Differentiation of lifestyles: New challenges to social geography in urban research

Social area analysis has a long-standing history in urban geography. Most studies are based on indicators such as income, education and status to measure segregation. They employ class concepts to distinguish urban social areas. However, class concepts have recently come under debate due to the emergence of lifestyle theories. It is argued that a renewed urban social geography should give more consideration to cultural and symbolic differentiations than traditional social area analysis would suggest.