The Predictive Postcode

It is not lost on commercial organisations that where we live colours how we view ourselves and others. That is why so many now place us into social groups on the basis of the type of postcode in which we live. Social scientists call this practice "commercial sociology".

Richard Webber originated Acorn and Mosaic, the two most successful geodemographic classifications. Roger Burrows is a critical interdisciplinary social scientist. Together they chart the origins of this practice and explain the challenges it poses to long-established social scientific beliefs such as:

• the role of the questionnaire in an era of "big data"
• the primacy of theory
• the relationship between qualitative and quantitative modes of understanding

• the relevance of visual clues to lay understanding.
  To help readers evaluate the validity of this form of classification, the book assesses how well geodemographic categories track the emergence of new types of residential neighbourhood and subject a number of key contemporary issues to geodemographic modes of analysis.

Auteur

Richard Webber is the originator of the geodemographic classifications, Acorn and Mosaic, and for many years managed the micro-marketing divisions of first CACI and then Experian. He has held Visiting Professorships at UCL, Kings College and, since 2016, at the University of Newcastle. He has worked with academic colleagues from across the social science to apply geodemographic forms of analysis to a wide range of research topics, many of which pertain to on-going debates in demography, geography, politics, sociology and urban studies.

Contenu
Part I: Neighbourhood Classification and the Analysis of Social Behaviour
Chapter 1: Neighbourhoods and their Classification
Chapter 2: The Precursors to Geodemographic Classification
Chapter 3: The Emergence of Contemporary Geodemographics
Chapter 4: The Wider Adoption of Commercial Sociology
Chapter 5: Who Do They Think You Are? Capturing the Changing Face of British Society
Part II: A Geodemographic Account of Social Change
Chapter 6: The Liberal Metropolitan Elite: Citizens of Nowhere?
Chapter 7: Municipal Overspill Estates: Educational Under-Achievement among the Left Behinds?
Chapter 8: Minority Communities: Melting Pots or Parallel Lives?
Chapter 9: The British Countryside: Playgrounds for the Middle Classes?
Chapter 10: Coastal Communities: All Victims of Low-Cost Airline Travel?
Part III: Coda
Chapter 11: A Geodemographic Travelogue
Chapter 12: Geodemographics in the Future