Last week I blogged on England's most deprived neighbourhoods – here I look at what the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) says about the least deprived urban neighbourhoods.

Although, many of England's most deprived neighbourhoods are in cities, just over one third of areas in the least deprived 1 percent of England's neighbourhoods can be found in cities. Not all well off people prefer to live in affluent rural localities.

Looking more closely, London and nearby cities in the south like Reading and Aldershot contain clusters of these relatively prosperous neighbourhoods. In fact, 11 percent of Aldershot's population (or 18,800 people) and 9 percent of Reading's population (or 37,700 people) were living in the least deprived 1 percent of England's neighbourhoods. However, although 44,400 people in London were living in neighbourhoods in the least deprived 1 percent of England's' neighbourhoods – more than any other city – this amounts to less than 1 percent of the city's population.

 
Our City Links work has shown that smaller cities, like Reading, can build mutually supportive relationships with larger cities, like London, which helps them prosper. London and Reading, for instance, both have concentrations of firms involved in financial intermediation and business services. These firms in Reading perform complementary activities which support their often more specialised counterparts in London. In addition, firms in Reading enjoy lower rents but still benefit from the skilled labour and access to national and international markets London offers.

But, the IMD doesn't reveal a simple north-south divide and there are more prosperous neighbourhoods in the north as well as the south. In fact, 5 percent of York's population (or 9,400 people) and 1 percent of Manchester and Sheffield's population's (equivalent to 9,100 and 5,100 people respectively) were living in the least deprived 1 percent of England's neighbourhoods.