ABSTRACT
There are a number of initial points to make about the built environment, some of them summed up succinctly in this quotation from three of the pioneers of urban analysis. First its ‘mix’ and distributional pattern are allpervasively important to the quality of our lives – collectively and individually. These characteristics are fashioned and constantly transformed by purposeful human action and, in turn, they fashion and transform people. The differences in the quality of urban environments are shown in Chapter 2. The degree of segregation of different qualities and tenure-forms of housing and the extent to which ‘up-market’ and ‘down-market’ areas are spatially differentiated contribute to the imaging of the social hierarchy and the self-imaging of one’s place within it. Those who doubt this should read about the incredible saga of the wall built by owner occupiers in a suburb of Oxford in the 1930s to separate themselves off from the adjacent council estate (Collison, 1963).
