Atkinson, R. (2015) Limited exposure: Social concealment, mobility and engagement with public space by the super-rich in London. Environment and Planning A. ISSN 0308-518X
Abstract
How do the wealthiest inhabitants in one of the world’s wealthiest cities engage with public settings? Certainly, public concern about social and spatial divisions resulting from gross inequalities has not been matched by empirical research into the flows and social repertoires of the very wealthy. This article presents research examining the place and impact of the super-rich on London and considers how this group relates to its others, how they traverse urban spaces and their feelings about the value and relative dangers of the city. The impression derived from this investigation is of a group able to use residential locational choices and choreographed mobilities as strategies to avoid negative aspects of daily life in the city (visible poverty, potential danger, spaces of social and ethnic difference). Yet despite these strategies of selective engagement, it is also possible to identify a celebration of London as a safe and cosmopolitan urban field in which cultural institutions and commercial districts allow what is nevertheless a socially delimited range of interactions. The city allows the very wealthy to experience London as a democratic and welcoming space underwritten by high levels of domestic security, spatial divisions/buffers and public–private security apparatuses that facilitate their relative invisibility and safety. The wealthy take on a cloaked co-presence that prevents the need for disagreeable encounters with poverty, facilitated by the built structures and networks of the city.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Segregation; super-rich; mobilities; London |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Urban Studies & Planning (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 Jul 2015 10:38 |
Last Modified: | 26 Feb 2016 11:21 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518X15598323 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0308518X15598323 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:87908 |