CLASS PLACES AND PLACE CLASSES Geodemographics and the spatialization of class

Parker, Simon; Uprichard, Emma; Burrows, Roger

doi:10.1080/13691180701751122

Cited by 46 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The Mosaic system on the other hand, groups the very wealthy together under the auspices of the 'Alpha Territory' of which there are considered to be four distinct types: 'Global Power Brokers'; 'Voices of Authority'; 'Business Class'; and 'Serious Money'. Although such labels may also not always be to the taste of social scientific sensibilities the descriptions of the statistical clusters upon which they are based have often been found to correspond extremely well with more ethnographic descriptions of the neighbourhoods they seek to describe (Butler with Robson, 2003;Parker et al, 2007;Savage et al, 2005).…”

Section: Understanding Geodemographic Classificationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As we have already noted, one of the most popular of these, the annual World Wealth Reports (Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management, 2015), calculates that in 2014 there were some 14.6 million HNWIs distributed around the globe. Of these 14.6 million: 90 per cent held assets of between $1m and $5m; 9 per cent held assets of between $5m and $30m; and just 1 per cent (some 133,300) held assets of $30m or more (Burrows, 2016) recent empirical work on the middle classes in relation to what has come to be termed the 'spatialisation of class' (Parker et al, 2007;Savage et al, 2005). Parker et al (2007: 904) observe that one might expect that that this notion of social class as an increasingly spatialised phenomena would derive from a sociological lineage that begins with the Chicago school of urban ecology (Park et al 1925) and then tracks through the aforementioned urban sociology of Rex and Moore (1967) and other work by Pahl (1970), on 'housing classes'.…”

Section: Placing the Global Super-richmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Welcome to ‘Pikettyville’? Mapping London’s alpha territories

Burrows

Webber

Atkinson

2017

The Sociological Review

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This paper considers the influence of the burgeoning global ‘super-rich’ on contemporary socio-spatialization processes in London in the light of a contemporary re-reading of Pahl’s classic volume, Whose City? It explores if a turn to ‘big data’ – in the form of commercial geodemographic classifications – can offer any additional insights to a sociological approach to the study of the ‘super-rich’ that extends the ‘spatialization of class’ thesis further ‘up’ the class structure.

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Section: Understanding Geodemographic Classificationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Placing the Global Super-richmentioning

confidence: 99%

Welcome to ‘Pikettyville’? Mapping London’s alpha territories

Burrows

Webber

Atkinson

2017

The Sociological Review

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“…It tried to capture the change happening in these areas, following a 'spatialization of class' approach (Burrows and Gane, 2006;Parker et al, 2007;Savage et al, 2005;Baque, Bridge et al, 2015), and to assess the impact of the huge flows of global financial capital on these neighbourhoods, their inhabitants and communities.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendering the elites: an ethnographic approach to elite women's lives and the re-production of inequality

Glucksberg¹

2016

Preprint

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Transfers between generations are a key driver of social and economic inequalities, ensuring that wealth is not redistributed, but accumulated instead in the hands of a small elite, sometimes described as 'the super-rich'. It is crucial to understand how this accumulated capital is socialized and passed down the generations through a labour that I argue is gendered in nature, heavily reliant on women, and currently under-researched. In this paper I address this gap ethnographically, focusing on the gendered labour that women perform to sustain and reproduce the dynastic projects of elite families. I compare and contrast the symbolically distant categories of mothers/wives (Ostrander 1984) and "girls" -young women who socialize on the VIP scene, as defined by Mears (2015). Both groups involve biologically female bodies deeply involved in the reproduction of elites but the categories they inhabit, the selves that are both ascribed to them and which they choose to present could not be any more different. In light of this data, elite London emerges as a social space structured around strong hierarchies not just of class but also gender. I therefore argue that it is essential to understand more about the interplay of these two structuring principles within elite spaces, focusing on the 'invisible' labour performed by elite women.

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“…The four most prestigious of these types 1 are collectively labelled the Alpha Territory -and are defined as 'groups of people with substantial wealth who live in the most sought after neighbourhoods in the UK'. Although such labels may not always be to the taste of all social scientific sensibilities the veracity of the statistical clusters upon which they are based have been found to correspond closely with the descriptions of neighbourhoods developed within ethnographic studies (Parker et al, 2007).…”

Section: Wealthy Elites In Contemporary Londonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life in an Alpha Territory: Discontinuity and conflict in an elite London ‘village’

Webber

Burrows

2016

Urban Studies

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This paper forms part of a larger study of the social implications of London becoming the location of choice for the global 'super-rich'. The study examines how members of new wealth elites organise their day-to-day activities and the impact their growing numbers have on the prestigious neighbourhoods from which they are displacing pre-existing elites, and the disruptive effect they have on previously taken-for-granted mores, networks and places of association. The aim of the paper is to situate this wider study within a geographic and historical context by framing it within the arguments of Piketty, namely that increased levels of inequality since 1980 are best understood not as a secular trend but as signifying a return to the pre-existing conditions that characterised western society prior to 1914. To analyse the evolution of -what geodemographers have termed -the Alpha Territory in London over a period of 500 years the paper takes Highgate Village as a case study area, identities the manner in which the Village's varied housing stock appeals to different manifestations of this Alpha Territory and uses three recent planning disputes to bring to the surface otherwise hidden conflicts between the interests of global capital and the defenders of more traditional elite values. Returning to the issues raised by Piketty the paper concludes with an analysis of social change through the use of archive material which enables the lifestyles of those who currently occupy Highgate's most prestigious properties to be compared with those who occupied them a hundred years ago.

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CLASS PLACES AND PLACE CLASSES Geodemographics and the spatialization of class

Cited by 46 publications

References 16 publications

Welcome to ‘Pikettyville’? Mapping London’s alpha territories

Welcome to ‘Pikettyville’? Mapping London’s alpha territories

Gendering the elites: an ethnographic approach to elite women's lives and the re-production of inequality

Life in an Alpha Territory: Discontinuity and conflict in an elite London ‘village’

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