The relationship between space, place and race, and sociology’s contribution to that, is the theme of this special issue. When Urry argued that ‘place (and space) should be central to sociology’ (Urry 2004: 30) he was clearly signalling that was not the case; his essay examines some of the reasons why that is so, especially sociology’s uneven engagement with them. While space was largely under-explored in classical sociology, Urry shows that space and place made a comeback in the 1970s and 1980s, through the works of Castells, Massey and Harvey.