[citation needed] Moulsecoomb suffers from high social deprivation and crime rates, along with neighbouring Whitehawk.

The land reached a height of 508 feet (155m) at Falmer Hill, approximately 0.9 miles (1½ km) east of the point where the railway crossed the road on a viaduct.

This was the original North Moulsecoomb area, which at this early stage consisted of four roads named after East Sussex villages (Barcombe, Chailey, Newick and Ringmer) situated between the Lewes Road – then an insubstantial, narrow route between the market gardens – and the railway line.

[4] The South Moulsecoomb part of the estate was extended to the east in the early 1930s using land acquired from Lower Bevendean Farm.

At first, housing spread northwards from the Higher Bevendean infill estate (an area of private housing developed at the same time as the South Moulsecoomb extension, immediately north of it), with Shortgate Road being the northern limit before the Second World War; after the war, the last few roads were developed, mostly with small blocks of flats.

[6] The main purpose of such large-scale residential development was to rehouse residents who lived in slums in central Brighton; at that time, much of the residential accommodation in the inner-city area was of poor quality, and slum clearance would allow redevelopment to start as well as taking people out of inadequate, substandard and sometimes dangerous houses.

Moulsecoomb's road network, especially that built later in the East and North Moulsecoomb areas, generally follows the contours of the land rather than being in, for example, a grid pattern, and is characterised by large grass verges and a large land area for each house – many have both front and back gardens.

Two girls from the estate, 10-year-old Karen Hadaway and nine-year-old Nicola Fellows, went missing on 9 October 1986 and were found murdered in nearby Wild Park the following day.

East Moulsecoomb is the eastern terminus for Brighton & Hove Buses route 49, which runs from Portslade station via the city centre.