Long residential tenure, not ethnicity, produces Britain’s closest urban villages

Evidence

In contemporary Britain, perhaps because of its relative ethnic homogeneity and its more rigid class structure, working class rather than ethnic neighborhoods appear to most closely approach the ideal. London’s Bethnal Green, for example: The function of the kindred can be understood only when it is realized that long standing residence is the usual thing. Fifty-three percent of the people in the general sample were born in Bethnal Green, and over half those not born locally had lived in the borough for more than fifteen years. Most people have therefore had time to get to know plenty of other local inhabitants. They share the same background. The people they see when they go out for a walk are people they played with as children. “I’ve always known Frank and Barney,” said Mr. Sykes. “We was kids together. We knew each other from so high. We were all in the same street.” They are the people they went to school with. “It’s friendly here,” according to Mrs. Warner. “You can’t hardly ever go out without meeting someone you know. Often its someone you were at school with.” They are the people they knew at the youth club, fellow-members of a teen-age gang, or boxing opponents. They have the associations of a lifetime in common. If they are brought up from childhood with someone they may not necessarily like him, they certainly “know” him. If they live in the same street for long they cannot help getting to know people whom they see every day, talk to and hear about in endless conversation. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 793

Categorization

• CANDY: The Mrs. Warner quote — ‘You can’t hardly ever go out without meeting someone you know’ — is a vivid, tweetable snapshot of village intimacy.