Danny Dorling

Daniel Dorling
Born	16 January 1968 Oxford, UK
Nationality	British
Fields	Geography Statistics Demography Epidemiology Sociology
Institutions	University of Oxford University of London University of Sheffield University of Bristol University of Leeds University of Newcastle
Alma mater	University of Newcastle (BSc Hons., PhD)

Danny Dorling (born 16 January 1968) is a British social geographer and is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography of the School of Geography and the Environment of the University of Oxford.^[1][2]

He is also a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology of Goldsmiths, University of London, a visiting professor in the School of Social and Community Medicine of the University of Bristol, a visiting fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and a member of the National Advisory Panel for the Centre for Labour and Social Studies.^[3] He is a patron of RoadPeace since 2011)^[4] and is the current honorary president of the Society of Cartographers.^[5]

In 1989 he became a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS), and a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (FRSS), in 2003 a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), in 2010 a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), in 2014 was appointed an honorary fellow of the Faculty of Public Health (HonFFPH), and in 2015 he became a senior associate member of the Royal Society of Medicine (SARSM).

Early life and education

Born in Oxford, he went to the local state schools, including Cheney School, a coeducational comprehensive and was employed as a play-worker in children's summer play-schemes.^[6] Dorling graduated with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Geography, Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Newcastle in 1989 and completed a PhD in the Visualization of Spatial Social Structure under the supervision of Stan Openshaw in 1991. His favourite pastime continues to be building sandcastles on beaches.^[7]

Academic career^[8]

From 1991 to 1993 he was a Joseph Rowntree Foundation Fellow and from 1993 to 1996 he was British Academy Fellow at the University of Newcastle. From 1996 to 2000 he was on the faculty of the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. From 2000 to 2003 he was Professor of Quantitative Human Geography at the University of Leeds. From 2003 to 2013 he was Professor of Human Geography and also in 2013 he was Professor for the Public Understanding of Social Science at the University of Sheffield.

In September 2013 he became the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, attached to St Peter's College, Oxford.^[9] In his inaugural lecture he spoke about the increasing disparity between Britain's richest 1% and the rest. He said: "Income inequality has now reached a new maximum and, for the first time in a century, even those just below the richest 1% are beginning to suffer, to see their disposable income drop."^[10]

He has mapped (mainly using cartograms), analysed and commented upon UK demographic statistics. Many of his published papers, commentaries and reports are freely available on-line.^[11] In 2005 he started the Internet-based Worldmapper which now has about 700 world maps and spreadsheets of international statistics. He has been on radio, television and in newspaper articles.^[12]

Reception

In commenting on a map produced by Dorling showing the North-South divide in the United Kingdom,^[13] Simon Jenkins jokingly described Dorling as "geographer royal by appointment to the left".^[14]

In February 2006, his work in human geography was described as "rummaging around" in numbers, crunching his way through reams of raw data, building up an extraordinary picture of poverty and wealth in contemporary Britain.^[15]

In April 2010, an editorial in The Guardian was entitled "In Praise of Danny Dorling".^[16]

Works^[17]

Atlases

• Dorling, D. (1995). A New Social Atlas of Britain, London: John Wiley and Sons.
• Champion, T., Wong, C., Rooke, A., Dorling, D., Coombes, M. and Brunsdon, B. (1996). The Population of Britain in the 1990s: a social and economic atlas, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dorling, D. and Thomas, B. (2004). People and Places: A 2001 census atlas of the UK, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D. (2005). Human Geography of the UK. 2nd revised edition, cartography by Hennig, B. (2012) The Population of the UK, London: Sage.
• Thomas, B. and Dorling, D. (2007). Identity in Britain: A cradle‐to‐grave atlas, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D., Newman, M. and Barford, A. (2008, 2010). The Atlas of the Real World: Mapping the way we live, London: Thames and Hudson. Also translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean.
• Shaw, M., Davey Smith, G., Thomas, B., and Dorling, D. (2008). The Grim Reaper’s road map: an atlas of mortality in Britain, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D. and Thomas, B. (2011). Bankrupt Britain: An atlas of social change, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Ballas, D., Dorling, D. and Hennig, B. (June 2014). The social atlas of Europe, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D. and Thomas, B. (2016). People and Places: A 21st-century atlas of the UK, Bristol: Policy Press.

Books

• Dorling, D. (1996). Area cartograms: their use and creation, Concepts and Techniques in Modern Geography series no. 59, University of East Anglia: Environmental Publications.
• Dorling, D. (1997). Death in Britain: How local mortality rates have changed: 1950s–1990s, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
• Dorling, D. (2010). Injustice: Why social inequality persists, Bristol: Policy Press. Extensively revised edition (2015).
• Dorling, D. (2011). So you think you know about Britain? The surprising truth about modern Britain, London: Constable and Robinson.
• Dorling, D. (2011). Fair Play: A reader on social justice, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D. (2011). The No-Nonsense Guide to Equality, Oxford: New Internationalist.
• Dorling, D. (2012). The Visualization of Social Spatial Structure, Chichester: Wiley.
• Dorling, D. (2013). Unequal Health: The scandal of our times, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D. (2013). The 32 Stops: lives on London’s Central Line, London: Penguin.
• Dorling, D. (2013). Population 10 Billion: The coming demographic crisis and how to survive it, London: Constable and Robinson.
• Dorling, D. (2014). All that is Solid: The great housing disaster, London: Allen Lane.
• Dorling, D. (2014). Inequality and the 1%, London: Verso.
• Dorling, D. (2015). Injustice: Why social inequality still persists, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D. (2016). A Better Politics : How government can make us happier, London: London Publishing Partnership.^[18]

