Since the 1980s there has been a growing discourse on the economic, social, and political divisions between the North and South of England (Martin, 2004, p. 17). Thatcher’s legacy is attributed to the reproductions of social inequality across the regions (Albertson & Stepney, 2020, p. 319) and new studies from a range of disciplines are beginning to explore the environmental and health inequalities sustained from her individualist political ideology.

 

Hacking, Muller, and Buchan’s exploration of the North-South divide as a marker for health inequalities across England has sought to clarify ‘the issue of the balance between context and composition’ (Hacking, et al., 2011, p. 7) - whether the divide as a political marker reproduces inequalities, or if it ‘hinders progressive thinking on inequality and poverty’ (McInroy & Jackson, 2012, p. 1), to address the issue of health inequalities at the source of the problem.

 

We chose to compare the relationship between pollution and happiness across the  North and South of England to explore the narrative of the divide further:  to highlight the complexity of analysing demographic attributes in spatial data. In our investigation we must critically assess the quantitative data presented to us but remain mindful that data is political: it has ‘certain powers, influence and rationalities’ which have real human consequences when interpreted (Ruppert, et al., 2017, p. 1).

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For our investigation, the North and South will be divided according to NHS-defined regions (see shaded map, above left). This separates the Midlands, the North West and the North East and Yorkshire in the North, and East, South East, South West and London in the South of England.