Multiple Deprivation, the Inner City, and the Fracturing of the Welfare State: Glasgow, c. 1968–78

From 1968, the central government established a series of area-based initiatives that operated on the basis of ‘positive discrimination’ towards the social needs of local residents. Over the course of the next 10 years, this area-based positive discrimination became an increasingly important part of social policy in Britain. This article uses Glasgow as a case study to show, first, how both the local and the central government attempted to define the problem of ‘multiple deprivation’ in the 1970s. Second, it shows how social studies were used to locate multiply deprived communities within urban areas, thereby feeding into the identification of the ‘inner city’ as a policy problem. Finally, this article shows how evidence of the concentration of multiple deprivation and the adoption of area-based strategies contributed to the fracturing of the welfare state, eroding the universalist principles upon which post-war social policy had been based.