Back to school. Geography lesson. Subject: UK towns and cities and the distribution of social classes. Question: Where do you find the wealthiest urban populations? Come on, come on. Yes, you. “In the west and south-west of towns, often on hills.” Bingo. Bonus question: Why? “Air pollution. The UK’s prevailing wind is southwesterly, blowing smog north and east. It also tends to sink to the bottom of valleys. Posh people usually move where the air is fresher.” Swot.
We’ve been moaning about air pollution for centuries. In the 1200s it was charcoal burning. In the 1840s it was factories; Friedrich Engels, in The Condition Of The Working Class In England, noted how the middle classes were moving to villas on higher, south-westerly ground. These days it’s particulates from traffic. This has turned our lesson a little topsy-turvy, belching as it does where traffic is greatest and with a weight that takes a lot of sou’westerlies to shift. Public Health England found Britain’s worst levels not in some benighted eastern spot, but in London’s Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster – south and westerly boroughs. West, though, is still best – Northern Ireland, Wales and south-west England, and, top of the list, the Outer Hebrides. If you really must live in a big city, pick Dundee, in the, er, north and east.
