ABSTRACT
The significance of place in day-to-day living and in the quality of urban life has been of concern to geographers and other social scientists for a long time. For example, it formed the basis of much of the work of the Chicago ecologists (Park et al. 1925) (see Chapter 2). Within the context of ecological theory, such studies provided detailed descriptions of life within the city’s social areas, emphasizing their personality, way of life, and community structure. Much of the focus was upon ethnic or ‘deprived’ areas within the ‘downtown’ parts of the city (an emphasis which persists in more recent research such as the proliferation of studies of the ‘black ghetto’, see Jackson and Smith 1984). Essentially, the way of life of these communities was interpreted in terms of the local milieux which provided the basis for community and the circumstances for deprivation.
