Introduction

We start this, and each chapter that follows, with a map showing the proportions of people of the relevant age group living in each neighbourhood. This distribution should be borne in mind when studying the maps in the rest of this chapter.

The map on the right is clearly only of the locations of infants that applied when the snapshot used throughout most of this atlas was taken in 2001. Note that at the extreme some neighbourhoods have five times as many infants as others. The patterns of age distribution tend to change slowly over time, but those of the very young change more quickly, influenced by trends in the popularity of having children in particular places at particular times for particular groups of people. However, this map most reflects where women of the ages most common to give birth live in their highest numbers.

Most people are not average and the same is true of infants. To appreciate this and its implications, babies need to be put into a few categories, homes have to be valued, mothers’ ages must be ascertained, and a scattering of comparisons has to be made. Just from what has been mapped in the introduction to this atlas we can tell that it is, for instance, true that the most common Council Tax Band in neighbourhoods containing 57% of dwellings is Band A or B, and that the second most common modal age band for giving birth in is 30-34. However, in those neighbourhoods where the majority of mothers are in their early thirties, the most common Council Tax Band for properties is Band D (not A or B). What is perhaps most telling is that there are no neighbourhoods in which most mothers give birth at age 20-24 where the modal Council Tax Band of property is Band D, E, F or G. Furthermore, by Band A and mother’s age, almost all infants living in areas where the most or the second most new mothers are in their early twenties are born in Wales, Scotland or the north of England.