Scottish Household Survey 2024 findings: neighbourhoods and communities report
This report provides insights into neighbourhoods and communities in Scotland. It draws on key data from the Scottish Household Survey (2024) to explore neighbourhoods and communities both at a national level in Scotland and for different subgroups and different places.
Summary
In 2024, neighbourhood ratings remain high, and there has been no change since 2023 in the percentage of adults who rate their neighbourhood as a ‘very good’ place to live. In 2024, adults continued to feel more positively about the people-based features of their neighbourhoods and less positively about the physical aspects of them.
Although since 2023 there have been small falls nationally in agreement around people based features of neighbourhoods such as perceptions of trust, kindness, and being able to turn to neighbours for advice and support. Perceptions of safety in neighbourhoods have fallen slightly from 2023.
There remain ongoing inequalities for different subgroups of the population, and people living in different places, such as urban or rural settings, for disabled people, and by area deprivation.
Many of the national level improvements in neighbourhood connections that were seen in 2022 have not sustained, with features such as neighbourhood trust, kindness and strength of belonging stable with their pre-pandemic levels. Loneliness increased in 2022 but has fallen in 2024, and is now stable with the 2018 level. People meet socially less frequently than they did in 2018.
Contact
Email: socialresearch@gov.scot