Understanding the social geographies of urban regions through the socio‐economic and cultural dimension of class

Economic restructuring and changing demographic and migration patterns have significantly altered the population compositions of urban regions. Whereas there is evidence that employees in various sectors of the economy have different residential preferences, there exists much less insight into the social geography of various class fractions at the level of urban regions. The aims of this paper are (1) to describe the spatial orientations of various employment groups in the largest urban regions in the Netherlands and (2) to understand the extent to which spatial orientations towards various residential urban and suburban milieus can be explained by belonging to a specific class fraction. We draw on individual-level register data for the whole population of urban regions, applying a multidimensional and detailed perspective on social class that takes into account both economic and cultural capital. We demonstrate a strong urban orientation among the cultural classes, who are often working in the new economies—irrespective of their income status—and an over-representation in suburban areas of more economically orientated class fractions. Despite the differences in terms of economic structure of the researched urban regions, these variegated residential orientations are remarkably consistent.