While many are outraged at the violence committed against shops and homes throughout London and across English cities over the past three nights, it is senseless for city leaders to sow further division and resentment by dismissing young looters as "pure criminality", especially when the systemic causes have been hidden in plain sight for decades.
Abandoned by owners in the post-Apartheid years, 1,500 buildings in Johannesburg have turned into overcrowded tenements.
A spike in violence has followed the close of the World Cup, with many Zimbabweans returning home to escape harm. But, unlike in 2008, police were prepared to subdue violence and prevent it spreading.
Widespread rape and sexual abuse have been documented throughout Nairobi's slums, with many women too scared to use communal toilet facilities due to fear of violence in the underpoliced Kenyan capital.
Monthly reflections from The Global Urbanist.
This month's topic: the international relations of cities.
This article was first released as an email newsletter on Sunday, 16 May 2010 to our subscribers, and posted here on Friday, 28 May.
... the public denunciation of violence is itself an act of political theatre, distracting leaders from bringing the events of the past three nights to a close.
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
