An Intensifying and Elite City: New Geographies of Social Class and Inequality in Contemporary London

Cunningham, N.; Savage, M.

doi:10.1080/13604813.2016.1263490

An Intensifying and Elite City: New Geographies of Social Class and Inequality in Contemporary London

Cunningham, N.; Savage, M.

Authors

N. Cunningham

M. Savage

Abstract

This paper contributes to the debate on London’s social class structure at the start of the 21st century. That debate has focused on the use of census metrics to argue the case for whether or not the capital has become more or less middle class in composition between 2001 and 2011. We contend that the definition of the middle class has become confused in the course of this debate and is of less critical importance for an understanding of the city’s contemporary class structure than is a focus on London’s elite. We make use of data from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey (GBCS) to shed light on the social, cultural and economic resources of this group, in addition to their spatial location. We then return to the census data for 2001 and 2011 and posit that belying the image of stability in London’s class structure these data suggest clear and localised patterns of intensification in class geographies across the capital, an intensification characterised by a growing cleavage between Inner and Outer London.

Citation

Cunningham, N., & Savage, M. (2017). An Intensifying and Elite City: New Geographies of Social Class and Inequality in Contemporary London. City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 21(1), 25-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2016.1263490

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 4, 2016
Online Publication Date	Mar 6, 2017
Publication Date	Mar 6, 2017
Deposit Date	Nov 7, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Sep 6, 2018
Journal	City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action
Print ISSN	1360-4813
Electronic ISSN	1470-3629
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	21
Issue	1
Pages	25-46
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2016.1263490

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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in City on 06/03/2017, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13604813.2016.1263490.