The Classification of Local Authorities in the UK Inner Urban Areas Act 1978

In the Inner Urban Areas Act (1978), the British government has classified urban areas into three groups each of which will benefit from markedly different levels of financial support. By the use of the indicators said to form the basis of the classification, discriminant analysis is carried out to evaluate the validity of the groupings. Only the rate of population change is found to discriminate strongly between the groups, whereas most of the other variables contribute little to the discriminant function. Overall the groups are found to be not very distinct with strong indications that several areas are not appropriately classified. Doubts are therefore raised about the validity of the classification produced by the government.