Abstract
One of the key roles of the European Commission (EC) is to encourage a redistribution of wealth throughout the Community to reduce inequalities, both between and within countries. One mechanism for achieving this is the release of Structural Funds to those places that have particularly serious social and economic problems. This chapter reports on the attempt by Leeds City Council to secure Objective 2 status funding from the Commission, as part of a wider bid submitted by the Yorkshire and Humberside region. To be successful, Leeds needed to prove that the socioeconomic situation in its inner city was at least as bad as that in other cities in England. However, to achieve this required some computationally advanced methods beyond the scope of the Council's researchers. In collaboration, a methodology was devised which used some in-house software, embedded within a geographical information system (GIS), to show that Leeds did indeed have a strong case for support from the EC. Here we describe the methods used and the results for Leeds compared with the other cities in England. The chapter ends by commenting briefly on the positionality of researchers who undertake consultancy work of this type and suggests that we rarely spend enough time considering the interesting ethical dilemmas that work of this nature raises.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Applied GIS and Spatial Analysis |
Editors | John Stillwell, Graham Clarke |
Place of Publication | Chichester |
Publisher | Blackwell Publishing |
Chapter | 7 |
Pages | 111-136 |
Number of pages | 26 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780470871331 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780470844090 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 26 Sept 2003 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- 'bridging wards'
- Applied Problem and Client Needs
- Arc Macro Language (AML)
- European Commission (EC) role
- LAD-level analysis
- LAD-level measures
- Leeds City Council
- NUTS level III
- Objective 2 status