Gangs, guns and the city: urban policy in dangerous places

There is growing interest in the impact of violence on development and on ‘security’ as a policy response. But, academics and policy institutions seem split on how to approach cities, either ignoring them completely or representing them as inherently violent spaces. Yet historically, many people across the world have moved to cities – and continue to do so – for safety, and studies have moreover highlighted how there often exist specific patterns regarding who perpetrates violence, who are its victims, and where violence takes place in cities. To consider this putative paradox, this chapter draws inspiration from two sources. First, we consider the ways in which urban contexts have been considered in relation to major violence reduction and pacification processes. The city has arguably become a key site for contemporary innovations in “security governance” by both public and private agencies, yet it is generally not recognised as anything other than an unproblematic spatial locale. Second, we problematise universalising assumptions about cities, more specifically considering research on gangs, in order to expose how “urban violence” is generally predicated on quite specific conditions that pertain to social, political and economic conditions within cities, which often manifest themselves in particular spatial urban configurations. A final section offers some tentative conclusions