ABSTRACT
First, consumer culture and its associated practices are, in a great many instances, contributing to the substantial spatial and situational reconfiguration of the post-industrial city (Harvey 1990: Chapter 4; Jencks 1977; Sorkin 1992a; Gartman 1998; Hannigan 1998: Chapters 3-5). More specifically, one of the primary outcomes of the rise and increased dominance of the consumer society is the redrawing of the contours of the urban landscape along the lines outlined by Zygmunt Bauman (1987: 149-69; 1998), Mike Davis (1990, 1998) and, more recently (and more importantly from a purely criminological perspective), in Jock Young’s compelling The Exclusive Society (1999: Chapters 1 and 2). Certainly, two of the themes identified by Young as instrumental in the onset of the ‘exclusive society’ of late modernity – namely the rise of individualism (ie, the creation of what Young describes as individual ‘zones of personal exclusiveness’: Young 1999: 47-55)17 and pervasive chronic relative deprivation – are also central components of this book. The connection between such ongoing developments and urban space is of crucial importance, not least because it is likely to precipitate the further profusion of ‘criminogenic spaces’ (see Garland 1997) as society continues to polarise into safe zones (ie, regulated, privatised consumer spaces) and dangerous urban no-go areas (ie, underfunded enclaves of exclusion and repression).
