Spatial And Social Disparities

Inequality is one of the major problems of the contemporary world. Significant geographical disparities exist within nations of the developed world, as well as between these countries and those referred to as the ‘South’ in the Bruntland Report. Issues of equity and deprivation must be addressed in view of sustainable development. However, before policymakers can remove the obstacles to a fairer world, it is essential to understand the nature of inequality, both in terms of its spatial and socio-demographic characteristics. This second volume in the series contains population studies that examine the disparities evident across geographical space in the UK and between different individuals or groups. Topics include demographic and social change, deprivation, happiness, cultural consumption, ethnicity, gender, employment, health, religion, education and social values. These topics and the relationships between them are explored using secondary data from censuses, surveys or administrative records. In volume 1 the findings of research on fertility, living arrangements, care and mobility are examined. Volume 3 will focus on ethnicity and integration.

This work aims to provide unique insights into the multidisciplinary research on spatial disparities from an unconventional point of view. It breaks with the conventional narrative that tends to interpret this theoretical tradition as a series of factual contributions to a better understanding of the issue. Instead, related theories are investigated in their political, economic, and social contexts, and spatial disparity research is presented as a political discourse. It also reveals how the propagandistic problematization or de-problematization of geographical inequalities serves the substantiation of political goals, while taking advantage of the legitimate authority of science and the image of scientific objectivity. The book explains how the discourse has functioned from 19th century social physics over the Cold War period up to Marxist geographies of the current neoliberal age, and in what way and to what extent political considerations prevent related concepts producing ‘objective’ knowledge about the complex phenomenon of spatial inequalities.

2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Sociologists have too often discounted the role of space in inequality. This book showcases a recent generation of inquiry that attends to poverty, prosperity, and power across a range of territories and their populations within the United States, addressing spatial inequality as a thematically distinct body of work that spans sociological research traditions. The contributors' various perspectives offer an agenda for future action to bridge sociology's diverse and often narrowly focused spatial and inequality traditions.

What exactly is spatial inequality? Why does it matter? And what should be the policy response to it? These questions have become important in recent years as the spatial dimensions of inequality have begun to attract considerable policy interest. In China, Russia, India, Mexico, and South Africa, as well as most other developing and transition economies, spatial and regional inequality - of economic activity, incomes, and social indicators - is on the increase. Spatial inequality is a dimension of overall inequality, but it has added significance when spatial and regional divisions align with political and ethnic tensions to undermine social and political stability. Also important in the policy debate is a perceived sense that increasing internal spatial inequality is related to greater openness of economies, and to globalization in general. Despite these important concerns, there is remarkably little systematic documentation of what has happened to spatial and regional inequality over the last twenty years. Correspondingly, there is insufficient understanding of the determinants of internal spatial inequality. This volume attempts to answer the questions posed above, drawing on data from twenty-five countries from all regions of the world. They bring together perspectives and expertise in development economics and in economic geography and form a well-researched introduction to an area of growing analytical and policy importance.

The neighborhoods and the biophysical, political, and cultural environments all play a key role in affecting health outcomes of individuals. Unequal spatial distribution of resources such as clinics, hospitals, public transportation, fresh food markets, and schools could make some communities as a whole more vulnerable and less resilient to adverse health effects. This somber reality suggests that it is rather the question of "who you are depends upon where you are" and the fact that health inequality is both a people and a place concern. That is why health inequality needs to be investigated in a spatial setting to deepen our understanding of why and how some geographical areas experience poorer health than others. This book introduces how spatial context shapes health inequalities. Spatial Health Inequalities: Adapting GIS Tools and Data Analysis demonstrates the spatial health inequalities in six most important topics in environmental and public health, including food insecurity, birth health outcomes, infectious diseases, children’s lead poisoning, chronic diseases, and health care access. These are the topics that the author has done extensive research on and provides a detailed description of the topic from a global perspective. Each chapter identifies relevant data and data sources, discusses key literature on appropriate techniques, and then illustrates with real data with mapping and GIS techniques. This is a unique book for students, geographers, clinicians, health and research professionals and community members interested in applying GIS and spatial analysis to the study of health inequalities.

This open access book investigates the link between income inequality and socio-economic residential segregation in 24 large urban regions in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. It offers a unique global overview of segregation trends based on case studies by local author teams. The book shows important global trends in segregation, and proposes a Global Segregation Thesis. Rising inequalities lead to rising levels of socio-economic segregation almost everywhere in the world. Levels of inequality and segregation are higher in cities in lower income countries, but the growth in inequality and segregation is faster in cities in high-income countries. This is causing convergence of segregation trends. Professionalisation of the workforce is leading to changing residential patterns. High-income workers are moving to city centres or to attractive coastal areas and gated communities, while poverty is increasingly suburbanising. As a result, the urban geography of inequality changes faster and is more pronounced than changes in segregation levels. Rising levels of inequality and segregation pose huge challenges for the future social sustainability of cities, as cities are no longer places of opportunities for all.

The book explores social inclusion/exclusion from a socio-spatial perspective, highlighting the active role that space assumes in shaping social phenomena. Unlike similar books, it does not discuss exclusion and inclusion in particular geographical contexts, but instead explains these phenomena starting from the dense and complex set of relationships that links society and space. It particularly focuses on social differences and how the processes of exclusion and inclusion can produce a highly spatialized understanding of them, for example when particular groups of people are perceived as being out of place. At the same time, within the context of the different approaches that policies adopt to contrast the phenomena of social exclusion, it examines the role of participation as an instrument to promote bottom-up inclusion and cohesion processes.

The theme of this volume is ethnicity and the implications for integration of our increasingly ethnically diversified population. New research findings from a range of census, survey and administrative data sources are presented, and case studies are included.