Urban space and the social control of incivilities: perceptions of space influencing the regulationof anti-social behaviour

Contemporary cities are increasingly governed through space. In this article,we examine how urban space and perceptions thereof can influence the social control inthe area of incivilities. To this end, we first inspect the existing literature, in particularthe socio-spatial studies that emphasise the importance of culture and values in theinteraction with social control. Partly drawing on examples from our previous studies,we suggest that people’s perceptions of urban space (influenced by cultural symbols,social and media representations, aesthetics and other values) affect their perceptions ofincivilities, while the latter often determine or at least importantly contribute to theshaping of the social control of incivilities. We further highlight the role of gentrifica-tion as a medium and a tool of social control. The paper concludes by discussingimplications of this for the possible future, more integrated and interdisciplinaryresearch on the social control of incivilities in the city

The UK mortgage market: responding to volatility

The UK housing finance system is still recovering from the credit and financial crisis of 2007-2008. Some features of the system have made it particularly vulnerable to this crisis, notably the extent to which lenders have been reliant on the money markets and securitisation to enable them to lend and the generosity of loan conditions during the boom period, especially after 2005. Other features have helped the system to weather the crisis-notably the relatively low rate of transactions and the prevalence of variable rate and tracker mortgages, which meant that many existing borrowers saw their interest payments fall. At the same time the prime objective of the mortgage market-supporting sustainable owner-occupation-has been undermined as first-time buyers have found it more and more difficult to obtain mortgage funding. The objective of this paper is to assess the robustness of the UK housing finance system not only in the context of the current crisis but also in comparison with earlier crises. We discuss the fundamental issues of volatility and longer-term house price developments both before and after liberalisation. To address these issues the paper first looks at the history of housing market volatility, then at the details of the period since 2007 and finally at future prospects

The immobility of social tenants: is it true? Does it matter?

The low level of residential mobility in England, particularly in the social sector, has been a continuing topic both in the literature and among policy makers. The period 1995–2007 was one of relatively rapid tenure change as well as sustained economic growth which could be expected to have increased mobility across tenures but also the costs of immobility in both the labour and housing markets. It was also a period where allocations to the social sector were increasingly concentrated among more vulnerable households. Given these trends does social housing continue to stand out as particularly immobile? If so is the relative immobility an outcome of who lives in social housing rather than how the sector is managed? And do low levels of mobility have significant negative impacts generating labour market inefficiencies and poor use of social housing? This paper uses Survey of English Housing data for the decade of growth from the mid 1990s to examine the drivers of mobility across tenures and how these have changed over the period, with particular emphasis on outcomes in the social sector. These drivers are described and modelled for the study period and suggest that social sector tenants with similar characteristics are much less mobile than households in other tenures but that the costs of this immobility, while difficult to quantify may well be quite limited

Inspecting the European crime prevention strategy towards incivilities

In recent years the crime prevention (CP) policies of many EU countries have been expanded up to including the regulation of uncivil and disorderly behaviour, and have been implemented at the local level through measures that have often excessively constrained individuals’ rights and freedoms. By drawing on the analysis of EU policy documents retrieved in the database EUR-lex, this article investigates whether the European CP strategy has also focused on the regulation of incivilities. Furthermore, it inspects whether any attention has been paid at the EU level to how local authorities have exercised their CP powers in the field of urban disorder. In the conclusions, the emerging results are compared against the backdrop of the existing literature on the legitimacy of incivility regulation, with the aim to draw conclusions informing the EU CP strategy targeting nuisance and its regulation