There was an article published by the BBC yesterday that, in the regional news output, looked at the relative state of well-being — or life satisfaction — reported by people in various parts of the east of England, where I live.
The chart was as follows:
Most of the chart shows oscillations most likely to be down to sampling over time, and there is very little that would suggest overall patterns or trends, except for one particular line, which is that for the city of Cambridge. As the chart shows, in this case, there has been a very marked decline in reported well-being over the last couple of years, with the people in that city now reporting very much lower satisfaction with their situations than those in the surrounding area.
I am, of course, aware of all the risks of survey data, and if this trend had a reason in one year alone, then I would ignore it. However, it did not happen like that: it happened in two years running, and the outcome is clearly aberrational.
This was, as a result, a matter discussed in the Murphy household to see if any answers could be found. The discussion was intergenerational, and a number of reasons why Cambridge might be behaving so far from the norm were fairly easy to identify.
Firstly, Cambridge has, for some time, been reported to be the city with the greatest inequality in the UK. For the tourist, or for the person visiting the university, the hospital and its associated pharmaceutical centre, and the Silicon Fen companies located on the north side of Cambridge, the impression is of a place enjoying considerable prosperity. This, however, is misleading. There are certain areas of the broader city where it is evident that significant financial stress and poverty prevail. My wife completed her GP training in Cambridge and is more than familiar with the area.
Secondly, perhaps more apparent than elsewhere is the fact that this inequality is plain to see. Cambridge is a tourist city as well as a centre of higher education, innovation, and big pharma. Those tourists, in themselves, based upon my observation, tend to be wealthy, and this has a significant impact upon the city centre and what is available there, which is very much orientated towards their needs and the needs of a student population that is also, probably, from a well-above-average wealth group, even if they are young people. Those who can't make use of those facilities will be incredibly aware of this.
Third, there is a very obvious consequence of this wealth and inequality, and that is reflected in house prices in Cambridge, which are utterly out of proportion to those elsewhere in the region. The house price gradient between where I live in Ely and Cambridge - a distance of little more than 12 miles or so - is enormous. For those actually living in Cambridge, and who need to do so, rents are at levels that match London prices, with wages not necessarily doing so. The consequence is considerable financial stress for those who are in private rental accommodation, as well as for those who are just on the housing ladder. I am quite sure that this is reflected in the data noted above.
Fourth, there is another dimension to this. Many young people in Cambridge will be living in the hope and expectation of securing employment, which has for a long time been the expectation in the area, with unemployment rates being incredibly low and well below the national average. However, those hopes are now being dashed. Young people in this area are now facing the reality of a job market that is biased against them, where their qualifications, whether from further education or university, count for little in a world where employers are using AI to stack the odds against anyone getting a job. Of course, dissatisfaction is very high as a consequence. You cannot dash a generation's hopes and do anything else, and amongst its many characteristics, Cambridge is a young city.
In summary, Cambridge may be leading where others will follow, and the journey is to despair.
Meanwhile, Labour thinks the big issue in the country is inflation. How wrong can you be?
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Before I even read the blog post, I guessed housing was a major factor. The strain placed on the city by its tech sector will be enormous, as workers move to the area and push out low-income locals. I didn’t factor in the tourism. Many Spaniards can attest to the strain on housing that tourism brings. Another example of the need for the government to rebuild its publicly owned housing stock. The cost is irrelevant in relation to the damage to the economy.
Cambridge is NOT alone.
The exact same problems exist in the San Francisco Bay Area and especially in the southern Bay Area of the Silicon Valley.
Thanks.
And, because what I said is so obviously true, and resonates with people who also know Cambridge who have commented on this site, I am really confused as to why some are in complete denial of what is going on or are seeking to claim that what I am seeing is a statistical outlier? What is it that they are trying to do? What is the gain from ptretending that this problem does not exist?
I lived in Peterborough for many years (someone has to!) and always looked on Cambridge as a positive place. Enjoyed many visits there.
This saddens me.
So did we, Graham, in the 70s and 80s. I did my teacher training in Peterborough, where we taught some of the first Vietnamese boat people that came to the UK.
