The changing social structure of global cities: Professionalisation, proletarianisation or polarisation

Hamnett, Chris

doi:10.1177/0042098020940556

Cited by 30 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…The 'polarisation thesis' focused on world or global cities, i.e., on the metropolitan areas that had substantially increased their role in the management of the globalising economy by providing a network of high-end producer services to transnational corporations. Hamnett (2020) provides an overview of the discussions about these approaches with a focus on the polarisation thesis. He also provides empirical evidence to support or disprove these three theses for several large cities across the world over the last 50 years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends of Social Polarisation and Segregation in Athens (1991–2011)

Μαλούτας

Botton

2021

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This article investigates social and spatial changes in the Athens metropolitan area between 1991 and 2011. The main question is whether social polarisation—and the contraction of intermediate occupational categories—unevenly developed across the city is related to the changing of segregation patterns during the examined period. We established that the working-class moved towards the middle and the middle-class moved towards the top, but the relative position of both parts did not change in the overall socio-spatial hierarchy. The broad types of socio-spatial change in Athens (driven by professionalisation, proletarianisation or polarisation) were eventually related to different spatial imprints in the city’s social geography. Broad trends identified in other cities, like the centralisation of higher occupations and the peripheralisation of poverty, were not at all present here. In Athens, changes between 1991 and 2011 can be summarised by (1) the relative stability and upward social movement of the traditional working-class and their surrounding areas, accounting for almost half of the city, (2) the expansion of traditional bourgeois strongholds to neighbouring formerly socially mixed areas—25% of the city—and their conversion to more homogeneous middle-class neighbourhoods through professionalisation, (3) the proletarianisation of 10% of the city following a course of perpetual decline in parts of the central municipality and (4) the polarisation and increased social mix of the traditional bourgeois strongholds related to the considerable inflow of poor migrants working for upper-middle-class households.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends of Social Polarisation and Segregation in Athens (1991–2011)

Μαλούτας

Botton

2021

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“…Our findings in Guangdong province therefore do not rebut the global city thesis, but are complementary, by making more nuanced observations of cities that have taken different trajectories in the globalization process. Together, they tell a contingent story in terms of how globalization process associates with the social and spatial structure and restructuring process (also see Hamnett, 2020).…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding different levels of segregation in urban China: a comparative study among 21 cities in Guangdong province

He¹,

Musterd²,

Boterman³

2021

Urban Geography

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It has been suggested that more globalized cities are more polarized and segregated than other cities. However, this is mainly evidenced by advanced capitalist cities and other selected developed cities, while less developed cities are clearly under-researched. This paper draws on both developed and less developed cities in Guangdong province, and asks how socioeconomic segregation levels differ among cities of varying economic development levels. We find that, contrary to expectation, less developed cities are showing higher levels of segregation than well-developed cities. We suggest that the key contributing factor is that the well-developed cities in Guangdong province are characterized by manufacturing-dominant economic structures and industrialization-based economic transformation. Correspondingly, their occupational structures are predominantly characterized by employees with a recent agricultural background; the restructuring process is therefore dominated by professionalization of the lower class. The stronger and faster industrialization and professionalization processes produce lower segregation levels in those more developed cities.

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“…The main global urban labour market trend is the professionalization of workforce as people living in large cities move up the occupational ladder because of significant improvements in education and skills (Hamnett, 2021;van Ham, Uesugi, Tammaru, Manley, & Janssen, 2021). However, the spatial effects of professionalization are uneven as we can observe both professionalization, polarization and proletarianization taking place in residential neighbourhoods (Maloutas & Botton, 2021).…”

Section: Conceptual Foundations Of the Vicious Circle Of Segregationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Underpinnings of Social Inequalities: A Vicious Circles of Segregation Approach

Tammaru

Knapp

Silm

et al. 2021

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A paradigm shift is taking place in spatial segregation research. At the heart of this shift is the understanding of the connectedness of spatial segregation in different life domains and the availability of new datasets that allow for more detailed studies on these connections. In this thematic issue on spatial underpinnings of social inequalities we will outline the foundations of the ‘vicious circles of segregation’ framework to shed new light on questions such as: What is the role of residential neighbourhoods in urban inequalities in contemporary cities? Have residential neighbourhoods lost their importance in structuring daily lives since important part of social interaction takes place elsewhere? How is residential segregation related to inequalities in other important life domains, in schools, at work and during leisure time? The vicious circles of segregation framework builds on the traditional approaches to spatial segregation, as well as on the emerging new research undertaken within the ‘activity space approach’ and ‘longitudinal approach’ to segregation. The articles in this thematic issue improve our understanding of how spatial segregation is transmitted from one life domain to another as people sort into residential neighbourhoods, schools, workplace and leisure time activity sites, and gain contextual effects by getting exposed to and interacting with other people in them.

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The changing social structure of global cities: Professionalisation, proletarianisation or polarisation

Cited by 30 publications

References 69 publications

Trends of Social Polarisation and Segregation in Athens (1991–2011)

Trends of Social Polarisation and Segregation in Athens (1991–2011)

Understanding different levels of segregation in urban China: a comparative study among 21 cities in Guangdong province

Spatial Underpinnings of Social Inequalities: A Vicious Circles of Segregation Approach

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