Violence and the urban environment - reform and development of the housing stock

On the night of July 5th 1995, the unremarkable town of Luton, north of London, burst into the news headlines with one of the worst riots on a housing estate in recent years (Millar 1995; Durham & Tredre 1995). Inner city violence in Britain had usually been confined to outbreaks of tension within the run down and impoverished areas of major cities such as London, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham, often related to racial tension and to the factors of boredom arising from unemployment and the exclusive nature of the "enterprise" culture which found little opportunity for the new, underprivileged urban poor.