Deprived neighbourhoods fulfill different functional roles and successful policy intervention and strategy development requires an understanding of these different roles.

This paper from Communities and Local Government sets out a framework for gaining a better understanding of those roles. The research examined migration data for people moving into and out of deprived areas. From this data four types of areas were identified.

Transit areas are deprived neighbourhoods in which most in-movers come from less deprived areas and most out-movers go to less deprived areas. Typically, this implies young or newly-established households coming from less deprived areas and starting out on the housing ladder. For them, living in a deprived neighbourhood may entail only a short period of residence before they move elsewhere to a less deprived area as their careers progress.

Escalator areas are similar to Transits in that most out-movers go to less deprived areas, but in contrast to Transit areas most in-movers come from areas that are equally or more deprived. In this respect, the neighbourhood becomes part of a continuous onward-and-upward progression through the housing and labour markets. The moving households may be older than for the Transit areas since they would not necessarily be at the start of their housing career.

Gentrifier areas are ones in which there is a degree of social improvement since most in-movers come from less deprived areas and most out-movers go to similarly or more deprived areas. However it may or may not entail the kind of conscious process of markedly richer households displacing markedly poorer households.

Isolate areas represent neighbourhoods in which households come from and move to areas that are equally or more deprived. Hence they can be seen as neighbourhoods that are associated with a degree of entrapment of poor households who are unable to break out of living in deprived areas.

Understanding the Role of Deprived Neighbourhoods is available from DCLG. http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1152906.pdf