Urban Consumption and Feelings of Attachment of Rotterdam's New Middle Class

Bibliographic Data

ID2642219
AuthorsMarco Van Der Land (OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, Delft Technical University, The Netherlands, corresponding author)
Year2005
Volume10
Issue2
Pages141-156
Publication date2005-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Research Online (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1360-7804 • E-ISSN: 1360-7804
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5153/sro.1098
OpenAlexW2156403333
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited20

Cities have increasingly developed into spaces for consumption. This paper explores the relationship between patterns of use of urban leisure amenities and feelings of attachment to the city. A survey among highly educated professionals and managers (the new middle class, working in the Dutch city of Rotterdam) was carried out in order to examine both their participation in the domain of urban leisure and urban residence, and their attachments to the city in general. The survey shows that among the new middle class subgroupings can be identified, based on their mobility with regard to leisure and their psychological attachments to the city. One of them is a group of young single urban households, who are not only frequent urban consumers, but who also feel strongly attached to the city as a whole. The findings suggest that in cities specific processes of symbolic consumption occur which facilitate some extent of psychological attachment and which appear to tie a subset of the new middle class to urban places, regardless of place of residence

Feeling · Geography · Middle class · Place attachment · Political science · Residence · Social science · Sociology · Consumer Retail Behavior Studies · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Demography · Psychology · Social Psychology

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