Daunton M. The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Volume 3: 1840-1950
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who use it.
18
Such varied concepts of space are clearly identifiable in the con-
testation of residential and public space outlined in the study of the West End
cited above.
Recent work on the cultural meaning of space, which can be extended to
studies of the past as easily as it can be applied to the present, draws on a wide
range of cultural theory. The work of Pierre Bourdieu has been especially
influential, particularly his concept of ‘habitus’ which focuses on the construc-
tion of meaning in everyday lifeworlds.
19
Whilst ‘habitus’ is related to objective
criteria such as class, gender and ethnicity, it is additionally and crucially a ‘dis-
tinctive set of values, cognitive structures and orienting practices: a collective
perceptual and evaluative schema that derives from its members’ everyday expe-
rience and operates at a subconscious level, through commonplace daily prac-
tices, dress codes, use of language, comportment and patterns of material
consumption’.
20
For the study of urban spatial structure, the extent to which
those concepts which create ‘habitus’have spatial meaning and expression is crit-
ical, though the discovery of everyday cultural values in the past is not without
difficulty. In present-day studies cultural expression is often associated with pat-
terns of consumption: where you shop, the things you buy and the way you
furnish your home are expressions of cultural identity. Patterns of consumption
are also inherently spatial as the settings in which consumption takes place are
infused with signs and symbols which generate cultural meaning.
21
The same
arguments can be applied to past society, although the nature and diversity of
cultural expression in urban space may have been rather different.
For most people their home is the single most important expression of posi-
tion in society, containing and expressing many layers of cultural and social
meaning. The built environment is also central to an understanding of the spatial
structure of cities, and hence the study of residential space, and the ways in
which housing takes on social and cultural identity, is particularly fruitful. At the
urban scale community formation and social interaction are affected by the activ-
ities of architects, designers, developers and planners who impose their views of
the ways in which urban space should be organised, but may not have taken into
account the needs of residents. The design of public urban space is also in the
hands of a few with power and, as with much Victorian city-centre redevelop-
Colin G. Pooley
18
H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford, ). See also Madanipour, ‘Urban design and
dilemmas of space’, .
19
P. Bourdieu, Distinctions, trans. R. Nice (London, ). See also P. Shurmer-Smith and K.
Hannam, Worlds of Desire, Realms of Power (London, ); R. Shields, Places on the Margin
(London, ); D. Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion (London, ); C. Philo, ed., New Words, New
Worlds (Lampeter, ).
20
Knox, Urban Social Geography, p. .
21
G. Pratt, ‘The house as an expression of social worlds’, in J. Duncan, ed., Housing and Identity
(London, ), pp. –; D. Rose, ‘Rethinking gentrification’, Environment and Planning D:
Society and Space, (), –; D. Ley, ‘Styles of the times: liberal and neo-conservative land-
scapes in inner Vancouver, –’, Journal of Historical Geography, (), –; S. Lash
and J. Urry, Economies of Signs and Space (London, ).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
ment, may symbolise the wealth and achievements of a small elite group. But the
ways in which such spaces are used can be structured by the views and experi-
ences of many ordinary citizens: at the micro-scale, perceptions of different types
of housing form, patterns of occupancy and household structures affect the cul-
tural and social meanings that individuals attach to particular spaces.
22
Space and its cultural associations are clearly differentiated commodities, and
not all groups have equal access to the most desirable spaces or find that the exist-
ing urban structure serves them well. The development of feminist social and
cultural theory has focused attention particularly on gender issues in the use and
organisation of space: many of the spaces that women use most are constructed
by and controlled by men.
