Leeds Observatory – deprivation map and profiles

Leeds Observatory has put out an interesting deprivation map. The map is quite interactive in its display options – users can highlight LSOAs from different deciles, and information about selected areas is displayed in a box on the right, showing its England IMD rank and allowing you to zoom in to its map location. This makes it easy to, for example, compare the distribution of LSOAs in the most and least deprived deciles:

As with many cities the higher levels of deprivation seem to be clustered around the city centre while less deprived LSOAs are larger (due to lower population density) and more surburban. A filter can also be used to map the deprivation levels of different custom geographies, such as ‘Leeds Reach Areas’ (which look to be based around children’s centres).

For example, here’s the breakdown for the area around City and Holbeck children’s centre:

The same level of customisation is possible for the Observatory’s area profiles over a wide range of open data. Deprivation Profiles are available at all levels – LSOA, ward, and the custom geographies mentioned above. For example, we can look at the ‘Leeds Locality Area’ of Gipton and see individual tables for Multiple Deprivation as well as for each IMD Domain, showing ranks for Gipton LSOAs. At the bottom of the profile we find some useful comparison tables and dataviz:

 

The customisability here and in-depth comparisons are great stuff – its not hard to see how useful the map and profiles could be for community organisations, policy makers (for example targeting resources, helping with bids) or just the general public wanting to know more about their areas.