ABSTRACT
The second half of the twentieth century saw increasing urbanisation and suburbanisation in the UK. The requirements of industry for increasing mobility of workers meant that housing was provided on a very large scale, and ‘new towns’, suburban sprawl and high-rise housing estates developed rapidly, particularly around parts of the south-east of England. Increased road building and corresponding volumes of road traffic have gradually changed the urban landscape in these areas. Children under 18 often constitute a disproportionately high section of the population of the suburbs and ‘new towns’ (Morrow 2001a). Local authority planning provision does not appear to have been able to keep up with changes in the structure of the population, nor changes in the physical structure of the landscape in terms of provision of leisure spaces, parks and places for children1 to play in or to ‘hang out’ in (Morrow 2001a). However, renewed focus on the importance of neighbourhoods and communities in UK social policy has brought about a wave of social research that has explored lay people’s concerns about their localities, and a consistent theme that emerges from this research (and policy concern) is anxiety about children and young people in neighbourhoods (SEU 2000).
