People, spaces and places - The Visualization of Spatial Social Structure - page 57

Space and place is not enough. Just as the constraints of space are as important
as those of time, without reintroducing time we only see a very partial picture,
a snapshot. The detailed spatial structure to social life takes time to form and is
deformed in time. 15
Neighbourhoods are areas that have a spatial identity, just as a generation
has a temporal identity. Without an identity the cohort in time is like the locality
in space. People who live at the same time will more often live comparable lives
of comparable quality, far more so for people who live at the same time and
in the same places. These three-dimensional spacetime pockets of existence are
the level of containment with which this topic ends. They can be delimited by
neighbourhoods and generations, bounded by a few hundred people and a few
dozen years.
A history and geography of modern Britain, one that tries to tell the story
of its entire people, would need as its building blocks sources that include most
people. It is useful to base such a story around the concept of slowly changing,
but ever changing, communities, 16 the definition of a community being a group
of people with whom you share both space (locality) and time (cohort).
Localities are influenced by (and influence) other localities, just as cohorts
are influenced by, and in turn influence, other cohorts. Cohorts are arranged in
generations and locality in neighbourhoods, and together their intersection is a
community. Every single person's community (locality and cohort combined) is
unique to them, never quite perfectly overlapping anyone else's, most completely
overlapping those with whom they share the most space and time. Every person's
precise generation is unique to them, but is most similar to those with whom they
share the most time, the same precise address and rough locality. The community
spacetime bubbles within which we all fit all influence one another - but some
far more than others. 17
The definition of social structures in time is much less clear-cut than the
definition in space. Communities merge into one another, evolve and - over the
long run - disappear. The idea of rigid boundaries is even more ridiculous when
applied to time than when applied to space. We use hours, days, weeks and
years to regulate our lives and can see these as the scale on one of the axes of
a three-dimensional spacetime continuum, a block of volume within which we

15 'Place is anchored in and takes its force from its physicality, and yet it often stretches far
beyond it, it continues to travel, challenging space and time' (della Dora, 2011, p. 242).
16 'Cities do not only exist in the physical property of the cities, they also exist where the citizens
of the city move. We are so property bound that we think a man lives at the address of his bed,
even if he never visits it. The cities could be defined as their people as opposed to the property of
the city. Using such a definition, the city has moved if the people evacuate it, say on a weekend
holiday' (Bunge, 1973, p. 293).
17 '

the “factors” causing political behaviour cannot just be added up in linear fashion (census
class, census age, census ethnicity, etc.) to constitute an adequate explanation. To the contrary, it is
how these factors “come together”, take on meaning for people, and determine political outcomes
that constitutes a satisfactory political analysis. In other words it is in places that causes produce the
reasons that produce political behaviour' (Agnew, 1987, p. 213).

...