Collaborations

• Dorling, D. and Atkins, D. (1995). Population density, change and concentration in Great Britain 1971,1981 and 1991, London: HMSO/Office of Population Censuses and Surveys.
• Atkins, D., Champion, T., Coombes, M., Dorling, D. and Woodward, R. (1996). Urban Trends In England: Latest Evidence from the 1991 Census, London: HMSO/Department of the Environment.
• Dorling, D. and Woodward, R. (1996). Social polarisation 1971–1991: a micro-geographical analysis of Britain, Progress in Planning Volume 45, Issue 2. Oxford: Elsevier.
• Dorling, D. and Fairbairn, D. (1997). Mapping: Ways of Representing the World, London: Longman.
• Bartley, M., Blane, D., Brunner, E., Dorling, D., Ferrie, J., Jarvis, M., Marmot, M., McCarthy, M., Shaw, M., Sheiham, A., Stansfeld, S., Wadsworth, M. and Wilkinson, R. (1998, 2003) Social determinants of health: the solid facts, Copenhagen: World Health Organization.
• Gordon, D., Davey Smith, G., Dorling, D. and Shaw, M. (1999) Inequalities in Health: the evidence, edited collection of twenty chapters, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Shaw, M., Dorling, D., Gordon, D. and Davey Smith, G. (1999, 2000). The Widening Gap: Health inequalities and policy in Britain, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Dorling, D. and Simpson, S. (1999, 2000). Statistics in Society: the arithmetic of politics, edited collection of over forty chapters, London: Arnold.
• Mitchell, R., Dorling, D. and Shaw, M. (2000). Inequalities in Life and Death: What If Britain Were More Equal?, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Johnston, R., Pattie, C., Rossiter, D. and Dorling, D. (2001). From votes to seats: The operation of the UK electoral system since 1945, Manchester University Press.
• Davey Smith, G., Dorling, D. and Shaw, M. (eds) (2001). Poverty, inequality and health: 1800–2000 – a reader., Bristol: Policy Press.
• Shaw, M., Dorling, D. and Mitchell, R. (2002). Health, Place and Society, Harlow: Pearson Education.
• Ballas, D., Rossiter, D, Thomas, B, Clarke, G.P. and Dorling, D. (2004). Geography matters: simulating the local impacts of national social policies,Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York: York Publishing Services.
• Dorling, D., Ford, J., Holmans, A., Sharp, C., Thomas, B. and Wilcox, S. (2005). The great divide: an analysis of housing inequality, London: Shelter.
• Wheeler, B., Shaw, M., Mitchell, R. and Dorling, D. (2005). Life in Britain: Using Millennial Census data to understand poverty, inequality and place, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Hillyard, P., Pantazis C., Tombs, S., Gordon, D., and Dorling, D. (2005). Criminal Obsessions: Why Harm Matters More Than Crime, London: Crime and Society Foundation.
• Dorling, D., Rigby, J., Wheeler, B., Ballas, D., Thomas, B., Fahmy, E., Gordon, D., and Lupton, R. (2007). Poverty, wealth and place in Britain, 1968 to 2005, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Bristol: Policy Press.
• Pickett, K., Melhuish, E., Dorling, D., Bambra, C., McKenzie, K., Chandola, T., Jenkins, A., Nazroo, J., Kendig, H., Phillipson, C., Maynard, A. (2014). ″If you could do one thing...″ Nine local actions to reduce health inequalities (20mph Speed Limits for Cars in Residential Areas, by Shops and Schools), London: British Academy.
• Dorling, D. and Lee, C. Geography, London Profile Books.

References

1. School of Geography and the Environment: News 12 February 2013
2. ditto: Staff
3. http://classonline.org.uk/about
4. http://www.roadpeace.org/about/patrons/
5. http://www.soc.org.uk/committ.htm
6. http://www.dannydorling.org/?page_id=31
7. Biography published in Times Higher Education
8. Curriculum Vitae of Danny Dorling
9. St Peter's College website
10. The Guardian 4 February 2014: Is the British education system designed to polarise people?
11. http://www.dannydorling.org/
12. http://www.dannydorling.org/?page_id=2921
13. UK North-South Divide
14. The Guardian 26 October 2007 West is north and east is south in this patronising map of stereotypes
15. The Guardian 8 February 2006 Interview: Danny Dorling
16. The Guardian 30 April 2010 In Praise of Danny Dorling
17. http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/research/transformations/gis/papers/
18. A Better Politics Free (low resolution) version

External links

• Official website