Lots of our neighbours came from London – overspill, they were called – with lots of different nationalities.
The council houses built then were to Parker Morris standards, lots of space inside and out. We had one of the first district heating schemes in the country.
My husband was an architect for the DC but we had to leave when it closed down – often the case for architects unless they are wealthy enough to own their own companies.
When we were looking for a guest house in the 90s we considered Cambridge, but discovered that even then the price was £100,000 more than those in York.
My granddaughter who lived in Ely got a job in Cambridge between school and university. The only way she could afford to live in Cambridge was if she shared with her boyfriend.
I lived in one of those council houses in Peterborough for 20 years, on the Dogsthorpe Estate, although it wasn’t a council house when I lived in it.
It was the best house I ever lived in!
My wife was a Community Nurse in Cambridge in the 1980s and there were shocking levels of poverty in the city then, I can only imagine how much worse the inequality is now.
It’s worse
RM is right it’s worse, and hidden away in pockets is South Cambs very obvious in Kings Hedges, Arbury, and Abbey. Not to mention county lines problems.
Some people have virtually no idea that there are very different lives being lived in one small city.
Agreed, and you mention many of the right locations. I might add Fen Ditton.
And county line is undoubtedly an issue.
As a resident (strictly speaking South Cambridgeshire) this doesn’t ring entirely true for me.
The article was published yesterday but is reporting data from two years ago. This was soon after the pandemic and during that time Cambridge was hit hard by a recruitment freeze, which hit the young particularly badly. Perhaps this was an issue.
It is also just one data point. I think the most likely explanation is, at least partially, a statistical anomaly. The media, in this case the BBC, may be doing their usual thing of trying to make a story out of a statistical anomaly.
Yes, Cambridge does have a lot of tourists. But these tend to be mainly in the summer. IMO they add a vibrancy to the city centre.
The area is incredibly cosmopolitan. In a local primary school a teacher asked their class how many pupils had both parents born in England. Only a couple of children raised their hands. This mix makes both the kids, and the area as a whole, very accepting. But some people may not like it, which is something to consider.
I find the area a good place to live and the young people I know who live here, my son’s and their friends, do too. That said, house prices are stupidly high, which is a problem.
Overall it’s a mixed bag. I don’t see a descent into despair, far from it, though perhaps I simply don’t see it. I am certainly reserving judgement until I see more evidence that one, potentially, anomalous result from a survey.
We see it, and comment on it, often.
Soo, too, do my sons and friends.
You could have made all those observations about Cambridge City in 2019.
What you need to consider is what has changed to make the Cambridge score in one of the three categories measured fall (Cambridge wasn’t bottom in the other two measures noted which were Anxiety and Wellbeing). Loneliness was also measured but no comparable graph included in the draft report.
I rather fear that you’ve fallen for an outlier which came from sampling many metrics using small samples.
Maybe.
But as I said, it happened twice, so that seems unlikely.
I don’t see it happening twice in the data.
I assume you mean 2021 was less than 2019. But that looks well within statistical variation. 2023, two years ago, is an outlier, whether it is statistically significant is hard to determine. I looked at the source report. I couldn’t see how many people were involved in the survey, how they were selected, how was it adjusted for demographics, if at all, etc. In short it is very difficult to determine whether that figure actually means anything. It looks pretty, but does it have statistical significance?
Furthermore that is one figure of very many in the report. Some are good for Cambridge, some less so. A complex mixed picture.
You say you and your friends see it and comment on it often. But I live here, as do my sons and friends. I don’t see it, and it is not a topic of discussion.
If I sound annoyed that’s because I am. Please don’t trash my home town as descending into despair, and draw far reaching pejorative generalisations, without much evidence, based on one survey, from two years ago, which may or may not be significant.
We are speculating blind without further data, but I wonder whether it could also be that a higher proportion of the Cambridge population is well informed about global events. Everything from climate chaos to Trump to Gaza and Ukraine is enough to dampen anyone’s satisfaction with the world!
