By Adam McDonald

As Scotland moved out of the Post-War period and began to modernise, deprivation soared alongside this modernisation.

This is an indictment of Scotland itself; it seems that suburban life and deprivation go hand in hand in the modern day.

Deprived areas (a term used to describe somewhere lacking a few, some or most of the qualities essential to growing up well) are nothing new to Scotland.

The ‘Glasgow Effect’, as it is known, is a term used to describe Glasgow’s lower life expectancy when compared to other, similar cities. This effect also carries over into life, with around 2.5% of childbirths having congenital anomalies (324 anomalies per-10,000 births). This ‘effect’ is hypothesised to have come about due to (but most certainly not limited to): “adverse childhood experiences”, ill-equipped medical facilities, contaminated land/water, sectarianism, a lack of social mobility and the social alienation that deprived areas in Glasgow bring.

Glasgow, while bearing the most deprived areas per-city in Scotland, is not the only part of Scotland where poverty runs rife. In Lanarkshire (North and South), less than 10% are fully developed areas.

Areas such as Blantyre and Hamilton have fallen victim to gentrification, allowing the wealthy to move into the town centres and pushing residents further out of the town. ‘The Bent’, a small part of Laighstonehall, Hamilton, has moved from the bottom 50% to the bottom 10% in the space of less than fifteen years. Employment rates in the area (especially near Laighstonehall Road and Glebe Street) have plummeted to below 50%, too.

Areas like Wishaw, Motherwell and Carluke also have clear points of development and clearer points of poverty. Between 25% and 33% of all areas in Motherwell are either partially deprived or completely deprived, with over half of all working-age citizens in these areas being either financially deprived or lacking any employment at all.

Cumbernauld, perhaps acting as an outlier, has significantly reduced its poverty rates since 2012. Only one of the seventeen areas surveyed is below the 5% line, and only four areas fall under the 20% line (in comparison to 2012, where more than half of the town was in the bottom 20%). Unfortunately, this is the only area in North Lanarkshire where deprivation has reduced properly over time.

The rise of deprivation in modern-day Scotland has affected modern-day technologies. Over 5.5 billion people (just under 69% of the world’s entire population) can connect to the internet worldwide, and yet 15% of the Scottish population lacks foundational digital skills. While 91% of the population can access the internet, 8% of households need to take up social tariffs, just to afford an internet connection. This has an immediate adverse effect, as a lot of public bodies (public organisations run by public funding to provide services like hospitals, care homes and libraries) often have their services/applications online. This can affect those most vulnerable to poverty adversely, as they may not be able to get the help they so desperately need in a timely/safe manner, and it can build further distrust between the councils and civilians in deprived areas.

Development without account of human needs is one of the common themes of physical poverty, and tackling these developments in both the digital and physical sense is crucial in preventing further deprivation. The lack of preventing these money-fuelled developments, alongside myriad other factors, has caused trust in the Scottish Government to fall from 72% (2015) to just 47% (2023).

Scotland is a beautiful, vista-filled country, with stunning wildlife and acts as a colourful, melting pot of culture.

Scottish people are renowned the world over for their friendliness. It’s part of our national pride, after all.

Deprivation and poverty are continuing to rise at unprecedented rates, leading to social exclusion, alienation and quality of life decreasing significantly. Money is the driving factor in Scotland’s slow ascent downhill, and these money-hungry developments are continually threatening the further development of Scotland as a country and as a people.

Deprivation: Scotland’s disease that’s affecting everyone