'Housing Landscapes and the Life Course' Session |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | A dozen researchers attended my talk entitled 'Wrong, but Useful: Setting a baseline on the relationship between tenure, household composition and dwelling occupation', questions and discussion afterwards |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |