Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
public parks and by 1885, nearly 25 per cent of the urban population had access to public
libraries. At the same time, informal urban recreation based on the street- and
neighbourhood-based activities largely remains invisible in documentary sources and
official records, although limited evidence exists in the form of autobiographies and oral
history. For example, R.Roberts' (1971, 1976)
The Classic Slum
observed that the pub
played a major role in informal recreation in Victorian and Edwardian Salford where a
community of 3000 people had 15 beer houses. Through sexual segregation it was
possible to observe the rise of male-only urban recreational pursuits in the 1880s. Yet the
street life and neighbourhood forms of recreation remained unorganised and informal
despite the institutionalisation, segmentation and emergence of a customer-provider
relationship in Victorian urban recreational pursuits.
THE 1920s
In Britain, the 1920s are frequently viewed as the era of mass unemployment with social
class more spatially defined in the urban environment. While the 1900s saw the rising
patronage of the cinema, with 3000 cinemas operating in Britain by 1926 and audiences
of 20 million, with many people visiting the cinemas once or twice a week, this pursuit
increasingly met the recreational needs of women as it displaced the Victorian music-
hall, being more heavily capitalised and more accessible in terms of price and social
acceptability. The ideological separation of work and home was firmly enshrined in the
1920s, with a greater physical separation and the rise of annual holidays and day trips
using charabancs and cars. Spectator sports also retained large audiences although the
social segregation of urban recreation based on social class, mass markets and
institutional provision characterised this era.
THE 1960s AND BEYOND
Clark and Crichter (1985) identified six distinct trends occurring from the 1960s on:
• rising standards of domestic consumption
• family-centred leisure
• the decline of public forms of urban leisure and recreation
• emergence of a youth culture
• the establishment of ethnic leisure and recreation culture
• increased state activity in prescribed spheres of urban recreation and a growing
commercial domination of leisure institutions and services.
This has been well reviewed in the sociological literature (see Pahl 1975).
In terms of urban recreation, various debates exist in relation to the changes induced
by a post-industrial society and the implications for urban recreation. Social theorists
point to the concomitant changes induced by economic, occupational and technological
change, associated with the demise of manufacturing and the rise of the service sector in
towns and cities, affecting the pattern of life and recreational activities of urban
populations associated with a growing polarisation of wealth and opportunity. S.Williams
