Segregation trends in Athens: the changing residential distribution of occupational categories during the 2000s

Abstract

This paper assesses segregation patterns and trends in Athens during the 2000s. Does the city become more or less segregated and how do global forces and contextual factors affect the observed tendencies? The study focuses on the uneven spatial distribution of occupational categories and the way it developed between 2001 and 2011. The dominant trend is desegregation. However, there are specific types of residential space – new middle-class suburbs and declining central neighbourhoods – where segregation is increasing. Segregation seems to be the combined effect of global forces and contextual factors that do not always push in the same direction.