23
However, women are not the only groups that may
be marginalised in the urban structure: the poor, the aged, children, the disabled
and ethnic minorities amongst others may find that the urban spatial structure
in which they live does not suit their needs. Awareness of urban space, the
ways in which it is used, and the meanings that it holds are also differentiated by
such factors as gender, age, ethnicity, class and disability. Typically, women and
small children may spend most time in and around the home, thus the quality
and convenience of the residential environment has particular salience for these
groups, and their wider perception of urban spatial structure will be constrained
by limited mobility. Space is not a static commodity. Although locations are
fixed, the uses and meanings attached to particular places change over time. Thus
suburban expansion, offering improved living conditions to some, may have
totally destroyed the homes of residents in a small village engulfed by that expan-
sion. The restructuring of urban space also varied between different categories
of town. Urban size, the nature of the economy and topographic features may
all have influenced the changing spatial form of towns at the local level. The
analysis of urban spatial structure to be developed in the remainder of this
chapter draws on some of the social and cultural theories outlined above, but
focuses particularly on the residential environment, and on ways in which the
experience and meaning of space was differentiated in the past.
(iii)
This section describes and explains some of the principal changes in urban form
from the s to the s, focusing on the implications of these shifts for the
Patterns on the ground
22
D. Appleyard, ‘The environment as a social symbol’, Journal of the American Planning Association,
(), –; A. Buttimer, ‘Social space and the planning of residential areas’, in A. Buttimer
and D. Seaman, eds., The Human Experience of Space and Place (London, ), pp. –; R.
Shields, ‘Social spatialization and the built environment: the West Edmonton Mall’, Environment
and Planning D: Society and Space, (), –; M. J. Daunton, House and Home in the Victorian
City (London, ).
23
S. Bowlby, ed., ‘Women and the environment’, Built Environment, (); Pratt and Hanson,
‘Gender, class and space’; L. McDowell, ‘Space, place and gender relations. Parts and ’, Progress
in Human Geography, (), –, –.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
lives of urban residents. This will be achieved by addressing three related ques-
tions. First, what were the main changes in urban form? Second, were there
measurable alterations in levels of residential segregation? Third, did the
significance and meanings attached to urban space by city residents change?
With relatively few exceptions, the main dimensions of Britain’s urban hier-
archy, and the associated characteristics of urban form, were established by the
s.
24
London was already a sprawling metropolis of over . million people
in , and provincial cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and
Glasgow each had well-established urban structures with populations in excess
of ,.
25
Exceptions were the newly emerging urban centres: industrial
towns such as Barrow (which grew from a hamlet of around people in
to a town of , population in ); resorts such as Blackpool (,
(including visitors) in and , in ); or expanding residential
suburbs, especially around London, which grew rapidly in the twentieth century
(for instance Chingford (Essex) grew from , in to , in , and
Hornchurch (Essex) from , in to , in ).
26
The fact that the
majority of Britain’s urban settlements were well established by the mid-
nineteenth century meant that changes in urban form were created either through
industrial or suburban expansion or through the restructuring of existing space.
This was especially important in that such processes also led to the restructuring
of urban communities and to changes in the everyday lives of urban dwellers.
Although in some respects all locations are unique, every British town was
affected by some of the same processes which restructured urban form from the
mid-nineteenth century. Demographic change was crucial to the restructuring
of most urban centres. Voluntary out-migration, declining fertility and an ageing
population were already apparent in many inner-urban areas, though such dem-
ographic processes were differentiated by city size, with large urban areas losing
most population from their inner districts from the s, and many small towns
retaining their central communities. However, by the twentieth century almost
all towns experienced central decline and suburban expansion as those able to
move voluntarily took advantage of improved suburban living conditions.
Demographic change was exacerbated by the processes of commercial and
Colin G. Pooley
24
C. M. Law, ‘The growth of urban population in England and Wales, –’, Transactions of
the Institute of British Geographers, (), –; B. T. Robson, Urban Growth (London, );
G. E. Cherry, Cities and Plans (London, ); T. Slater, ed., The Built Form of Western Cities
(Leicester, ); J. W. R. Whiteland, The Making of the Urban Landscape (Oxford, ).
25
On London see D. J. Olsen, The Growth of Victorian London (London, ); K. Young and P.
Garside, Metropolitan London (London, ); H. Clout and P. Wood,, eds., London (Harlow,
). On provincial cities see for example Dennis, English Industrial Cities; A. Briggs, Victorian
Cities (London, ); G. Gordon, ed., Regional Cities in the UK, – (London, ).
26
J. D. Marshall, Furness and the Industrial Revolution (Barrow-in-Furness, ); J. K. Walton, The
English Seaside Resort (Leicester, ); A. A. Jackson, Semi-Detached London (London, );
F. M. L. Thompson, ed., The Rise of Suburbia (Leicester, ).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
industrial development which particularly affected older residential neighbour-
hoods from the mid-nineteenth century. Large cities and smaller expanding
towns faced pressures for commercial redevelopment in the central business dis-
trict and for an expanded range of civic buildings and associated services. Such
activity disrupted existing inner-urban communities and forced up land values,
thus pushing out residential development. Central areas of commercial cities
such as Manchester were also affected by the expansion of warehouses and
offices, whilst residential communities adjacent to canal or dock-side industry
were affected by the mid-Victorian rebuilding and expansion of many industrial
premises.
27
Although the extent to which towns were affected by such processes
varied with urban size (larger settlements in most cases feeling the greatest
effects) and with local and national economic conditions – for instance, north-
ern industrial towns underwent substantial restructuring in the second half of
the nineteenth century but moved into a period of relative recession in the twen-
tieth century as the focus of economic activity shifted to southern and Midland
England
28
– all settlements experienced some of the same processes of urban
change.
Technological change also affected the form of cities from the s. All
towns depend for their economic livelihood on the ability to move goods and
people around, but the ways in which such movement took place fundamentally
influenced the structure of cities. Until the late nineteenth century most people
walked to work, constrained by the cost and availability of transport. Thus res-
idential areas were tied quite closely to industrial and commercial districts.
Gradually, development of the horse-drawn omnibus (from the s), trams
from the s and, especially in London, suburban rail connections allowed
larger numbers of people to live further from their workplace. The provision of
infrastructure associated with transport innovations also changed the city.
Tramlines were laid on widened streets, railway companies acquired large areas
of land for sidings and engine sheds, and competed with other uses for prestig-
ious central sites for mainline stations. Such development often threatened
central residential areas and forced residents to move elsewhere. In the twenti-
eth century the increased use of personal transport, the bicycle, motorcycle and
car, further reduced constraints on where people could live and influenced the
Patterns on the ground
27
H. B. Rodgers, ‘The suburban growth of Victorian Manchester’, Transactions of the Manchester
Geographical Society, (–), –; R. Varley, ‘Land use analysis in the city centre with special
reference to Manchester’ (MA thesis, University of Wales, ). More generally see Jackson,
Semi-Detached London; Thompson, Rise of Suburbia; R. Lawton and C. G. Pooley, ‘The social
geography of nineteenth-century cities: a review’, in D. Denecke and G. Shaw, eds., Urban
Historical Geography (Cambridge,), pp. –.
28
J. Langton and R. J. Morris, eds., Atlas of Industrialising Britain, – (London, ); C. H.
Lee, ‘Regional growth and structural change in Victorian Britain’, Ec.HR, nd series, (),
–; M. Jones, ‘The economic history of the regional problem in Britain, –’, Journal
of Historical Geography, (), –.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
design of new residential suburbs and the redevelopment of older urban areas.
29
Motorised transport demanded wider streets. From the s junctions were
redesigned with traffic lights to accommodate increased traffic volumes, houses
were increasingly built with garages and urban streets had to accommodate
increased numbers of parked and moving vehicles. By the s the volume of
motorised traffic in cities was fundamentally affecting the quality of life of many
urban residents.
