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Community life in Britain has weakened substantially over the past 30 years, according to research commissioned by the BBC.
Analysis of census data reveals how neighbourhoods in every part of the UK have become more socially fragmented.
The study assesses the health of a community by looking at how rooted people are in their neighbourhood.
Academics created "loneliness indices", to identify where people had a "feeling of not belonging".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7755641.stm



Voting apathy 'among worst in UK'

It was the birthplace of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and played a pivotal role in the fight for voting rights for women and the working classes.
But it seems the people of Greater Manchester are losing their taste for politics.
In the last three general elections - in 1997, 2001 and 2005 - an average of 41% of the electorate across the region did not vote.
That represents the second highest level of absenteeism in the UK, according to the University of Sheffield's Changing UK study.
The report was commissioned by the BBC to look at the ways in which the nation's communities have changed over the past 40 years.
Researchers found neighbourhoods becoming polarised, with people increasingly living among others similar to them in terms of age, class and wealth, leading to feelings of isolation and - significantly for Greater Manchester - political apathy.
In the 1945, 1950 and 1951 elections the area was in the top 10 most politically engaged - with an average abstention rate of 18%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7758434.stm



" from the late 1960s, British society has been slowly and steadily segregating geographically in many ways, including by where old and young live. Since 2001 the rate of that “demographic segregation” has accelerated and the latest 2006 official population estimates show us more segregated now than at any time since the computerisation of census data (1966)"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/01_12_08_changinguk.pdf