Maybe….priorities in rural Cambridgeshire are very different.
They might be informed but they might also be feeling the very real effects of low pay, high rents and living costs because they are living in the most unequal city in the most unequal country compared to equivalent areas of Europe.
I lived in the university city of York in the early to mid 1990s (maybe from 1989 actually). Like most if not all university cities these days there seems to be two sides to such cities: one very middle class with expensive property and shops to boot; the other very working class – indeed some of the orbital towns around York were a mixture of gentrified and more working class too.
A recent visit there showed us that York looked just as ran down as most other places these days in the UK. I remember a much better looked after and affordable place, one of the first cities to embrace recycling, and park and ride schemes (York always had a huge traffic problem). I remember the Terry’s chocolate factory and smelling dark chocolate early in the morning going to work (Terry’s closed down and moved abroad when taken over). I wonder what all those people do for jobs now, with Rowntrees also rationalised too. There was a railway works there as well, acquired by a U.S. company at one time, but it is a shadow of its former self. Certain areas of the city are Victorian – rows of high density terraced housing. What people do for work these days I do not know.
So Cambridge sounds familiar to me. Housing market driven economies are a nightmare. Markets serve those who are already in them best; those wanting to enter are at a huge disadvantage.
We bought a guest house in York in 1999, and ran it for ten years, near the Rowntree, now Nestle, factory. We regularly had guests who worked at the factory to stay during the week, then go back home at the weekends. Some of them were chocolatiers, very handy. We actually persuaded them to try organic chocolate and vegan chocolate, but I’ve noticed recently that they have stopped making vegan chocolate.
My granddaughter and her boyfriend live in York, having got degrees at the university. They need to combine their wages to be able to afford rent on a 2 bed terrace on the south bank. She works in a nursery and he works at the Murton Park centre, the history centre.
n fact, thinking about what people do for work there, everyone I know there works at one or other of the universities, teaching, in catering or something to do with tourism. The railway museum is still expanding. Rowntrees is still there, but only half of it, as the other half has been turned into flats and houses.
Anyway, with regard to your comment on university cities, I was wondering that, too. The centre of Durham has been taken over by the university since I’ve lived here for 15 years.
Given the expansion of our universities, their growth is now a threat to the well-being of many of our cities, because it is not at all clear that those cities are now sustainable without them. Exeter is the most exposed place as a consequence according to data that I saw recently.
York has many of the problems of Cambridge except that housing there is not (yet) quite as ridiculously expensive as in Cambridge. Some of my younger relatives live there and are fortunate to have well-paid jobs so can afford a decent sized detached house. My partner and I keep thinking about moving to the area to be closer to them now we are retired but there’s we could afford even within 15 miles
Ely is getting out of reach for many now
The misery is widespread.
Today’s UK misery report.
Britain’s hunger as 14 million going without food because they can’t afford it
More than 1 in 4 children are living in homes where people are forced to skip or cut back on meals because of financial concerns… should ‘shame the government to its core’
Experts blamed the crisis on low incomes, insufficient benefit rates, rising rents and soaring energy bills…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/food-hunger-crisis-britain-trussell-report-poverty-b2822926.html
The inflation that is a problem is Greedflation in things we need just to live. The UK is rife with it, and Labour is not addressing that problem at all. Getting CPI down has never stopped the greedflation.
It is getting grim….
And people do not want to know
If you visit
https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/datasets/headlineestimatesofpersonalwellbeing/april2022tomarch2023localauthority/annualpersonalwellbeingestimatesapril2022tomarch2023.xlsx
Table 1
You will see that the number for Cambridge for Life Satisfaction is highlighted in dark blue – it is the only data point highlighted this way and is the lowest quality data point in the entire data set.
The numbers in the survey nationally were 32640 men and 40210 women (may be more women pick up the phone, I don’t know), so around 112 people per constituency, but there is bound to be a lot of variation around that.
This, too: –
Rise in energy prices leaves 1m UK households behind on bills
About 1m households are behind on their gas and electricity bills with no repayment plan amid a rise in energy debt over the past decade, according to a new report.
