Bristol

Abstract

Modern politics in Bristol¹ have a backcloth of steady prosperity. Unemployment in its varied occupations has been consistently lower than the average for the country in the past few years. In terms of housing, slums, the illegitimacy rate, health and education it has a better record than other large towns.² The population has risen steadily to 432,070 in 1964. Bristol’s sober growth and development may be partly due to its distance from other big towns, and to the extensive rural society enveloping it. The city has long been the centre of an ill-defined region, and the development of modern road communications has aroused expectations that it is on the threshold of a new era as a regional metropolis.