ABSTRACT
How did the landscapes of fear, risk and insecurity shift so quickly in the light of the London bombings of 7/7? Since the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11, London knew that it was going to be a target. It was not a matter of whether they would be hit, but ‘when?’ and ‘how?’ This meant that people living in the capital city were used to living with an undertone of anxiety and expectations. They were convinced that an ‘event’ would happen that would be shocking and would be likely to kill many innocent people. This was their understanding of terrorism. They knew that something ‘terrible’ was going to happen, but they were unsure of how they could really protect themselves. Living and working in London meant that you were living with an endless threat, but you were unsure of where it was coming from and where it might hit. This is what created a landscape of urban fear that was difficult to identify or to really appreciate what difference it was making to your everyday life. Instead, people had become accustomed to living with this sense of threat and so used to moving around the landscape of the city that they began to believe that possibly it would not happen at all. It was the experience of living in these different registers that made life different in ways that were hard to identify.1
