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Social Class and the New Towns

Sociology, North Western Polytechnic, London

The New Towns were designed to avoid mainly working class housing and aimed to bring the social classes together in 'balanced' towns and to achieve actual social mixing at neighbourhood level. In the controversy about changes in social stratification, in particular the so called embourgeoisement of the working class, the New Towns have been held up as models in which this process is at work.

This paper examines the occupational class structures of New Towns, in particular Crawley New Town, in the light of such policies. A considerable degree of class balance has been achieved in the town as a whole but neighbourhoods have begun to take on distinctive class characteristics. However, the evidence as a whole does not justify the indiscriminate use of New Towns as 'models' for changes in the class structure. Finally, changes in policy in the New Towns are discussed in terms of the theory that British town planning is characterised by an 'adaptive mechanism' which facilitates such changes.

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