The authors analyze the ways in which places have been transformed through the changes taking place within them - shifts in the nature and quantity of paid and unpaid work, in social and political mobilization, in cultural and aesthetic experience and in the built environment. Using a locality study of Lancaster, they emphasize place as a decisive point in understanding social and economic changes. They consider how successfully concepts of `restructuring' explain the relation between local and global change. The book will be a major contribution to international debates on restructuring and the impact of global change on the locality. It will also be of interest to all social scientists interested in the sociology, economy and human geography of contemporary Britain.