It is widely recognised that large urban centres exhibit significant and enduring patterns of educational inequality. This paper explores the social production of urban educational space. In particular, it argues that since these patterns are geographical, it will be useful to revisit the emergence of an "urban crisis" in education and attempts, by geographers, in the 1970s and 1980s, to explain spatial differences in educational attainment. For much of the past two decades, educational policy has tended to adopt an "a-spatial" approach, and the final part of the paper looks forward to the prospect of an updated and culturally informed analysis of education in cities. (Contains 3 notes.)