ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights some of the processes which shape the social characteristics of place, noting the impacts of media stigmatization, discrimination in the housing market, institutional prejudice, and Not in my backyard (NIMBY) politics. It suggests that these processes segregate the powerful and the less powerful, with the former tending to include wealthy, white men. NIMBY protests are locally organized campaigns opposing a locally unwanted land use, whether an industrial installation, human service facility or new housing. The widespread media interest in the unveiling of Mark Quinn’s sculpture of limbless artist Alison Lapper in London’s Trafalgar Square suggests the disabled body is still widely regarded as anomalous when encountered in many social places. One of the key ways in which social relations can be expressed, maintained and reified is through the creation of exclusionary places. Class-based perspectives suggest the upper classes possess the power to create places, reproducing their wealth and affluence in the process.
