ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ontology or on the nature of space instead of on features of space and roles of space in explaining social facts. A segregated area in the city, as a result of immigration, is necessarily a relational space. It contains the mental spaces of both emigration and of immigration. It is at the same time a place of residence that for several possible reasons related to the segregation processes, contains the experience of spaces of origin and the spaces of arrival. The analysis of the socio-spatial structure of the city is a perfect entrance point to understand the dominance structures and to illustrate the competition processes and the internal and external processes of change. Social area analysis can be seen as a post-war attempt to overcome the flaws of the Chicago School, in particular, its lack of comparative knowledge and profusion of 'non-experimental' descriptive work.