30
In parallel with the above processes, the changing aspirations of individuals
and families were also affecting the form of cities. Particularly from the s,
families were expecting and demanding improved housing in suburban residen-
tial environments. Those aspiring to new life styles fuelled the residential expan-
sion of the interwar period, and encouraged the relative neglect of inner-urban
communities and the expansion of suburbs through both private and local
authority housing schemes. Planned intervention in the urban environment also
caused further dislocation in inner-city areas. Although slum clearance was
minimal and piecemeal in most towns in the nineteenth century, from the s
many towns embarked on a more vigorous programme of slum clearance (espe-
cially effective from the s), which destroyed many inner-urban communities
and fundamentally changed the structure of urban areas.
31
Whilst urban form clearly changed from the mid-nineteenth century, there is
more debate about the extent to which levels of residential segregation increased
over the same period. A simplistic view of the British city undergoing a transi-
tion from a largely unsegregated pre-industrial form to a highly segregated
‘modern’ state is clearly inappropriate.
32
There is need to consider not only the
varied processes producing segregation, but the different scales at which segre-
gation occurred and the meanings attached to segregated space.
In his study of mid-Victorian Leeds, David Ward emphasised the extent to
which many areas of the city contained residents drawn from a range of social
groups.
33
Although the extremes of rich and poor were segregated, in many
neighbourhoods there was a clear mixing of the population. Ward argued that it
was only in the late nineteenth century that the development of improved urban
Colin G. Pooley
29
D. Cannadine and D. Reeder, eds., Exploring the Urban Past (Cambridge, ), pp. –;
H. J. Dyos and D. Aldcroft,. British Transport (Leicester, ); D. H. Aldcroft and M. J. Freeman,
eds., Transport in the Industrial Revolution (Manchester, ); J. R. Kellett, The Impact of Railways
on Victorian Cities (London, ); W. H. Bett and J. C. Gillham, Great British Tramway Networks
(London, ).
30
R. Tolley, Calming Traffic in Residential Areas (Tregaron, ); M. Hillman, J. Adams and J.
Whitelegg, One False Move (London, ).
31
Young and Garside, Metropolitan London; A. Ravetz, Model Estate (London, ); M. Young and
P. Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London (London, ); J. A. Yelling, Slums and
Redevelopment (London, ).
32
Timms, Urban Mosaic. See also the discussion in Dennis, English Industrial Cities, pp. –, and
Johnson and Pooley, eds., The Structure, pp. –.
33
Ward, ‘Victorian cities’; Ward, ‘Environs and neighbours’.
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transport systems enabled a ‘modern’ segregated city to emerge. However, other
studies have come to rather different conclusions. In Liverpool, a high degree of
segregation between socio-economic and migrant groups has been demon-
strated from the mid-nineteenth century and, at a smaller scale, studies of
Wolverhampton, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil and Plymouth amongst others have
suggested varying degrees of segregation from the s.
34
It can be suggested
that all these studies seek too rigidly to fit British urban structure into an inap-
propriate ecological framework of transition towards a ‘modern’ urban structure
derived from the work of the Chicago School in the s, but collectively they
do demonstrate the complexity of urban residential segregation.
Much of the difference between Ward and other researchers can be accounted
for by differences in the methods and categories used in different studies, and
there is little evidence that there were any real differences in the levels of segre-
gation experienced in the major British cities.
35
In the mid-nineteenth century,
all towns demonstrated some differentiation between social and ethnic groups
with, not surprisingly, the most noticeable segregation in larger cities. However,
in all towns, and most markedly in smaller places, there was still a good deal of
residential intermixing of the population in particular localities. As the nine-
teenth century progressed the processes outlined above, which shaped and
changed urban form, also affected levels of segregation. Gradually more people
could afford to live further from their workplaces, restructuring of the economy
changed the location of industry, and increased personal mobility and a more
differentiated housing market widened residential choice. For many, however,
constraints were as significant as choice of residential location. Power to acquire
access to desirable urban residential space was crucial, and those caught up in
slum clearance schemes in the s or s had little residential choice. Thus
the development of substantial local authority housing estates around towns
heightened levels of segregation and, in some cases, led to physical barriers
between private and corporation housing developments despite their close prox-
imity. At the same time inner-city communities became increasingly neglected
and marginalised, leading to high levels of segregation between the old, the poor
and recent immigrants who mainly lived in inner-urban areas and the majority
of the suburbanising population.
