CITY LIMITS:
Crime, Consumer Culture and the Urban Experience

Keith J. Hayward
London: Glasshouse Press, 2004

In this ambitious study, Professor Hayward sets out to illustrate the principal features of the late modern condition, that is to say to demonstrate how rampant consumer-driven capitalism, communicative and cultural flux, and what he terms the “disembeddedness”, have combined to produce “… an ontologically insecure actor who epitomises the destruction of the social contract of modernity” (p. 197). Not only does the author succeed in reaching this goal, but he also surpasses it by a significant measure in that he also examines with a rare degree of success the nexus linking crime with the city. The result is not only an elegant and richly illustrated book but a major research effort that will provide significant assistance to scholars in a host of related disciplines, notably criminology, to lay bare not only the not so hackneyed roots of crime in the modern métropole but also to identify emerging cross-currents of study that are indispensable to achieving a comprehensive understanding of the contemporary citadin who has slipped out of the traditional moorings of time and space to such an extent that the resulting “continuity of change” is not only far removed from being an ironic phrase, it is the only bedrock element that may be clung to for survival.

How has the author succeeded in so bold an enterprise? The first reason is both obvious and subtle. Professor Hayward impresses as an individual who loves the subject matter of his enquiries. It is not surprising therefore that his thorough and painstaking analysis and criticisms of the well known leading schools of thought such as those associated with the “Chicago school” and reaching to quite narrow sub-specialties such as the emerging field of product “placement tie-ins” are infused with the sheer joy of having reached a more profound understanding of the subject matter.¹

A second reason concerns his manifest passion for scholarship as an end, and not merely as a means. This signal quality directs that the fruits of his enterprise must be shared with others, as befits a dedicated pedagogue. As a result, when he speaks at various stages of the impact of commodification on (and of) criminal activity, the reader cannot help but gain an appreciable measure of insight on the question being debated, but also a substantially enhanced respect for the need to achieve an elevated understanding of the subject matter.

Leaving aside for a moment the question of criminology in the narrowest sense, City Limits should also be read for the same reason one should read Killing Juanita² touching upon the murder of a social activist in Sydney who opposed massive “redevelopment” and urban renewal: as an allegory in which the urban milieu is in fact a person and the harm done to the fabric of our community is in fact harm done to the inhabitants…

Having sketched a number of general comments, it will be of assistance to draw attention to certain precise elements of this superb text. The first concerns the methods that a scholar may employ to advance the thesis that has been developed. In this vein, Professor Hayward makes repeated references to the “urban experience” but his innovative teaching tool was to invite the reader to assume the role of the 19th century flâneur, a detached observer concerned with the sights, sounds and contingencies of our contemporary city. If we are invited to look up and around, at our ultra-affluent “neighbours”, at the publicity that overwhelms us and at the unrelenting press of our daily activities, to name but three examples, we may better understand a number of concepts relating to the notion that “… crime becomes a way of navigating a path through such uncertain times…” (p. 14) In a book not referred to by the author, Hobbs et al. invite us to consider the implications of the hedonistic lifestyle associated with city centers but through the perspective of those who are participants.³ Hayward’s method has the advantage of encouraging the reader to take in fully what is already perceived no doubt at a superficial level. For my part, I thought of Saccard, Émile Zola’s venal and corrupt character in La curée as he would walk around Paris anticipating and calculating how the proposed rebuilding of the city would lead him to riches. What opportunities would he envisage today? On the other hand, one might also think of Somerset Maughan’s sympathetic protagonist in The Verger who would walk around London seeking favourable business opportunities that would elevate the community, as opposed to plundering it.

A further quality that must be underlined is found in Chapter 3, “The Forgotten City and the Lost Offender”. The author, having introduced the idea of the urban experience through a range of different disciplines and theoretical positions, goes on to examine critically criminology’s particular view of the city. In other words, how is the urban environment approached and understood within criminology today. The author’s conclusions invite us to reconsider a number of traditional views and especially proposes that we reconsider how much of our discourse is limited to demographics, statistics, environmental multi-factorialism and rationality.

Finally, I commend the penetrating study of the roles played by emotions and feelings, including desire and longing, in the aetiology and commission of urban crime as revealed in Chapter five.

In sum, City Limits Crime, Consumer Culture and the Urban Experience provides not only a comprehensive and compelling treatment of a major element in criminology, it provides a fascinating example of the imperative need for a multi-disciplinary approach to complex issues. This is not an easy book to read, far from it. It would be more accurate to say that it is a daunting challenge, but so is the subject matter.

^1. A recently released study that might be of interest is found in Our Box was Full An Ethnography for the Delgamuukw Plaintiffs, by Richard Daly, [Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press, 2005], at pp. 26, 170-172, 211-214.

^2. Killing Juanita A true story or murder and corruption by Peter Rees, [Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2004].

^3. Bouncers: Violence and Governance in the Night-Time Economy, Dick Hobbs, Philip Hadfield, Stuart Lister and Simon Winlow, [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003]. Refer to my review in Law Society Journal, February 2004, Vol. 42(1), pp. 94-95.