The Location of Marginalised Groups in the Inner City

Abstract

In this paper certain sociospatial processes currently affecting the evolution of the inner city are considered, namely the processes of gentrification, polarisation and marginalisation. It is argued that these processes are increasing in importance as a result of deindustrialisation, demographic trends, the activities of the state, and changes in ideology; these forces then being reflected in the operation of the housing market. Marginalised groups in urban society can be categorised through their relationships to three elements of capitalist-patriarchal control, namely economic standards, social norms, and legal codes. Constraints on the residential location and activity spaces of marginal groups are examined by means of case studies of the impoverished elderly, the lesbian community, and down-and-out groups in Paris in the 1980s.