An economic model, called the Gini Coefficient, is used to analyse inequality in societies around the world. It runs from 0, where everything is owned equally, to 1, which means one person owns everything.
We already know that Britain as a whole scores 0.62, but what about the different regions? London is the most unequal place in the country with a Gini score of 0.67. The South West of England comes out as the least unequal region - it scores 0.56. But the single most unequal slice of the entire British economy is actually the property market in the North East of England, which returns a remarkable Gini score of 0.97, suggesting that huge amounts of property wealth is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people.
Across London and the South East, about one in five households has a wealth of more than £1m - a much higher proportion than anywhere else in the country. These two regions now account for 43% of the value of all properties across the UK, even though they only include around a quarter of the nation's households. That means that people who own, or partly own, a property in either of those regions are very likely to have more property wealth than their counterparts in the rest of the country.
For the first time, our analysis has confirmed that London households now own property worth more than £1 trillion, and it is that property wealth that has boosted the capital's bank accounts, as well as sharpening the distinction between the city's haves and have-nots. High property values also mean that the cost of living in the South East is higher than the rest of the country.
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