The cream at the top: spatial inequalities in England’s listed urban heritage and the implications for urban regeneration

Persistent inequalities in economic and social assets shape local capacities for positive economic change. Built structures are key, running from infrastructure, commercial and cultural buildings, through to housing. Here, we argue that historic buildings have important local amenity, cultural and economic performance influences, whose existences should be better utilised in spatial policy initiatives. To illustrate, we identify the varying geographies of listed residential buildings and churches across urban England, two of the most prized heritage assets amongst the country’s large stock of historic buildings. Economically more successful southern regions exhibit much greater concentrations of listed homes. Moreover, in all regions they tend to cluster into the higher-value, historically rich and denser neighbourhoods prized by the better-off. Whole regions and marginalised localities within them face disadvantages due to this distribution. By contrast, listed churches are more evenly spread regionally and across socio-economic localities and an increasing number are falling out of use as places of worship. Yet, in common with other types of listed structure, there is no coherent policy, either nationally or more locally, towards their potential roles in bolstering local identities and economic revival.