TECHNOBUREAUCRACY ANO CITY LIFE according to Victorian bourgeois norms. Some members of the bourgeoisie went to live in or dose to the proletarian areas in order to help and influence the poor « masses » by their gentrifying presence. Much pressure was brought to bear on Parliamen t by other upper class reformers to introduce « sanitary Acts » and measures to contro! and regulate substandard housing. Unfortunately these measures resulted in demolitions and loss of accomodation for many so that by the year 1900 despite all these efforts a very serious housing problem still persisted. The revolution predicted by Marx and Engels and feared by the bourgeoisie of the Victorian era has so far failed to materialise and the housing conditions of the majority of the population have reached a socially acceptable standard. The polarisation between two classes typical of the Victorian era has developed towards a more complex social system in which a greater number of social « classes » compete with each other for access to space in the urban system. In generai, however, there is increasing divergence between the highest and lowest strata of society but increasing convergence between the various intermediate strata (3). The increasing bureaucratisation of many aspects of the British economie and social system has resulted in the development of a system of access to jobs and housing accommodation wich provides differing levels of social, physical and financial rewards dependent on how « suitable » the individua! is for a place in the hierarchies of the administrative, the productive and the service sectors. This « suitability » is at present dependen t on a mix ture of factors such as social class origin, colour of skin, sex, and so on. TRANSITION AND DECLINE The industria! revolution, as is well known, brought about a massive expansion of the towns and cities of Britain. A labour force had to be created where none had existed before and housing had to be provided. However, building houses for the workers was not a very profitable form of investment but the investors with a stake in the factories of the area had to provide new housing so as to ensure that there was and adequate supply of labour available locally. Hence new housing (3) A detailed statistica! study of this phenomenon is provided by R.N. Davidson's and D. Weir's Changes in Residential Structure and Class Convergence in Hull. From « Cities in Modem Britain ». 9
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