There is now a sustained interest in measuring geographical variation in social and economic circumstances in order to guide urban policy resource allocation decisions. The most recent attempt to measure local area deprivation in England has come through the government's Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD). The authors aim to consider the degree to which the IMD provides a reliable mechanism for doing so and to suggest the ways in which its successors might best be refined. They argue that although the IMD, in many respects, represents a commendable advance in terms of the development of techniques to quantify deprivation, there remain significant limitations that future approaches could profitably address.