36
Patterns on the ground
34
R. Lawton and C. G. Pooley, The Social Geography of Merseyside in the Nineteenth Century (Final
Report to the SSRC, ); M. Shaw, ‘The ecology of social change: Wolverhampton,
–’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, new series, (), –; H. Carter
and S. Wheatley, Merthyr Tydfil in (Cardiff, ); C. R. Lewis, ‘A stage in the development
of an industrial town: a case study of Cardiff, –’, Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, new series (), –; M. Brayshay and V. Pointon, ‘Migration and the social
geography of mid-nineteenth century Plymouth’, The Devon Historian, (), ‒.
35
C. Pooley, ‘Residential differentiation in Victorian cities: a reassessment’, Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers, new series, (), –.
36
Demonstrated by a wide range of inner area studies in the s. For example HMSO, Change
and Decay (London, ). See also A. Coleman, Utopia on Trial (London, ).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
The pattern and process of intra-urban residential mobility is crucial to under-
standing changing levels of residential segregation, but few studies have charted
individual residential mobility from the s to the s. In his study of
Leicester, Roger Pritchard demonstrates the way in which levels of mobility
increased from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth century, and
studies focused solely on nineteenth-century residential mobility have clearly
shown the way in which most people moved frequently within local commu-
nities. Longer-distance moves were most often undertaken by those with higher
incomes, and the effect of this residential movement within urban areas was to
sustain working-class communities but gradually to increase levels of segregation
between groups as those on higher incomes distanced themselves from the least
attractive neighbourhoods.
37
It should also be noted that, even in localities which appeared to be relatively
mixed in residential terms, neighbours from different social strata did not neces-
sarily interact with each other. High-class districts always contained a large
service class designed to serve the rich, but the relationship between these neigh-
bours was formal and instrumental. Despite living close together they were not
part of the same community. Similarly, in other neighbourhoods, the fact that
people lived close together did not mean that they interacted with each other.
For instance, they could be segregated in time and space through the rhythms of
their everyday lives.
38
Thus in late nineteenth-century suburbs, although clerks
and skilled factory workers on similar incomes may have lived close to each other,
the location of their workplaces and their hours of employment could mean that
they rarely met on the street. The development process also increased social seg-
regation as high-status areas inevitably attracted appropriate shops, cafés and
other facilities which attracted their patrons from particular ranks of society. This
is clearly demonstrated by Donald Olsen in the context of Victorian London
who cites the Builder of on the development of the Grosvenor estate:
In the first instance mansions are built for the ultra wealthy; a smaller class of house,
equal as to taste and locality, is provided for those equal in degree, though not in
requirements; first-class shops are brought into the district to provide for them;
their dependants are provided for, and a bank established; the result promising to
be an ornament to the Metropolis.
39
Thus, residential exclusiveness was extended to other spheres as shops, parks, res-
taurants and meeting places associated with particular residential developments
perpetuated segregation on a day-to-day basis.
Colin G. Pooley
37
R. M. Pritchard, Housing and the Spatial Structure of the City (Cambridge, ); R. Dennis,
‘Intercensal mobility in a Victorian city’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, new
series, (), –; C. G. Pooley, ‘Residential mobility in the Victorian city’, Transactions of
the Institute of British Geographers, new series, (), –.
38
E. P. Thompson, ‘Time, work discipline and industrial capitalism’, P&P, (), –.
39
Olsen, Growth, p. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Social segregation also occurred by age, gender and ethnicity. The old and
infirm may have been housebound and thus effectively segregated from the com-
munity in which they resided. Men and women may have rarely met outside the
home because of their different activity patterns, women on suburban estates
often experiencing isolation and loneliness. Migrant groups such as the Irish or
Jews may have distanced themselves from neighbours because of fear of violence
or a desire to retain a distinct cultural identity. Such processes of social interac-
tion are hard to determine precisely in the past because they mostly left no per-
manent record, but oral studies of twentieth-century communities have
suggested such patterns, and there are a small number of studies which attempt
to reconstruct nineteenth-century communities from a variety of sources.
