ABSTRACT
The new risk culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has produced a heightened awareness of the imagined and real dangers of moving freely through city spaces. Fears of bodily harm from pollution, traffic, violent others, road or rail accidents act to inhibit the urban subject from enjoying public space as a space of freedom, encounter and expression. The proliferation of media accounts of the dangers lurking outside the front door have created a climate of fear where any accurate assessment of potential dangers can easily be ignored. Around any street corner lurks the paedophile, the mugger, the marauding teenager, the dangerous driver, the terrorist, or cancer from pollution created by cars, industry or other people’s smoking.
