Alex My name’s Alex. I’m currently doing a PhD and I’m sort of writing up at the moment, but I work in art galleries and museums as well.
Emily We’ve literally just moved two days ago to a house just up there. We wanted to move back to Sheffield and this is where we see ourselves bringing up a family.
Joe My name’s Joe Murray and I’m 18, I’ve just finished sixth form and I’m hopefully going to university.
Toby I’m Toby Euston. I’m an accounting and finance student at Leeds University.
Hannah I’m Hannah, I’m 22, I came to Sheffield as a student and today I’ve literally just been to the pub. That’s all I’ve done.
Do you think Sheffield is a fair place to live?
Joe Yeah, I’d say so.
Toby I love Sheffield. I think it’s great.
Joe It’s got a wide mix of people and ethnicities and I think it’s a fair place, yeah.
Alex I think on the whole it generally is. It seems like quite a fair place to live, but then I don’t know the whole city.
Hannah I think people generally have a good attitude towards things. I think a lot of people in Sheffield are quite thoughtful.
Are you aware of any inequality in the city?
Alex You do notice that there’s masses of difference between different areas in Sheffield, and I think people tend to stick to their areas quite a bit, or people on this side of Sheffield tend to stick over on this side of Sheffield.
What do you think causes inequality?
Toby Culture, definitely. If people have come from a different culture completely there’re going to tend to want to stay around people that have similar outlooks and things like that.
Alex Education, politics, money, government decisions.
On average, a girl born in Ecclesall will live around ten years longer than in one born in Burngreave. Were you aware of this and do you have any idea why?
Emily Oh my goodness. That’s terrifying.
Joe That’s crazy, isn’t it?
Toby F**king hell.
Joe Don’t swear! No swearing Toby. That’s incredible, isn’t it?
Toby That is mental. You see that kind of thing between countries. You wouldn’t expect to see that between two different cities or in the same city.
Who do you think is treated most unfairly in Sheffield?
Alex There are so many layers of deprivation, so people who are homeless, people who are immigrants and might not necessarily have access to things. I think it really depends on your education, when you came to the city, what your circumstances were when you got here.
20% of households in Sheffield are living in relative poverty (household income less than 60% of the national average).
Hannah The extent to which I’d find that surprising kind of depends on relative to where. Do you know what I mean? Because I think Sheffield’s quite a working class city, so if it’s relative to the whole of the UK then maybe it’s not as surprising as somewhere else.
Of the eight core English cities, Sheffield has the lowest rate of recorded violence against the person.
Emily That’s good. That’s really good.
Steve Yeah, we’ve lived in Nottingham, Leeds, London, Sheffield now…
Emily Nottingham struck me as the one that was… As a student in Nottingham you lived in all the roughest areas, whereas in Sheffield… This is a really nice area I think and a lot of students live round here.
45% of privately rented houses in Sheffield do not meet the requirements of the government’s decent homes standard.
Hannah Really? That’s bad. I mean I lived in some quite rickety houses, but they were very low rent, so we kind of paid for what we had. But yeah, that is surprising.
Whose responsibility is it to deal with issues of inequality?
Joe I think it’s a wide range. It’s lifestyle choices and it’s also obviously the government.
Toby It’s a cocktail of things. There’s not just one sole cause.
Emily Local community leaders and the council, I suppose, to organise events that bring everyone together.
Alex Everyone’s. Everyone’s.
What is fairness?
Toby I don’t think it’s realistic for everybody to have the same stuff. I think it’s fair that everyone should have the same opportunities to achieve what they want. But everybody should have the chance to live the same standard of lifestyle as other people based on their own lifestyle choices, and that should be the limiting factor, not where they were brought up, or something like that.
Alex Making sure that people have an equality of access.
Steve I guess that’s just everyone being treated on the same level, basically. You can’t get much fairer than that, can you really?
People on this side of Sheffield tend to stick over on this side of Sheffield.