40
Diaries and life histories can sometimes give insights into the ways in which
different family members utilised the community and spaces in which they lived.
For instance the life history of Benjamin Shaw, who lived in Preston (Lancs.) in
the early nineteenth century, indicates how his wife (Betty) ‘Kept company with
the lowest & poorest of the neighbours, & hearing their tales of distress, was often
imposed on to help them’, whereas Ben who was bent on self-improvement
objected to close association with the neighbours and did not wish his wife to
learn their ‘bad practises’.
41
Use of local spaces and interaction with neighbours
were clearly gendered in the Shaw household.
Whereas everyday social interaction was rarely recorded, unusual events such
as demonstrations, riots and other occasions which caused large crowds to gather
were reported in the local press and by contemporary commentators.
42
It is
usually argued that urban space became more exclusive and privatised during the
nineteenth century. Processes of suburbanisation, changes in transport, improved
policing and surveillance all enabled at least some individuals to enjoy greater
amounts of personal and private space, and to avoid the noise, crowds and poten-
tial dangers of the public urban sphere. As Mark Harrison notes, there was ‘a
sharp discontinuity between the city as an open stage for the enactment of civic
mystery and dispute, and the city as a controlled set of enclosed spheres in which
other than officially institutionalised mass activity was incomprehensible and
alarming’.
43
There was never, however, a smooth transition from a chaotic early nine-
teenth-century city to a more controlled and regulated twentieth-century urban
Patterns on the ground
40
J. White, Rothschild Buildings (London, ); J. White, The Worst Street in North London
(London, ); R. Dennis and S. Daniels, ‘Community and the social geography of Victorian
cities’, UHY (), –; G. Kearns and C. W. J. Withers, eds., Urbanising Britain (Cambridge,
).
41
Cited in S. D’Cruze, ‘Care, diligence and “Usfull Pride” [sic]: gender, industrialisation and the
domestic economy, c. to c. ’, Women’s History Review, (), .
42
G. Rudé, The Crowd in History (London, ); G. Stedman Jones, Outcast London (Oxford, );
M. Harrison, Crowds and History (Cambridge, ).
43
Harrison, ‘Symbolism, ritualism and the location of crowds’, p. .
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
environment. Events such as strikes, political demonstrations and even mass
leisure activities such as football matches could transform normally peaceful
streets and alter the popular perception of particular urban spaces. This was par-
ticularly true of cities such as Liverpool in which there was a strong tradition of
sectarian division. The first decade of the twentieth century saw heightened sec-
tarian tension between the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities in
Liverpool, prompting the chief constable to comment in : ‘The long con-
tinuation of this unfortunate state of affairs has caused a setback to that improve-
ment in the peace and order of the streets . . . not only through the disturbances
themselves, but also through the danger which it has attached to otherwise
harmless street processions and demonstrations.’
44
Thus, a climate of sectarian
clashes changed the popular perception of routine processions and parades, and
created particular problems for the policing of the streets. During there
were especially severe sectarian clashes, with a total of incidents of riot
reported by the police.
45
The following year the chief constable noted the effect
such disturbances had on the social geography of the city, affecting both every-
day interaction on the streets and residential segregation:
During a period of peace from faction . . . there is more or less interchange, and
it is difficult to say definitely that the people in this street are Protestants, in that
Roman Catholics, but as soon as the disturbances break out the trek from each side
to the other begins . . . and a wavy line of demarcation shows itself, becoming
more and more definite as the disturbances continue.
46
Thus, the residential structure of the city was affected by levels of conflict
between groups and the interaction of communities on the streets. Locations
perceived to be safe during periods of sectarian peace became no-go areas as
tension rose. This process has, of course, been particularly evident in Belfast,
47
and the Liverpool chief constable regularly compared the situation on
Merseyside to that in Northern Ireland.
