The Student City: Residential Segregation in Brighton and Hove

‘Residential segregation’ has been an area of concern for urban scholars in the last 50 years, yet little is known about how age plays into residential sorting. As such, the dimensions of age segregation have been seldom addressed in both media and research. This paper investigates the drivers of segregation in the university city of Brighton and Hove, Sussex focusing on the years 2001 and 2011. Using UK Census data, this study examines age, class, housing, and ethnicity as potential drivers of segregation, through a geographical-spatial lens at the Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA) scale. This study adopts Massey and Denton’s (1988) framework to measure segregation via evenness, and calculates segregation by the index of dissimilarity (ID). The results reveal the crucial role and intersections of age and class, in driving and shaping residential sorting dynamics in Brighton and Hove. The findings support the studentification thesis, as a pivotal lens for understanding age segregation. This points to the distinct spatial residential patterns whereby younger groups, particularly students, are segregated from older generations, contributing to the spatial division of the city. This paper concludes the need for a nuanced understanding of segregation dynamics, specifically age segregation in the context of studentification, emerging as a significant driver in shaping urban landscapes of the university city, Brighton and Hove.