ABSTRACT
The previous two chapters explored the residential motivations of the interviewees and considered the array of factors that compelled households to move from a particular area, alongside those factors that attracted them to a new locale. These ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors were rarely forces distinct from one another and decisions were often about rationalising the two within the confines of constraints and other individual differentials. The current chapter advances to explore the outcome, rather than the motivations, of these residential decisions (to live in the core or the suburbs). If suburbanisation is an emerging preference among some South Asians, then the degree of their success in achieving this is significant in terms of wider issues of integration, social mobility and perceptions of safety in the city. The fact that moves to the suburbs have been relatively recent for this group and are increasing raises particular questions regarding their ease in settling-in and sense of belonging, considering the difference in the social and physical environment to that of the core area. Indeed, in popular culture and literature, contrary to the inner city, the suburbs have been represented as privatised retreats representing, ‘a collective assertion of class, wealth and privilege’ (Fishman 1987: 3). The extent to which this is reflected in the reality of individual representations of life in the middleclass suburbs of Glasgow or emulated by the new suburban dwellers will be explored. In particular, we will see in this chapter how processes of belonging to the new residential area, through the meaning attached to place, are related to social identity construction and expression. Furthermore, general neighbourhood satisfaction and the impact of feeling safe and future residential aspirations will be explored.
