Urban design and drug crime: uncovering the spatial logic of drug crime in relation to the urban street network and land use mosaic in London

This multidisciplinary research is concerned with the ways in which the morphology of the urban landscape may affect the spatial distribution of drug crime incidents. Following from this rationale, the research pursued the following three objectives. First, the research explored where drug dealers are known to sell drugs, and the extent to which and in what ways these places differ from those places that they do not. In particular, the research focused on examining whether the types of places at which drugs are sold have the street network characteristics of places that offer good retail potential. Employing space syntax technique and event count regression models, the analysis showed that street permeability and proximity to high street significantly increase the likelihood of drug crime. Second, the research examined drug crime in relation to legal facilities, which inherently and routinely generate large flows of people. Using network distance buffers, the criminogenic fields of the facilities were identified. The regression results showed that not only the facility itself attracts crime, but the facility’s specific configurational positioning on the street network also influences the likelihood of crime. The last part of the research examined the relative positioning of drug dealing locations in the city with reference to the level of permeability, the drug types and quantities being sold per street segments. The results showed a spatial differentiation amongst varying drug types according to their drug classes. The overall picture suggested that the urban fabric, particularly the characteristics of the street network configuration and the way land uses are distributed across the street network, have a great effect on drug occurrences

Estimating pedestrian demand for active transport evaluation and planning

This article presents a recently developed walkability-based approach to evaluating the built environment’s relationship to pedestrian activity, as well as the application of this evaluation in generating a model of pedestrian demand across London derived from built environment indicators. The approach is novel in its integration of space syntax measures to evaluate network accessibility and the use of volume area ratios to measure land use intensity. It utilises high-resolution geographic data surfaces for the generation of the built environment variables. The advantage of using this method is that it allows greater analytical flexibility in transport policy and practice, where the ability to compare the analytical results to other social and spatial indicators is vital for decision-making. Pedestrian density data covering the whole of Greater London are used to test the performance of the variables. The best performing variables are then analysed to determine their weighting in a model of pedestrian demand for London based on the selected built environment indicators. Randomised testing shows that the model is capable of reliably predicting pedestrian demand. It can be used to estimate pedestrian demand both currently and for future scenarios by quantify future changes to the built environment, and thus enabling walking to be quantitatively assessed in the same way as motorised modes. The model can be applied to active travel infrastructure planning and policy evaluation, from the scale of the street or intersection, to larger administrative units. The model also has wider theoretical and policy implications that relate to the spatial structuring of London

Geometrically Tunable Transverse Electric Field in Multilayered Structures

Appearance of a transverse component in dc electric field with respect to the applied current is investigated in periodic multilayer composite structures made of nanometer-to-micrometer scale alternating layers of two different homogeneous and isotropic conducting materials. Dependence of the transverse electric field on geometrical orientation of the layers is examined using the coordinate transformation approach. Electric field bending angle as a function of the layers’ resistivity ratio is studied in detail. It is shown that both the direction and the magnitude of the field can be changed using orientation angle of the layers as a tuning parameter

The spatial configuration of minority ethnic business diversity in London’s high streets

Previous research has shown that the local town centre can be a space of considerable socio-economic diversity, manifested in its being a place of work and community activity in addition to retail activity. The long-term sustainability of the town centre has been shown to correspond to its configurational spatial signatures. Where high streets exhibit a high ethnic diversity amongst proprietors, there appears to be a corresponding diversity of land use and goods, with a tendency to adapt and alter space for greater economic benefit. Small independent units are often further subdivided to accommodate a greater number of services and products. In the context of the local high street in the UK, the small independent Minority Ethnic Business (MEB) is a common feature, whether it is a halal butcher, an Indian chemist or a Chinese takeaway, serving both an embedded local minority community as well as often having a wider mainstream appeal. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between spatial configuration and socio-economic diversity of the local high street to investigate whether the potential for diversity is embedded in its contextual spatial characteristics. For the purpose of this study using nationally defined town centre boundaries, ten town centre case studies were selected from around London based on their residential ethnic profile and the level of deprivation of the area. Building on the literature that shows that land use diversity is associated with the persistence of smaller town centres, we test the proposition that it is also associated with the presence of MEBs. Here we tested the degree of impact of MEB presence on commercial diversity across these case studies. Additionally, the study examines the spatial and morphological signatures of these case studies and how these relate to the context of MEB presence and land use diversity, finding a strong relationship between spatial and urban form factors and a greater presence of MEBs. The study concludes that given the importance of spatial accessibility coupled with built form diversity to the presence of MEBs, greater attention needs to be given to the embedded social value in the spatial characteristics of town centres

Making drug harms: Punishments for drugs offenders who pose risks to children

Images of children are routinely used in discourses on drugs, offering a compelling rationale for adopting particular policy positions or legislative reforms. However, the importance of childhood to the constitution of drug harms, and the punishment and subjectification of drug users and offenders, have rarely been the subject of enquiry, whether within drug and alcohol studies, criminology or legal studies. Scholarship on criminal sentencing in England and Wales is also relatively sparse, and has been dominated by analyses of the ‘legal-rational’ logic of particular provisions or reforms. This paper, which relies on the premise that drugs and their effects are constituted through discourse, and are thus contingent, variable and unstable, identifies the ‘collateral realities’ (Law, 2011) that are enacted during legislative and judicial attempts to stabilize the harms caused by drugs to children and communities