Social Ladders Urban Inequality and the Ideal of Social Mobility

Social Ladders offers a new understanding of a core ideal in political, public, and academic discourses on low-income neighbourhoods: that of promoting upward mobility. It explores the contradictions between the lofty promises of social mobility in marginalised areas, its ambivalent politics and its complex manifestations in people's lived experiences. The analysis put forward in this book invites readers to fundamentally question upward mobility as an effective strategy for enhancing social justice in marginalised neighbourhoods.

Drawing on international case studies as well as in-depth fieldwork in Germany, the book depicts the ideal of social mobility from multiple perspectives. Social Ladders, then, is not only an account of how the language of social mobility is used and abused as a way of ignoring the primary needs and problems of disadvantaged communities. It also argues that to understand its divisive nature and hidden costs, we need to hear from more than just the few who have 'made it' up the ladder to social and economic success. We must also include the voices of those commonly seen as having been 'left behind'.

Anthony Miro Born is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of urban inequality, with a particular focus on housing and social class. His work has received several prizes for its originality and societal impact, including the 2023 Urban Studies Best Article Award for the most innovative and agenda-setting contribution and the 2025 LSE Impact Prize for his comic on social mobility.