Historic population trends

Another day, another statistical release, this time providing some longitudinal data over two centuries on London's population.

This first chart shows how London's population has grown and developed since 1801, growing from just shy of 1 million to 8 million. What is of particular interest though, is how this growth has not been in central London, but in the 'rest of inner london' during the 19th Century, with the greatest population growth (or shift) in the 20th century being in outer London

Indeed, at the beginning of the period, about 85% of 'Londoners' (though those not living in central London might not have considered themselves as such) lived in inner London, with 40 % of the population living in Central London, yet today less than 10 per cent of the population live in central London, with a broadly similar number of residents as in 1801.

If we look at the borough level, we can see that LBTH (light orange), Westminster (light green) and Southwark (light purple) had the largest populations in 1801 and continued to grow until the 1870s (Westminster) or the 1900s (LBTH, Southwark). Particularly striking was the flatlining in population in The City,  until the 1850s and then a period of continual shrinking of population, which has remained consistently low since the 1950s.

What I find quite interesting is the clustering of populations of individual boroughs in the post-war period, perhaps as a result of post war building projects, or perhaps simply expansion and spreading of populations as population densities decreased with improved living conditions.

In Tower Hamlets, populations peaked in 1901 and declined until 1981. I had assumed depopulation in Tower Hamlets was due to the closure of the docks post-war, when in fact, the majority of the depopulation occurred in the first half of the 20th century. By 2011, the population in LBTH had recovered somewhat, but was only as great as in 1951.

Indexing the data, so that for all boroughs 1801=100, we can see the significant divergence in population change. Brent (green-blue) has seen massive population growth, whilst for a number of boroughs, growth has come in the post war period.

  

Plotting the same data using a logarithmic vertical axis we can see some of the variation in population growth slightly better, with The City showing its population decline over the period.

When it comes to looking at the rate of growth in number of dwellings built since 1961, the average growth has been about 40%, except in The City (Dark Blue), wher there has been a quadrupling of dwelllings, suggesting that at least for a handful of people, that living in The City has been desirable, whilst all other boroughs have increased their housing stock at a broadly similar rate. [The chart below shows the number of properties, indexed to 1961]

Return to Nappy Valley: Tower Hamlets, a tale of two boroughs

I have returned to my investigations into the 'Nappy Valley' phenomenon, which as discussed in previous posts is the perceived disappearance of children (and their parents) from Wapping as they approach school age.

I previously found that Wapping's population distribution appeared to support this perception, but I have been curious what the cause of this is. I will move on at some point to look at school performance but I need to do some background reading to get a better grip on the education system.

What I have got my hands on is a data set showing the population distribution for different ethnic groups across Tower Hamlets as a whole dating back to 2001 and forward projected to 2031. There are a number of different ethnic/racial groups but I have focused here only on 'White' and 'Bangladeshi' as together they account for around 85% of the population in Tower Hamlets and the remainder of the population is divided into a number of other groups. 'White' here includes all 'white' groups and does not refer to an ethnic, but a racial group.

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Population growth - to infinity and beyond?

 Projections of population growth have recently been released for London boroughs with projections extending to 2041. Clearly, these are just projections, but I assume those responsible know what they're doing.

If we focus on LBTH's population, you can see that between 2001 and 2041, it is expected to double from 202,000 to 400,000, and half of this increase will have occured by 2017.

The population estimate for Tower Hamlets in 2013 is 270,000, which shows a quite substantial increase in 12 years.

Using this data we can calculate a compound growth rate, which for Tower Hamlets is 0.72% per year. However, if we look at the year-on-year increases in population, which I've plotted below, we can see that the largest proportionate increases are expected to have already occured between 20004 and 2011, with an gradual stepped decrease in growth rates indicating that the growth rate is expected to slow.

 However, the actual number of new residents will still be reasonably significant and will increased by between 7,000 and 8,000 each year until 2021, before dropping to 5,000 new residents per year until 2026 and then 3,000 per year until 2041. All of these new residents will clearly drive a need for improvements in transport, health and education infrastucture.

But, is Tower Hamlets different to the rest of London? The simple answer is yes. I've indexed the forecast populations of LBTH, Inner London and Outer London in the chart below to show the relative level of population growth. Whilst LBTH's population is expected to double (100 to 200 on the chart below), Inner London's population will only increase by 46 per cent and outer London by 32 per cent, so whilst all of London will be getting even more crowded, we may feel more of a squeeze in Tower Hamlets than elsewhere.

To contexualise this, in 2001, the population density was such that if everyone stood outside, and spread themselves out equally into a grid, there would be one person every ten metres. In 2041, this will have reduced to one person every 7 metres (and as a result each square actually halves in area from 106 square metres per person to 54 square metres a person).

Wapping AKA Nappy Valley

Where did all the children go?

The 2011 census data has been coming out in drips and drabs and I thought I would continue my exploration of demographics of the East End with a look at population and age. What I found was a slightly odd lack of school age children.

The census data I'm using (from the GLA) is reported at a ward level and is broken down into bands of five years and if plotted we get the chart below. For reference the data here described as Wapping relates to the ward of St Katharine's and Wapping. What is interesting is that 6% of the Wapping population is age 0-4, but that this drops to 3-4% for the ages of 5-19 before increasing suddenly to 8% for those age 20-24. This is an interesting observation as it goes directly to the need for schools in the area.

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