Urban Worrier
Monday, August 8th, 2011 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanIt’s an odd thing about living in a city. Places can seem right next door one minute and miles away the next. In a town or a village, the next town or village is separated by a greater or lesser amount of rural space (sometimes only about a field’s width in some parts of the country), but even a small gap provides a feeling of separation that is not always there in the city.
The trouble at the weekend in Tottenham is a case in point. In a straight line across the Lea Valley, Tottenham is less than ten miles away. A little further in travel distance because of the streets. Had I been still living in Telford, where I grew up, and heard of rioting in Shrewsbury, some twelve miles away1, I would have been interested in and/or appalled at the news, but that twelve mile gap would have given a sense of distance that is lacking in the city.
The fear is that disorder is infinitely more likely to spill from street to street than it is over the firewall of a rural gap, even a small one. That and the fact that you can’t have a riot without people, of course.
This perception of distance is a malleable one. In normal times, despite its geographic proximity, Tottenham is, depending upon your view, desperately or reassuringly difficult to get to, whether you have a car or are using public transport. It takes time and effort because the space between you and it is crammed with people, buildings and traffic. When there is trouble, such as the riots at the weekend, it is uncomfortably close and the issues that face the people who live there are not so different from the issues that face people in our neighbourhood.
A further difficulty is in separating out fact from fiction and trying to get an idea concerning the scale of events. Certainly there was a great deal of destruction, but it seems to have been in relatively few and contained areas, where whatever kicked off the problem became subsumed in some elements’ desire to run amok. People a mere half dozen streets away were no more or less likely to know there was anything happening, but as soon as the news gets out, the fact that we are all joined by a web of built up streets makes the worry that it will spread down your street more real, though not necessarily more likely.
It is too early to say how it will all pan out or whether or not unrest will spread. There are reports of trouble spilling out into neighbouring Walthamstow, Waltham Forest and Enfield, with copy cat trouble way down in Brixton at the other end of the city.
Last time there were riots, a generation or so ago, in 1981, the response was to open Government Offices in the Regions and almost literally throw money at the troubled areas. This time around we have just closed all the regional offices and there is no money to be thrown at anything.2
1Actually the scenario is probably more believable if you switch the two towns around, but I have never actually lived in Shrewsbury.
2I suppose the truth of this depends upon your priorities. We are told there is no money to throw at problems. And even if there were, how best to spend it?
The trouble at the weekend in Tottenham is a case in point. In a straight line across the Lea Valley, Tottenham is less than ten miles away. A little further in travel distance because of the streets. Had I been still living in Telford, where I grew up, and heard of rioting in Shrewsbury, some twelve miles away1, I would have been interested in and/or appalled at the news, but that twelve mile gap would have given a sense of distance that is lacking in the city.
The fear is that disorder is infinitely more likely to spill from street to street than it is over the firewall of a rural gap, even a small one. That and the fact that you can’t have a riot without people, of course.
This perception of distance is a malleable one. In normal times, despite its geographic proximity, Tottenham is, depending upon your view, desperately or reassuringly difficult to get to, whether you have a car or are using public transport. It takes time and effort because the space between you and it is crammed with people, buildings and traffic. When there is trouble, such as the riots at the weekend, it is uncomfortably close and the issues that face the people who live there are not so different from the issues that face people in our neighbourhood.
A further difficulty is in separating out fact from fiction and trying to get an idea concerning the scale of events. Certainly there was a great deal of destruction, but it seems to have been in relatively few and contained areas, where whatever kicked off the problem became subsumed in some elements’ desire to run amok. People a mere half dozen streets away were no more or less likely to know there was anything happening, but as soon as the news gets out, the fact that we are all joined by a web of built up streets makes the worry that it will spread down your street more real, though not necessarily more likely.
It is too early to say how it will all pan out or whether or not unrest will spread. There are reports of trouble spilling out into neighbouring Walthamstow, Waltham Forest and Enfield, with copy cat trouble way down in Brixton at the other end of the city.
Last time there were riots, a generation or so ago, in 1981, the response was to open Government Offices in the Regions and almost literally throw money at the troubled areas. This time around we have just closed all the regional offices and there is no money to be thrown at anything.2
1Actually the scenario is probably more believable if you switch the two towns around, but I have never actually lived in Shrewsbury.
2I suppose the truth of this depends upon your priorities. We are told there is no money to throw at problems. And even if there were, how best to spend it?
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-08 11:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-09 08:32 am (UTC)In Hamburg we (ex and me) used to live just around the corner of the "Schanzenviertel", where there are ritual riots regularly, especially on May 1st.
The quartier is a mixed one with lots of small shops owned mostly by immigrants who have lived and worked there for ages. I really liked the pride of the portuguese tapas bar owner for show(v)ing a so-called "autonom" black-clad german teen idiot out the door who had wanted to use his toilet after rioting a place where he obviously didn´t live nor work, himself. They had just destroyed the little chocolate and tea shop of two elderly ladies, very revolutionary, that...
We were safe, btw. though I once called on the firemen to extuingish a burning garbage bin and it was more dangerous to be out on the terrace on new year´s eve when our zigane neighbours fired guns loaded with real bullets down the street for pure joy.
Hope you´ll stay safe, over there.