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Cities have specialised in particular urban functions throughout history, with consequential implications for urban and regional patterns of economic and social change. This specialisation takes place within overall national city size distributions and is manifest in different but often similarly variegated residential structures. Here we develop a novel and consistent methodological approach for measuring macro-scale city size and micro-scale residential differentiation using individual digital census records for the period 1881–1901. The use of family names and neighbourhood classification of dominant economic and social roles makes it possible to relate the changing city size distribution in Great Britain to patterns of urban growth and residential differentiation within urban areas. Together, we provide an integrated and consistent methodology that links the classification of all major urban area growth in Great Britain to attendant intra-urban geodemographic changes in urban residential structures. We suggest ways in which this manifests social and economic change across the settlement system for both new and long-established residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combined decentralisation of many firms and services and the increasing concentration of traditional public transport services in the main corridors of urban centres have made it more difficult for people to access jobs, in particular when residing outside these prime accessibility areas. This is the first national study within the context of Great Britain to examine whether better public transport job accessibility, modelled at the micro level of individuals, improves employment probabilities for people living in Great Britain. While previous studies have typically concentrated on US metropolitan areas, our study uses British national employment micro datasets to assess which urban and rural areas and population groups would benefit from better public transport services. In an important departure from most standard accessibility methodologies, we computed a public transport job accessibility measure applied nationwide and combined this with individual-level employment probability models for Great Britain. The models were corrected for endogeneity by applying an instrumental variable approach. The study finds that better public transport job accessibility improves individual employment probabilities, in particular in metropolitan areas and smaller cities and towns with lower car ownership rates and in low-income neighbourhoods. It further shows that mainly lower educated groups and young people would benefit from better public transport job accessibility. The findings in this study are important for policymakers in that they imply that, in particular, job seekers who rely on public transport services may benefit from more targeted public policies to improve their accessibility to employment and thereby their social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study of the relation between urban density and social equity has been based mostly upon comparative analysis at the city level. It therefore fails to address variations in intra-urban experience and sheds no light on the process of urban densification. Incremental residential development is particularly poorly recorded and under-researched, yet cumulatively it makes a substantial contribution to the supply of dwellings. The article presents a detailed examination of this form of development in England between 2001 and 2011, and considers its impact on urban spatial justice. We find that the incidence of soft residential densification was very uneven. It had disproportionately large effects on neighbourhoods that were already densely developed and that were characterised by lower income households with access to relatively little residential space. It thus contributed to an increase in the level of inequality in the distribution of residential space, increasing socio-spatial injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]