It seems obvious that, as the built form of the city changed and associated
levels of residential segregation increased, so the meanings attached to urban
space also altered. For those people trapped in inner-city districts which became
caught in a spiral of decline, perceptions of urban space must have changed dra-
matically from the mid-nineteenth century. Despite high-density living and
acute poverty, it is usually assumed that Victorian working-class communities
Colin G. Pooley
44
L. Dunning, Report on the Police Establishment and the State of Crime (Liverpool, ), p. .
45
L. Dunning, Report on the Police Establishment and the State of Crime (Liverpool, ). See also E.
Midwinter, ‘The sectarian troubles and the Police Inquiry of –’, in E. Midwinter, Old
Liverpool (Newton Abbot, ), pp. –.
46
L. Dunning, Report on the Police Establishment and the State of Crime (Liverpool, ), p. .
47
A. Hepburn, ‘The Catholic community of Belfast, –’, in M. Engman et al., eds., Ethnic
Identity in Urban Europe (Aldershot and New York, ), pp. –; F. Boal, ‘Territoriality and
class: a study of two residential areas in Belfast’, Irish Geography, (), –; P. Doherty,
‘Ethnic segregation levels in the Belfast urban area’, Area, (), –.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
were close knit and vibrant areas in which people had a strong sense of place
identity. This comes through strongly in Robert Roberts’ description of inner-
city Salford at the turn of the century.
48
Housing conditions may have been poor,
and poverty in some cases severe, but such working-class communities provided
security, friendship and gave real meaning to people’s lives. Even in the s
Walter Greenwood’s fictitious account of a similar area stresses that although such
areas were under increasing pressure from redevelopment and economic restruc-
turing the sense of community survived.
49
However, since the Second World
War such areas have experienced increased community disintegration, and by
the s many inner-urban residents instead of identifying strongly with their
local community have felt increasingly trapped, marginalised and threatened by
a neighbourhood which had changed dramatically. A locality which offered
security to a young man in the s may well have appeared threatening and
alien to the same man forty years later. What once was an attractive environment
is now a marginal space within a changed urban form.
The breakup of inner-city communities is the most dramatic example of areas
in which place identity and the meanings attached to space have changed over
time, but there are other locations in which similar processes have occurred. For
those who aspired to suburban living in the s, the new environment offered
many benefits. However, there were also disadvantages. For some the increased
costs of housing and commuting to work were more than they could afford and
they became victims of suburban poverty. Many women, unable to gain work
in the s, found suburban life styles tedious and lonely as they missed the
close-knit community of inner-city areas. Thus the aspirations and expectations
of suburban living were not always borne out in reality, and initial delight with
a particular environment could turn to concern and alienation as circumstances
changed.
50
The meanings attached to space have also been influenced by other changes
taking place in society. As Peter Willmott and Michael Young have shown in
their classic studies, the dominance of the nuclear family and the transference of
social life from the wider community based on the street or public house to the
home and the radio/television have also led to a changed perception of place.
Whereas in the past the street was a locale for socialising, in the later twentieth
century it has increasingly become at best an instrument for movement in and
out of communities, and at worst a perceived threat due to high levels of traffic
or fear of crime.
51
Place also means less in the twentieth century as personal
Patterns on the ground
48
R. Roberts, The Classic Slum (Manchester, ).
49
W. Greenwood, Love on the Dole (London, ).
50
Jackson, Semi-Detached London; Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work (Cambridge, ).
51
Young and Willmott, Family and Kinship; M. Young and P. Willmott, The Symmetrical Family
(London, ); M. J. Daunton, ‘Public place and private space: the Victorian city and the
working-class household’, in D. Fraser and A. Sutcliffe, eds., The Pursuit of Urban History (London,
), pp. –; S. Smith, Crime, Space and Society (Cambridge, ). See also R. Sindall, Street
Violence in the Nineteenth Century (Leicester, ).
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