To the tune of Flash - SIMD, ahhhhhh ah, measure of concentrated deprivation! So #SIMD2020 , I'm just going by the Beeb's coverage here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51279966
Which is VERY good. So glad to see the nuanced media coverage continue after the horror of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20768002

the indices of multiple deprivation are relative, so even if every neighbourhood in Scotland had an equal share of people with individual deprivations, there'd still be enough variation to create the index (the gap between top and bottom on individual domains would just be small)

I'm focusing on the bar chart in that BBC article. Because it looks like there's some levelling around of deprivation going on. A lot of it is, as a resident of Ferguslie Park once told me, "knocking down bits of Glasgow that are worse than us". IIRC, in the first SIMD...

...something ludicrous like 2/3rds of the most deprived 15% of datazones were in Glasgow. That Glasgow is now second to Inverclyde in its share of the most deprived 20% of datazones is a BIG change. And most of this is probably a result of regeneration in Glasgow...

...vast tracts of very poor quality housing in Glasgow have been demolished and replaced by mixed-tenure communities. People can now stay in Glasgow if they want to be owner-occupiers as there's the housing supply. I'd be interested to know what's happened to numbers...

...of socially rented homes in Glasgow over that period. But more broadly, if you look at that graph, a lot has changed. Deprivation used to be all about Glasgow, Edinburgh, North and South Lanarkshire and Dundee. Now it's more widespread. I'd say this is a *good thing*...

...the big concentrations of deprivation in those areas are lessening. Some of this will be due to local regeneration and tenure-mixing; some of it will be due to local economic growth and increasing employment (especially in Edinburgh).

...But this means places like Inverness, Fife and Clacks now have datazones in the bottom ten. In places like that, I suspect its going to be much more difficult to shift them on the rankings over time. It also makes the whole "urban problem" of Scotland now quite different.

It's now about tackling concentrated deprivation in small, relatively isolated towns. The lessons from the big regeneration programmes of the 80s, 90s and 00s don't really apply there. Interesting times ahead.

And I think that's all I have to say.

yup. I really is the increased spatial range of deprivation that's most interesting. In 2006, Moray and East Lothian had no datazones in the bottom 15% of SIMD so they were given a bung of regen money to keep them quiet. They now have datazones in the bottom 20%.

FIN (honest)