An accidental utopia?

The First Systematic Analysis over time of urban social structure in New Zealand, and of marital, worklife and intergenerational mobility, this book investigates a more egalitarian past, through the lens of southern Dunedin between 1890 and 1940. While class is their central focus, the authors also explore how religious and ethnic divisions were rendered more marginal than in similar communities in urban Britain or the United States. The final chapter asks to what extent the remarkably fluid social patterns in southern Dunedin resulted from deliberate choices made by the first settlers and…