Is where you live very socio-economically polarised?

[UnquietDad]

What I mean is, are there "good" areas and "bad" areas which everyone automatically recognises in your city/town/suburb/village, or is it much of a muchness? Are there certain areas where "professional" classes wouldn't live if you paid them?

I live in one of the UK's biggest cities and it's always amazed me that somewhere can be so "ghetto-ised" in the 21st century. Even if you hate to stereotype, you can often work out which part of the city (broadly) somebody lives in just by knowing a little information about their family, work etc - often just by hearing them speak, if I'm honest. And if that sounds awfully snobbish, it's not meant to - it's just that the vast majority of the "southerners" who have come here for work, usually professionals, all clump together in the one tight corner of the city where the house prices are at their most stand-up comedy and the schools are at their most "desirable". There seems to be little attempt, or need, or desire, for social integration.

Racially, too, it's very segregated - there is a big Chinese community, almost all in one area, and a big Asian community, again almost all in one area. I was looking around the other day while waiting outside DD's school and it struck me for the first time that it is 100% white.

We often get letters in the paper about how the better-off areas are losing out because they are not eligible for extra funding, are not the Council's priority, etc. etc. These really wind me up. There was one the other day about a park needing new equipment. Yes, it's a crying shame that there is a park in one of the most sought-after areas of the city where the equipment is falling to bits, and yes, it probably isn't top of the Council's list to get it fixed. The REAL scandal is the fact that such disparities exist between diferent parts of the city in the first place - you don't see people from the better-off areas writing in to decry that, and offering to spread a bit of their wealth around. It would be nice if they expressed such concern when it came to the differences in standards of the various schools across the city, or the higher insurance paid by people in less "safe" areas. But no.

Sorry to go on a bit. I imagine this will attract views...

Ah, Liverpool... always thought it was totally unbelievable that Max and Patricia Farnham in "Brookside" lived on the same street as people like the Corkhills!

That is shocking fullmoonfiend, although it doesn't surprise me. A few years ago I had to travel up to a well known seaside town up north to give a presentation, I was wandering down the high street looking for the venue I was supposed to be at when this woman came running out and said "Are you nogoes from X company". I asked her how she knew and she said "Oh you stick out like a sore thumb in that suit it is so obvious that you are not from around here".

I live in a small town which is fairly affluent and very middle class there are poorer areas but the poorer pockets are mixed in with the rest of the town so there is a not a 'bad area' as such. This is in contrast to the town I grew up in where there are definitely areas which are considered 'undesirable' I grew up in one of the 'undesirable' areas and when I started work I was shocked by peoples perceptions of people from these areas. I suspect that many people are discriminated against in the employment process because of the area they live in or school they attended.

I think local reasonably well-off people in our neighbourhood, who can't afford school fees, generally move away.

But our area is particularly difficult because the vast majority of the kids in the public school system are Bengali. So in primary school, a lot of the teacher's attention is devoted to getting their english up to scratch. And as time goes on, the non-Muslim kids feel more and more excluded, as the Muslim kids won't come to non-Muslim houses, and won't invite the non-Muslim kids to theirs.

You're right, though, there are quite a few people who are reasonably well off, but can't afford private school fees.

Lol actually our road is quite diverse because these houses 5 years ago were really cheap and the people who lived in them were either old working class people who'd lived here for ever or young couples people at the lower end of the housing market whereas now there is a huge mix which is nice. This is shown by the type of parents at the school gates too there is a huge socio-economic range and it's racially diverse as well which imo is a good thing.

I live in Sheffield-most polarised city in UK. The south west is very wealthy (2nd richest area outside London) and the rest of the city is nothing like that.
The south west is massively overpopulated, with houses been built in back gardens etc, as the area cannot expand due to green belt.
House prices are through the roof. When I was little it was just another part of the city, but now the city is completely polarised.

I used to live in a suburb of a small city and that suburb was the only place to live if you were a professional. Then there was the definite no-go part of the city and then there were parts that were inbetween.

Such a small, densely populated city, with the coast on one side, meant that day-to-day everyone rubs shoulders with everyone else. None of the schools, except the COE and Catholic school, are considered desirable. Being the expensive SE, the margin between house prices in the desirable and no-go areas weren't that high!

I now live in a village which has a mixed population. The village has recently become an overspill from the more desirable but more expensive neighbouring village/town, so I suspect it will be less mixed in years to come. A lot of people have lived here 10 or 20 years and if they were starting out again, with the same jobs and salaries, they wouldn't be able to afford a house here.

Currently though, saying to people I live in XX village doesn't say a lot about me and my DH.

You must have some awareness fiofio?! I didn't think it was possible not to notice how "nice" or "rough" your area was. You must at least have noticed if it has good schools and children's playgrounds? Nice delis or Lidl?

