if
it's about Cardiff..
Sport, Entertainment, Transportation, Business,
Development Projects, Leisure, Eating, Drinking,
Nightlife, Shopping, Train Spotting! etc.. then we want it here!
Interesting figures for change in population between 2001 and 2011 (the 2001 figures are based on initial census outputs rather than the revised Cardiff population, which was around 5,000 higher than the initial figures).
What the figures clearly show is some quite large increases in population in the city centre and bay (Cathays up 44%, Adamsdown up 55%, Butetown up 125% and Grangetown up 35%). On the other hand, among the "outer boroughs", high growth is really only found in Radyr (up 38%) and Pontprennau/St Melloms (up 21%). I think this puts paid to the "sprawling Cardiff" fears put out by people opposed to controlled and planned urban extensions. Growth since 2001 has overwhelmingly been on brownfield sites in the city centre and bay, and through the intensification of usage of properties through subdivision of houses into flats and shared accomodation. I don't think can continue, and I don't think this is desirable. The density of somewhere like Cathays or Grangetown is now really high and there has to be pressure on local services. Time to get the Lisvane, and Creigau/St Fagans figures increasing I think!!
That's pretty much how I would see it. Perhaps we should see it as some sort of triumph that this has been managed by using brownfield land, butt he opportunities are now scarcer. There are still some areas that look promising like Ely Bridge, but development of the northern suburbs is surely now inevitable.
The 2001 census was treated with great suspicion by many in ethnic communities , who refused to fill it in.
A lot of groundwork was done prior to the 2011 census to try to stop that from happening again.
Some of the larger increases might not actually be genuine.
The 2001 census was treated with great suspicion by many in ethnic communities , who refused to fill it in.
A lot of groundwork was done prior to the 2011 census to try to stop that from happening again.
Some of the larger increases might not actually be genuine.
That's a very interesting point. Could it be that some of change in ethnic population between 2001 - 2011 UK wide (which has been much reported on) could be due to more effort being taken to get immigrant groups to fill in the Census?
I think the impact of reporting on the figures is going to be fairly marginal at the UK-wide level. For Cardiff, things did seem strange in a couple of wards, most notably Adamsdown. But, I think a large part of the growth in inner urban areas is real, especially Butetown and Grangetown (Butetown you've got Century Wharf, Isis, Celestia, Water Quarter, Henke Court, Lloyd George Avenue, Edward England Wharf, Sovereign Quay, and a host of smaller ones; Grangetown has Prospect Place, Victoria Wharf, and a bunch of other developments along the Taff and Ely).
Adamsdown is a bit surprising, and probably does represent under-counting in the 2010 census (I think a lot of the 5000 they added to the figures would have been for that ward), as I can't think of that many developments (apart from Pont Ty Haern), and it would require a lot of intensification of use of existing properties to get such a big increase.
Cathays is also a bit bigger than I thought: although there have been a fair few new apartment schemes (Admiral House, Alto Lusso, Landmark Place, and Meridian Gate being the biggest), and some expansion of student housing, I wonder if part of the increase here just happens to be because more students were in town in census 2011 day than census 2001 day (when were term times?).
But I do think that the figures, overall, reinforce the picture of most of the development in the 10 years to 2011, being high density, leading to densely populated inner suburbs. I bet the picture for 1991-2001 would have been much different (with most of the growth in 3 wards: Llanishen, Pontprennau/Old St Mellons and Trowbridge).
Very interesting numbers, it really shows the changing face of the city across every locality. I wonder what a census in 2021 would show, will we see an increase in the outer localities now that inner city areas are so populated? What trends and developments are in the future for Cardiff? Personaly I would love to see Cardiff grow and develop economicly after the recent years of recession low growth that feel like the bad old days of the 80's.
