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• Careful ethnographic study of the changing nature of social relationships and urban communities.
  
• Examines the role of the neighbourhood in our understanding of community and how this has changed over the last century.
  
• Interweaves a detailed study of the history and current social life of a poor neighbourhood in Rotterdam, with a reflection on the character of social ties in urban areas everywhere.
  
• Draws on American urban sociology and includes provocative discussions on the issues of community and ethnicity.

"This is a book of major intellectual significance. Talja Blokland succeeds in casting her case study around broader theoretical concerns that will have relevance for urban sociologists everywhere." Mike Savage, University of Manchester

"Talja Blokland has written an engaging, thoughtful and often provocative analysis of changing social life in an inner city neighbourhood." Charles Tilly, Columbia University

"This is a superb empirically grounded study of social relations, exploring important theoretical issues about space, identity and community in the context of wonderful and compelling ethnography." Richard Jenkins, University of Sheffield

Talja Blokland is a Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of the Arts and Sciences and based at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam.