ABSTRACT
Unsurprisingly, with so many people cities are not always tranquil. Urban unrest often triggers attempts to control the population. The most obvious form of unrest is perhaps crime. Until the pandemic, crime had been dropping in most metropolitan areas since the 1980s, although Americans are actually more fearful of crime today than then. Gang activity is another form of unrest, and one that many Americans think of when they think of crime. More rarely, riots occur after a period of tension building when a precipitating event, such as an incident of police brutality, takes place. More recently, fear of terrorism has dramatically altered urban life as security checkpoints and law enforcement have become ubiquitous.
Attempts to reduce unrest frequently involve social control. Informal social control refers to people simply looking out for themselves and the neighborhood. Formal social control refers to the institutions that seek to prevent unrest and, if need be, prosecute offenders. Another mechanism for reducing unrest is strategic reinvestment aimed at mechanisms to provide alternatives to potential violations.