The Resolution Foundation thinktank found that the number of customers in energy debt has increased and the size of their debts has risen. It found that between 2012 and 2024 the average gas and electricity debts more than doubled to £1,400 and £1,600, respectively, from an average of approximately £500.
The number of customers behind on their electricity bills, with no repayment plan, has more than tripled from 300,000 in 2012 to more than 1m at the end of last year, the report found. The number of customers who are behind on their gas bills also tripled from 300,000 to 900,000 over the same period.
From Guardian Business 10/09/25
Deeply worrying.
£3 billion of debt owing, myaybe. And no way to pay it. But massive stress as a result.
Yes, spot on, as an insider would add following reflections.
It’s a Tale of two Cities. A neoliberal laboratory, shitscape.
Cambridge is like living in a wealthy part of London, Teslas and trailers.
It’s always been a power base for wealth and power (see Porterhouse Blue), but now it has Technocratic power with stratospheric wealth.
Cambridge University has a lot of wealth and power, but it’s a struggle to see how it has used this to make really help Cambridge become a beacon of well-being.
The reports of young people servicing the university colleges can be shocking, treated like serfs, polishing the college’s solid silver service for hours without being allowed to sit down.
Because of the presence of bio and tech conglomerates it attracts hyper mobile elites, they come and they go, it’s a transient place with extreme mobile wealth, not conducive for a long term commitment to place and people.
Cambridge’s skyline is never without building cranes, so known as Cranebridge, but the majority of buildings are for students, high end rentals and an elite buyers market. The professional class : teachers, nurses and even doctors struggle to afford to live in Cambridge.
People who have children in Cambridge can live to see their completely pushed out, which atomises families – not conducive to wellbeing.
The buses and transport system across the city and county like elsewhere is terrible. Most of the new transport system being built is there to service the science parks and university.
Cambridge once had a Shire Hall, now sold off to become a boutique hotel for the elite tourists, and Shire Hall is now in Alconbury, arse end of no where with no public transport.
Cambridge has a number of private schools that services the elites, up to a third of the City’s traffic is the urban tractor sized vehicles and Tesla’s ferrying kids to the numerous private schools. It’s gridlock,and cycling is not safe especially during private school term time. It’s not our local schools as their terms are longer and most children walk or cycle to school, when private schools close the roads are much clearer.
Pay and conditions outside of the elite job market is terrible. Poor pay with London house and rents, isn’t a recipe for well being.
AbTale of Two Cities now on bio-tech steroids.
A great deal to agree with. Thank you.
I am completely befuddled by those who don’t see what’s going on, describing 2 data points as outliers.
My testimony comes from having lived and worked in Cambridge City for nearly 30 years, worked across county, as well as evidence like the county’s recent poverty report.
Have they no realisation the mess County is in because of the rising levels of need, diminishing resources and blood sucking privatisation. This mess translates into distress for people.
There are many good things about Cambridge, and along with Oxford, York, and Edinburgh these cities could all be amazing places to live, but their destiny has become to be cash machines and playgrounds for the hyper mobile elites.
I entirely agree.
I totally agree….two cities indeed, and right on my doorstep. I live just off Mill Rd, a cosmopolitan and multi ethnic street. I rarely leave my house without being asked for money, and see many broken people in the street, yet walking down a wealthy side street recently, opposite where I live, I counted 3 Porshes and a Ferrari in a short distance, not to mention the Teslas and SUVs. The contrast is striking and sickening.
I’ve lived here since 1992 when it was less wealthy and still just affordable, and there were many odd corners for workshops and independent enterprises – now all built on with upmarket accommodation or office space for Tech giants. Much of the city property is owned by the university and I suspect that it is the high rents they extort that has put paid to most independent buinesses in the city centre – so different to places like Liverpool and Bristol.
Many people I know working in the arts and on low or precarious incomes have moved away to more affordable places.
I would add that in this area there are many students who are at Anglia Ruskin Uni and don’t have the financial advantages of many Cambridge Uni students.
