Disparity and diversity in the contemporary city: social (dis)order revisited¹

When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination – indeed, everything and anything except me. Scholars of the city have long interpreted signs of disorder in public spaces in ways that constitute powerful forces of social differentiation. From observers of London in the 1800s such as Charles Booth (1889) and Henry Mayhew (1862), to authors of modern classics such as Jane Jacobs's (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, to present day concerns over ‘broken windows’ and crime, signs of disorder – especially when linked to the poor – have been viewed as central to understanding city life. By social disorder, observers commonly mean behaviour involving strangers and considered potentially threatening, such as verbal harassment on the street, open solicitation for prostitution, public intoxication and rowdy groups of young males in public. Traditional conceptions of physical disorder typically refer to markers such as graffiti on buildings, abandoned cars, garbage in the streets and the proverbial broken window. Booth's detailed investigations and resulting maps of Victorian London served as an early illustration of disorder's role in the social ranking of places. His painstaking portrayal of this great city included colour codes for the economic and social make-up of its many streets (LSE 2008). The lowest classes, coded in black, were described as not just poor but living in ‘squalor’ with public displays of alcoholism. Expressing a view that many today probably still hold (if silently), Booth unabashedly labelled the lowest-class category as ‘vicious, semi criminal,’ with the lowest grade ‘inhabited principally by occasional labourers, loafers and semi-criminals – the elements of disorder’ (Pfautz 1967:191). What Booth thus accomplished was a merger of ecological classification and spatial difference with a subtle yet potent moral evaluation based on behaviour, what might be considered the precursor to contemporary notions of the ‘underclass’. This was a consequential intellectual move, for the designation of areas as disreputable and disordered, as I shall argue, can set in motion long-term processes that reinforce the initial stigmatized state and thereby contribute to the social reproduction of inequality. The relative stability of concentrated disadvantage is a rather remarkable and surprising phenomenon. In 2006 The Economist provided intriguing examples of the similar nature of neighbourhoods in London from Booth's day to the present, even at a micro ecological level. Figure I reproduces a map of a section of the Chelsea neighbourhood, comparing 1898 with 2001 on the dimension of residential wealth. There is evidence of change, of course, with a general upgrading along the southernmost edge of the neighbourhood and on the west. We also know that cultural changes swept through the area, especially during the swinging sixties replete with Mick Jagger in tow. As The Economist notes, today Booth would notice designer clothing shops and a high concentration of Porches and BMWs (Economist 2006b). Yet considering the gap of over a century, one would not have gone wrong predicting that pockets of poverty in the area bounded roughly by Fulham, Sloane and Cale streets would remain robust. ‘Evil looking drink-sodden old Irish women’ (Economist 2006b:52) have been replaced by the merely down and out or struggling. Chelsea, London: Across a century Source: ©The Economist Newspaper Limited, London (May 4, 2006) Seven years later, I set out on October 19, 2008 to observe Chelsea myself and update Figure I. Camera in hand, I took note of the internal differentiation of the area. Consistent with Figure I, there was a ‘middling’ character and evidence of graffiti on the interior streets (II, III; all photos by author), and on one transitional street I spotted an abandoned car door and litter near a sharp Mercedes Benz (Figure IV). Although a poster outside the police station across the street boasted that crime was down (Figure V), I came across a car metres away that had just been broken into on the driver's side (Figure VI). But there was clear evidence of gentrification in the neighbourhood (e.g., see Figure VII) and near Fulham Road I observed all the trappings of wealth in the form of chic shopping outlets with apparently well-to-do shoppers stocking up to the point of needing assistance (Figure VIII) and posh residences replete with BMWs lined up in front (Figure IX). Chelsea side street of ‘middling’ character Graffiti on drab building Abandoned car part and litter by a Mercedes across from police station entrance ‘Street Crime Down’ figures, posted outside Chelsea Police Station Just metres away, a freshly broken into car Gentrification in action on other side of building with graffiti Shopper emerging with bounty of goods from Ralph Lauren Upmarket residences a block away on other side of Fulham Road Moving south of the Thames to Stockwell and nearby Brixton lie some of the most racially mixed neighbourhoods in London. 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