Between Fear and Admiration.
Social and Spatial Ghettoes in an Old Industrial Region
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University of Silesia in Katowice
Publication date: 2007-09-18
Polish Sociological Review 2007;159(3):299-320
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ABSTRACT
More and more frequently a notion of space ghettoization is used to describe a phenomenon of
dividing urban space into various enclaves of social life—or socially isolated worlds. Ghettoization that we
describe results from various social processes which are increasingly reflected in urban space. It results
from differences in the economic standard of inhabitants of given areas (riches–poverty) There is one more
criterion, very important if we view the case from a profoundly humanistic perspective—the criterion of
social emotions accompanying urban space. This justifies the title of this article.
Today’s ghettoes may result from relatively automatic choices (lifestyles) and relatively objective
processes—marginalization. We will try to make a general outline of the problems of ghettoization in
a traditional industrial region, namely in Upper Silesia, related to diversification of income as well as the
aesthetic and architectonic and urban criteria.