Living on a RAF base is incredibly polarised! It feels like a completely artificial environment. I'm not knocking it as the schools are good but they should be - they are well funded, the local amentites are fantastic and cheap, within a 2 minute walk of my house I have access to a Preschool, creche, primary school, softplay area, supermarket, 2 banks, post office, bookshop, 3 coffee shops, theatre, cinema, swimming pool. That's without mentioning all the clubs that are available - it's like living in Toy town!

fizzbuzz - me too.
Hallam is meant to be the constituency with the highest concentration of "professionals" in the country, isn't it? And Attercliffe is the one with the lowest number of qualifications per head.

Where I live is fairly polarised, and what is interesting is that although many middle class people are technically priced out of the better areas, they would rather live in a flat in the better school catchments than live in a house for the same value in an area perceived to be rough.

The bad areas round here are probably much worse than a lot of parts of the country (the Jamine Allen estate on the Bill was filmed round here before it was knocked down). The sink schools are real sink schools and the crime is pretty bad. I would rather emigrate than live in a bad area round here.

I think this is linked to fear and a breakdown of community. I think people have got more scared of criminals and crimes/ASBO behaviour. I'm not saying this is right - it might be totally mistaken. But in place of a sense of community is left a desire to live in a safe, respectable place.

notasheep - what country do you live in then? am intrigued...

UQ, didn't realise Hallam had highest number of professionals, although I knew it was rich.The area richer than Hallam is Cheshire, Alderley Edge, Wilmslow and all that.
Have to say grew up in Hallam area, and resettled there after uni... but DEFINITELY not rich..... Just don't get me started on the traffic...only city in Western europe without a ring road...rant...rant

LOL! Our road - never mind our locality - has a mixture of council hostels, council housing, single-professional flats in converted housing and big houses, housing at least some people on the much discussed City salaries! The high street is busy with crack and skunk dealers - and the primary school closest to the high st is in the 'top 100 schools' table. Or was last year - and has been written about in the press for the amount of 'catchment house-buying' that goes on to get into it. What we don't have are many from the 'green-wellied-land-rover-driving-yummy-mummy-Boden-wearing' stereotyped class. They are all in the next two areas to the East! Amongst their own kind with little diversity.

But my immediate area is a very london phenomenum...and has a lot to do with house prices.

yes, our area in London (Camden) was very mixed, although some areas of it were poorer than others. One street could be very different to the next one and it meant thatin theory state schools should have a mixed intake - although with one of the highest percentage of private school attendance, this wasn't always very apparent.
I have only recently moved to a new city and already know just from talking to estate agents (and from comparing house prices in the different areas) which are considered the "nice" and "rough" areas. Having said that, the street I live in has a couple of half-way houses and a block of flats and probably can't be categorised very easily.

Where we live is very much white middle class.It is a tiny village & the community consists of old farmimg families,who have been here for generations,fairly well off working families & retired people.

There are no rough areas,but on the minus side,we have no facilities,unless you count the pub,church,village hall & 4 street lights.

jampots... shire starts with a w maybe?

I live in Royal Tunbridge Wells. The majority have garages bigger than my rented council house.
I was born here though and I love it.
Theres are areas that have names.
But its a few familys that ruin those places for the majority ofnormal hard working familys.
I must say there IS money ploughed in around here, but its like a bottomless pit, and some people with never change. Regardless of the facilitys put in place.

Where I live - Bristol so big town, I would say is very polarised in some parts. House prices in clifton for example are much much higher than somewhere like Easton. There are definately places where the 'rich' live and some places definately have higher proportions of ethnic minorities. For example where I live has a much higher asian/indian population than other areas.

What annoys me though is people's perceptions of certain areas, when they actually don't know anything about it because of the house prices or the type of shops and that they will categorise the people that live there because of it. That makes me very . There is snobbery by some cos of where you live. When I mention where I live some people have that 'look' on their face, however if I mentioned where I grew up instead (in a posh part of town) their reaction is different. Am I a different person between these tow?

Do you think it will ever change though?

am very tired, not sure if that all made sense [blsuh]

oh ffs

Like the other Londoners, our area is very mixed, though generally regarded pretty much as a synonym for urban deprivation. But there are lots of professional and arty people too, generally in the nice Victorian terraces rather than the council estates. But in London the two are so closely interspersed that you don't get the 'sharp intake of breath' syndrome when you say your address.

Unlike NQC I do know plenty of middle-class people who use state schools, both in her borough and in ours (which is the neighbouring one). Some go state because they couldn't afford private but there are others who easily could but choose not to. What you tend to find is that certain schools become regarded as 'better' and those parents who value education tend to cluster around those schools. But even so the classes will contain the most amazing mixture of kids. I remember dd1 coming home in Reception or Y1 talking about her classmates, "Mummy, Maisie's Dad is a po-li-ti-cal e-di-tor, he goes on telly." And then the following week: "Jacie's dad doesn't live with her because he's in prison because he killed someone with a gun. And her mum's in prison too, because she sells drugs. What's drugs, Mummy?"

I think that qualifies as a socio-economically polarised area, no?

no, frogs, sounds a very socially mixed area! A healthy does of social crunchiness - quite the opposite of what I and others have described.

Interested in what you say about Sheffield, Unquiet and fizzbuzz - I didn't realise it was still that polarised (went to school there in the 80s).