There are good things. I’m lucky, I can still afford to live here despite a low income, as I no longer have a mortgage to pay. I enjoy the diversity. Living near the centre is easy as so many facilities and interesting things to do are in walking or cycling distance.
However the economic divide is stark and upsetting and seemingly not apparent to some.
Much to agree with.
Mill Road is a perfect example of upward redevelopment and has lost almost all its character as a result
Danny Dorling in his book Shattered Nation covers the plight of his home city of Oxford which will not be too dissimilar to Cambridge. In the early chapters he talks of much increased levels of poverty and people sleeping on the streets.
What is true for Cambridge is I suspect true for most major cities. London as much as anywhere with its high levels of poverty and inequality, despite the superficial gloss.
It reflects the economic model we have, driven by Treasury and the City. Money pours into selected places in ways that mean the rewards go to a few whilst others are driven away by surging housing and living costs. Paul Collier the development economist has written about Left Behind places, learning from across the world. A key part is spreading power and resources out beyond the obvious wealthy centres. That leads to a healthier economy, society – and politics.
Currently we are at the other extreme.
The issue with Cambridge(shire) lies in its fragmented and tangled layers of governance, including parish, town, city, district, and county councils, as well as the GCP, CPCA, Cambridge University, 31 colleges (some extremely wealthy), Cambridge Growth Co, Westminster, and all its departments and agencies. Each demands something different, leading to constant disagreements and inefficiency.
The political decision-makers, who mostly live and work in the city, seem out of touch with the fact that Cambridgeshire is largely rural, with only 1/7th of the population living in Cambridge. This results in absurd ideas like “Plan A,” a £1,250-£12,500 per year drivers’ tax aimed at keeping vehicles out of the city, while villages like mine, 15 miles away, have just one bus per week. These villages, home to many Cambridge workers and their families, rely entirely on their own transport, yet the Cambridge elite appear determined to tax them out of the city centre. Tax them out of the city centre if you want, but who will then drive the teenagers into town in the evenings to wait tables at formals, spend at the shops, or keep the city running?
Addressing the rural-urban divide, while not as visible as wealth disparities, certainly needs to be a key part of any solution that goes beyond just focusing on the city centre.
I hear bleating like this quite often.
It is as if you had never heard of park and ride.
My household all work in Cambridge, but can’t afford to live in it. There are, of course, thousands of people in well paid Cambridge jobs who are in a similar position. What this does is distort the inequalities somewhat, in much the same way you find in many London Boroughs. The only people that can afford to live there are the very wealthy, long- time residents, young people prepared to live in HMOs or people who live in social housing. In any event, there are loads of middle income workers who live outside the city limits who don’t ‘count’ when measuring inequalities.
Purely anecdotally, in terms of wellbeing, the poorest citizens ( who are the bulk of the customers in the supermarket I work in) in Cambridge seem relatively cheerful, probably more so than in the other towns I know. The people who seem to match the findings of this survey are younger people often very over qualified for the jobs they are doing and/ or who are questioning why they are paying very high rents when they are doing jobs they could readily do elsewhere. There is another category which I hadn’t really encountered before I moved to the area. There’s a group of people who, putting it bluntly, don’t have enough to worry about and get worked up about things that wouldn’t register elsewhere.
Noted
I remember seeing a programme about food banks in Cambridge.
The food banks were in the centre but the people who needed to use them had to live on the outskirts. So a mother had to push her child in a pushchair to the foodbank, then put the food in the pushchair and walk back home with a two year-old. She couldn’t afford the bus fares either way.
I hope that’s sorted out now, one way or another.
This one, I cannot tell you. Partly because I live 12+ mile away
How delightful to discover that so many of your readers live in Cambridge!. I do too and for what its worth I am poor but happy! I have paid off my mortgage though and I will say that very few of my fellow posties can afford to live in the City unless even in their 40s they are prepared to house share.
An event….now there’s an idea….
One of my relatives worked in Cambridge for a number of years and lived in King’s Lynn so they could have a reasonably large house they could afford.
Many do that. There is strong commuter traffic from the north into Cambrudge by train.