“Unequal cities”: class-based spatial stereotyping in urban contexts

Socioeconomic segregation increasingly structures contemporary cities, yet little is known about how social class stereotypes shape the perception of the neighborhoods where different groups live. Building on the Stereotype Content Model, the present research examines whether class-based stereotypes extend from social groups to urban space. Across four studies (N = 717) using complementary methods, including correlational survey measures, experimental manipulations of neighborhood social class, and a visuospatial mapping task assessing mental representations of urban space, we show that neighborhoods are perceived through an ambivalent, class-based lens. High-status neighborhoods are consistently perceived as more efficient (the spatial analogue of competence) than low-status neighborhoods and as more efficient than warm, whereas low-status neighborhoods are perceived as warmer than efficient, with no systematic differences in overall warmth between neighborhood types. In addition, participants mentally map wealth closer to the city center and associate it with pleasant locations, while poverty is represented as more peripheral and linked to unpleasant or neglected areas. A small-scale meta-analysis confirms the robustness of efficiency-related effects and the absence of systematic warmth differences across studies. Together, these findings reveal that class-based stereotypes shape not only evaluations of social groups but also the cognitive representation of urban space, extending stereotype content theory to the spatial domain and highlighting the psychological foundations of urban inequality.