ABSTRACT
Wealthy inner city centres and poor suburban ghettos exist irrespective of whether we study smaller urban areas in Sweden and Portugal or Megacities in the United States and Japan, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we have got a society where, no matter whether they are defined on economic, social, ethnic or demographic principles, different groups of people tend to gather in different housing estates without contact with one another. In some cases it is only a street that separates them. Are strictly segregated cities a reality that we must accept? Is a new form of urban periphery emerging that differs from the periphery we experience and attempt to combat in many rural areas?
