Poor housing and estate design causes crime. Discuss

The first 200 words of this essay...

Poor housing and estate design causes crime. Discuss

Firstly, this essay will provide a brief introduction into urban ecology and urbanisation in the USA. The findings of Shaw and McKay's study on the zone of transition and social disorganisation will then be explored as well as the findings of other ecologists who challenged their approach. This essay will then briefly explore the role and effect the media has played in areas associated with criminality. Finally, this essay will look at the work of Newman and Coleman and their attempts to reduce crime solely by making environmental changes.

Robert Park, a student at the Chicago School in the late 1800s and later its head borrowed the idea of ecology from biology: the idea that in the natural world plants, animals and other lifeforms exist in a pattern with eachother. Some crops grow better when nearer to others, some insects develop in habitats in which others die. The land is seen as a giant set on connections and inter-relationships - an ecological system. (Barter et al, 2000).

An enduring theme in sociological wroting about crime has been the corrupting effect of city life. This view developed particularly strongly during