A spectre haunts Finnish cities – the spectre of segregation – and an alliance has been formed to exorcise this spectre. A successful exorcist is of course one who gets rid of the apparition once and for all. But a lucrative exorcist is one who manages to ensure the continued need for their services by repeatedly summoning the ghoul back for another round of spells and condemnation. The spectre of segregation is summoned back through the reciting of a powerful narrative concerning working-class and marginalised residential spaces. This narrative endorses the view that the reason we should be concerned with urban inequality is that neglect, delinquency, poor educational achievement and poor health and lifestyle choices are endemic to the spaces of the working-class and unemployed households. Coupled with the presence of people of immigrant background and non-Finnish speaking households, the narrative states, these spaces allow for an unwanted, deviant culture of neglect to be implanted. And it is the concentration of households on the lower rungs of the society and their neglectful culture that is also driving out the middle-class and, in this way, working to self-perpetuate the further segregation of neighbourhoods, reflecting poorly on the overall attractiveness of the city. In Finland the spectre of segregation is strategically drummed up by three members of the alliance of exorcists who appear to share a liberal consensus on the matter; liberal in the sense that Harvey (1973) defined years ago – they recognise inequity but address it without wanting to disturb or question existing sets of social mechanisms. Instead of transformative solutions to urban inequalities, they affirm the status quo (Fraser 1995).