ABSTRACT
Riding a swelling tide of research demonstrating the significance of place for understanding class. This chapter explores all of this by zooming in on three contrasting residential areas of Bristol and unpacking a little bit of what makes them what they are and what it is like to live there. The first, Lockleaze, scores highly on just about every index of deprivation, while the second, Redland, is generally a locale of the affluent and educated; Southville and Bedminster, two conjoined neighbourhoods making up the third zone in focus, are deep in the throes of gentrification. Redland is an old housing area, having nineteenth-century origins, and, as is apparent from the size and splendour of its buildings and streets, was built not for dockers and factory hands but merchants and professionals. Southville and Bedminster sit on the southern bank of the River Avon, to the west of Bristol and close to the city centre.
