ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an evidence regarding the patterns, level and trends of residential segregation in Athens, in terms of class and ethnicity, based on census data. Explanations of these patterns, level and trends which largely contradict the expectations according to dominant theories of socio-spatial polarization sought in the changing local labor market profile, residual welfare state especially in housing provision, the broader welfare system involving a crucial role for families and their networks and built environment in terms of specific housing forms and property structures that dominate in the city's land and housing markets. Segregation in Athens developed within urban context that has ethno-racially diversified only in the last 20 years; a context characterized by substantial social mobility that declined in 1990s and remained severely checked since the end of the twentieth century and by a non-polarized social structure reproduced by family-centered welfare system. There is no reliable empirical evidence, at present, concerning the trend of ethno-racial segregation in Athens.
