ABSTRACT
The history of the study of community is one which is well rehearsed -from the rejection of the study of community in the 1960s to its replacement with the study of ‘locality’ during the 1980s. In 1997 the new Labour government made clear its commitment to ensuring that crime prevention would become a statutory duty of local government. Received wisdom reports that lack of social control within inner city areas is likely to arise as a result of weak communities, a lack of social networks and a lack of concern about an area: where neighbourhood exists as a collection of disparate persons living in close proximity but not caring for community values. Interested in whether the term ‘community’ did have any resonance for the local residents of Oldtown and Bankhill, whether it featured in the everyday understanding that they had of their neighbourhood or of the relationships that they had built up with others living nearby.
