Respectable or Respectful? (In)civility and the City

Abstract

Do we stand before a rising tide of incivility, of disrespect? Or, is this the latest moral panic? Examining (the UK) New Labour's approach to incivility in the city, as manifest in the respect and urban renaissance agendas, this paper argues that the current zero-tolerance approach to incivility is based upon a confused understanding of anti-social behaviour and contradictory evidence of its occurrence and impact. Ultimately, it is proposed that a version of urbanity that endeavours to enforce respect and create the respectable city will prove counter-productive. Rather, respect and the respectful city require tolerance of, and engagement with, incivility.

Self-Governance or Professionalized Paternalism?: The Police, Contractual Injunctions and the Differential Management of Deviant Populations

“…It is no coincidence that the proliferation of contractual injunctions has developed in tandem with changes in the composition of urban poverty, criminalization of marginal populations and gentrification of urban spaces. As a number of studies have illustrated, removal of 'undesirable' persons from spaces of consumption has been a common tactic used by the police and a range of private security agencies through curfew-based and related spatial ordinances (Shearing and Stenning 1985;Coleman and Sim 2000;Harcourt 2001;Bannister et al 2006;Beckett and Herbert 2010). The difficulty for the police in dealing with socially marginal groups such as the homeless and those with substance misuse and mental health problems is that often their behaviour consists merely of minor public order infractions and therefore beneath the level of criminal sanction and possible custodial penalty.…”

Non-state space: the strategic ejection of dangerous and high maintenance urban space

“…Where assimilation and integration may seem impossible to sustain, too costly to implement in terms of redevelopment or policing, or unlikely to yield a planning gain in terms of tax receipts or land-value appreciation, we argue that the resultant containment strategy is more likely to take the form of the ghetto-camp, where a suspension of norms and rules is tolerated alongside violent periodic police interdictions aimed at restoring the authority and dignity of the state. We acknowledge that these themes are long-standing but suggest that debates about the nature of contemporary public space have tended to stress either the punitive control and pacification of space (Allen, 2006;Smith, 1996) or its ongoing role as a site of cosmopolitanism and encounter (Anderson, 2000;Bannister, Fyfe, & Kearns, 2006). Widely shared understandings of public space as ungovernable, dangerous and which prohibit the presence of outsiders may instead drive responses of formal ejection, rather than more expensive methods of control or the deployment of lengthy programmes with the objective of achieving some form of social inclusion (though we acknowledge the ambitious nature of such programmes in certain jurisdictions).…”

Unpacking new labour's ‘Urban Renaissance’ agenda: Towards a socially sustainable reurbanization of British cities?

“…Whilst most authors recognize that the erosion of public space described by US commentators (Davis, 1990;Sorkin, 1992) have no equivalent in Europe, they highlight the development of practices of control, surveillance and regulation of public space in UK cities (Fyfe & Bannister, 1998;Lees, 1998;Coleman & Sim, 2000;Merrifield, 2000;Flutsy, 2001;MacLeod, 2002;MacLeod & Ward, 2002;Coleman, 2003;Fyfe, 2004;Bannister et al, 2006). This process involves different techniques.…”

“…It seeks to empower majority groups to enforce respectability in public spaces by removing forms of 'intimidation' and 'tyranny' (Bannister et al, 2006). However, the precise nature of the 'culture of respect' that the government wishes Claire Colomb to enforce remains undefined, as well as what the 'majority' is (Bannister et al, 2006), although the favoured target group seems to be the 'respectable', consuming urban dwellers (Coleman et al, 2005;Bannister et al, 2006).…”

“…To reduce incivility, it is argued, environments need to be civilizing (Banister et al, 2006, p. 926). This, in turn, will positively influence investments by potential residents and investors (Bannister et al, 2006).…”