The small suburban settlement in the Midlands, referred to by the authors as "Winston Parva," resembles countless other communities in England with its approximately 5,000 inhabitants. It is one of the typical working-class neighborhoods of the European industrial regions, where traditional, "village-like" social structures have survived: close-knit neighborhoods, social control, and mutual solidarity. The apparent harmony is only shattered in the late 1930s when a new district is rapidly developed across the railway line. The new houses are primarily occupied by workers from other regions of England and later by evacuees from bombed-out London. Although their residents work in the same industries, the two districts do not merge. The newcomers remain outsiders, stigmatized and foreign. Among the old residents, they are regarded as unsocial, criminal, and driven by base instincts.