For centuries, princes and paupers have lived cheek-by-jowl in Holyrood, joined in recent years by the politicians, lobbyists and journalists who every day roll out of its cafés and bars.

For all its teeming life, however, this hub of Scotland's capital - with its palace, parliament, council estate and 300-year-old tenements - has been dubbed the loneliest place in Britain. Worse still, it stands at the heart of Edinburgh, the loneliest city.

This, at least, is the conclusion of Changing Britain, a study of the gradual transformation of communities produced by Sheffield University. The report shows that the “social glue” which binds towns and cities together has eroded over 40 years, and the trend is most marked in Scotland.

Researchers based their findings on census data, applying a sociological formula to factors such as the proportion of people in an area who are single, those who live alone, the numbers in private rented accommodation and those who have lived in their home for less than a year.

The report concluded that “we are now more polarised and live a little more among our ‘own kind'”. It added that this process of “polarisation and segregation may lead to stronger feelings of isolation and weaker feelings of ‘belonging'”.

Not all of these conclusions struck a chord with Holyrood's long-term residents. Julie Logan said a community action group had found a strong sense of belonging among residents, expressed in a long-running campaign against Caltongate, an unpopular building development in the area.

However, the rapid increase in the amount of buy-to-let accommodation, combined with high property prices in central Edinburgh, had forced families to move to the outskirts of town.

“Young families simply can't afford to buy here, and any three-bedroomed flats are snapped up and let out to students,” said Ms Logan, who shares a flat with her daughter, Nikki.

Across Britain, the researchers found that social fragmentation could be linked to rising wealth and mobility, which had enabled people to move further away from the heart of traditional communities. Factors such as increased divorce and rising immigration were said to have taken a hand.

In some areas, such as South West England or the East Neuk of Fife, wealth has led to a rise in the number of second homes, breaking down community ties. In others, such as the former mining villages of South Yorkshire or Nottinghamshire, destruction of an industry had helped to break up deep-rooted social groups.

Many of the findings help to bolster long-lived clichés. Few in “gallus” Glasgow would be surprised to find the chill wind of loneliness blowing through Edinburgh, when even respected travel guides can suggest that “Edinburgh people are reserved, verging on the stuffy”. Likewise, towns in areas traditionally viewed as “friendly”, such as the North of England, featured among those with the deepest roots: Stockport, Sefton in Liverpool, and Washington near Sunderland. But as one Edinburgh resident argued: “Yes, but you wouldn't want to live there, would you?”

The researchers acknowledged that a high proportion of students will inevitably mean a community has “shallow roots”, as they fill bedsits and flats, ready to move at the end of the year.

Headingley in Leeds and Cardiff's university quarter vie for Britain's loneliness title, along with parts of Edinburgh city centre popular with students. Holyrood itself lies within half a mile of the university, and is home to Moray House School of Education. Ainslie Henderson, 29, a music technician at Moray House, said he was dumbfounded by the notion that he lived in a lonely place. “This is one of the few cities where you bump into people you know all the time because of its size and scale. I think of Edinburgh as one of the least lonely places on Earth. There are all sorts of social networks here, everything is piled up, even the streets,” said Mr Henderson, who shares accommodation with his girlfriend and two friends.

Dr Bethan Cooper, a lecturer in geography at Sheffield University accepted that some of the findings were “counter-intuitive”. She added: “Some people are happy to live alone. They are alone, but not lonely.”

Mr Henderson agreed that a person could live alone happily, and vice versa. “I imagine there a lot of lonely people who live with their family all around them,” he said.

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