Social Capital and the Formation of London's Middle Classes

In this chapter, I discuss the issue of social capital in the context of the spread of gentrification across inner London in recent decades drawing on recent empirical research (Butler with Robson 2003a). ¹ In particular, I wish to show how space is actively used by middle class people – who are only relatively and not absolutely advantaged – to make new communities in the city. In different areas of the city, they create new 'habituses' through different strategies towards the area and its existing inhabitants. Thus, I show that social capital is not simply deployed to fill 'empty spaces' but rather to create new social spaces, by imposing new social boundaries with respect to the existing inhabitants of those areas. This is, I wish to suggest, a more satisfactory way – theoretically, methodologically and empirically – of looking at gentrification and its 'others' than its usual coupling with replacement or displacement (Atkinson 2001).