Towards Safe City Centres Remaking the Spaces of an Old-Industrial City [Hardcover]

Examining the rising interest in quality-of-life offences, anti-social behaviour and incivilities in urban public spaces, this study explores the rising importance of policing, crime control and community safety policies in the context of the ongoing urban restructuring in old-industrial cities. This is achieved through an extensive exploration into the making and remaking of urban spaces in the city of Glasgow. In so doing, this book puts forward a strong and innovative theoretical argument. Framed in a critical Marxist perspective that draws on debates within German-speaking critical theory and Marxism, this study argues for the centrality of human social praxis in our understanding of contemporary cities. It engages with questions over the production of social space, a (fragmented) social totality and human agency, which so far have only received limited attention in Anglo-American debates.Contents: Preface; Empirical Vignettes: Introduction: towards safe city centres?; Marxian social praxis and the production of space; Critical Marxism, the production of space and safe city centres: towards a research agenda; Remaking the (old-industrial) city: urban restructuring, imagineering and crime control; Regulating the spaces of an old-industrial city; Representing the city centre: Glasgow's city centre representatives; Discussion: towards safe city centres; Bibliography; Index.Dr Gesa Helms is a Lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK.