Researching social relations in urban environments

Yesterday to Manchester for a workshop on reseaching social relations in urban environments, I got to hear three nicely judged and matched presentations about how people relate to their neighbourhoods and how the notion of neighbourhood is constructed.

If you go to the link above you can follow through to some of the work discussed. While the meeting was mainly about methods, it's interesting to think about two points that came across from the research that was described -

From Mags Adams ('Sensory Urbanism: sensewalking as a methodological device') and Andrew Clarke ('Understanding community through mobile interviews and participatory mapping') I learn that people do not separate the physical environment from the social when they speak about their neighbourhoods. (Well, I could have told you that, but it's good to have the research to back it up).

Meanwhile from Roger Burrows (talking about 'Life in Coded Spaces?') I learned, if I have this right, that there are externally applied systems (geodemograohic systems) that are not simply objective, but in some way invasive and distort the social while describing it. (So a bit like humans really). Fascinating stuff, I left wanting more.