
Rethinking Spatial Inequality
Edward Elgar Publishing
Published on 22. July 2025
Book
Hardback
234 pages
978-1-80392-612-4 (ISBN)
Description
This illuminating book offers a new perspective on social science inquiry into the spatial dimensions of societal well-being; addressing the key question of who gets what, and where.
Leading scholars Linda M. Lobao and Gregory Hooks adopt an organizing framework that speaks to the concept of spatial inequality, how it forms a lens on societal disparities, and how it gives rise to work with underlying commonalities across different social science disciplines. With this scaffolding, the authors consider spatial inequality across spatial scales, places, and populations, including the subnational scale, so often missing in inequality research. Illustrative cases center on poverty, public service provision and austerity policies, environmental justice, and war and conflict. The book concludes by advancing an integrative social science agenda to guide future emancipatory research on inequality.
Rethinking Spatial Inequality is a vital resource for students and scholars of inequality across the social sciences including sociology, human geography, development, regional, urban, and rural studies, demography, and political science. Policymakers and practitioners in public service provision will also benefit from this perceptive book.
Leading scholars Linda M. Lobao and Gregory Hooks adopt an organizing framework that speaks to the concept of spatial inequality, how it forms a lens on societal disparities, and how it gives rise to work with underlying commonalities across different social science disciplines. With this scaffolding, the authors consider spatial inequality across spatial scales, places, and populations, including the subnational scale, so often missing in inequality research. Illustrative cases center on poverty, public service provision and austerity policies, environmental justice, and war and conflict. The book concludes by advancing an integrative social science agenda to guide future emancipatory research on inequality.
Rethinking Spatial Inequality is a vital resource for students and scholars of inequality across the social sciences including sociology, human geography, development, regional, urban, and rural studies, demography, and political science. Policymakers and practitioners in public service provision will also benefit from this perceptive book.
Reviews / Votes
'As the authors indicate, "This book is focused on spatial inequality-the where of inequality". The book's lens, the scale of neighborhoods, provides microscopic detail about their income, physical safety, environmental justice, political influence, and educational opportunities, revealing life, as it leaks out from the edges of its unevenness.' -- Amy Glasmeier, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA 'Rethinking Spatial Inequality by Linda M. Lobao and Gregory Hooks is a fresh, forward-looking examination of the forces and processes that produce unequal access to, and allocation of, material resources and subjective well-being across multiple geographic scales within today's nation states. The authors effectively articulate the links between spatial inequality and discourses of spatial justice and equitable sustainable development.' -- David L. Brown, Cornell University, USA 'What does a spatial lens bring to our understanding of inequality? In this book, Lobao and Hooks make the case for the importance of where in spatial inequality. From poverty, to political unrest, to public services, their interdisciplinary approach shows how a spatial lens makes a difference to a full assessment of inequality. This book should be required reading for those interested in a more inclusive, cohesive and forward-looking approach to spatial inequality.' -- Mia Gray, University of Cambridge, UKMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cheltenham
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-80392-612-4 (9781803926124)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Linda M. Lobao, Professor Emerita of Rural Sociology, Sociology, and Geography, The Ohio State University, USA and Gregory Hooks, Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, McMaster University, Canada
Content
Contents
1 Introduction: rethinking spatial inequality 1
PART I RETHINKING SPATIAL INEQUALITY:
CONCEPTUAL ANCHORS
2 Spatial inequality as a concept, lens, and area of inquiry 27
3 Reproducing spatial inequality: opening the dialogue between
perspectives 60
PART II BRINGING IN A SPATIAL INEQUALITY APPROACH
4 Spatial inequality as poverty across places and their
populations 86
5 Public service provisioning as a marker of spatial inequality 107
6 Environmental (in)justice and spatial inequality 130
7 The spatial inequality of war 153
8 Conclusion: advancing the study of spatial inequality 177
References 187
Index 218
1 Introduction: rethinking spatial inequality 1
PART I RETHINKING SPATIAL INEQUALITY:
CONCEPTUAL ANCHORS
2 Spatial inequality as a concept, lens, and area of inquiry 27
3 Reproducing spatial inequality: opening the dialogue between
perspectives 60
PART II BRINGING IN A SPATIAL INEQUALITY APPROACH
4 Spatial inequality as poverty across places and their
populations 86
5 Public service provisioning as a marker of spatial inequality 107
6 Environmental (in)justice and spatial inequality 130
7 The spatial inequality of war 153
8 Conclusion: advancing the study of spatial inequality 177
References 187
Index 218