ABSTRACT
CHAPTER TEN SOCIAL RELATIONS, RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION AND THE HOME PETER WILLIAMS
Whatever the country it would seem most people are acutely aware of the social divisions within their society. The terms may vary (as between class, income, owners/non-owners) but the sense of social groupings and social divides comes through clearly. Nowhere is this more apparent than in discussions of residential areas. The residents of any town or city have a well formed awareness of the status of any area reflecting the types of housing and their occupants. Again the no menclature may vary but posh, mixed, up and coming, downmarket, exclusive and desirable are just some of the many adjectives used to denote social status and social trajectory. Amateur sociologists and social geographers abound, yet whilst we all may have an intuitive grasp of the complex strati fication of space, detailed understanding of the way this has come about, and more generally the way social relations in total are played out in space is remarkably limited. Academic research may have pointed to the patterns which result and their regularity between different cities and cul tures, but our comprehension of how these patterns evolve and change is weak, and our understanding of the way social relations are composed and contextualised in space (Thrift 1983) is at best rudimentary.
