These strategies seek to transform the tone of certain urban areas and reorder the visible disorder of vagrancy, homelessness, panhandling and prostitution. This clash unfolds vividly in discourses about public space today. Exploring what the constitutive qualities of an acceptable public space are is tantamount to exploring what a truly democratic society might be. Researchers within the group have investigated this theme in a variety of locations and public spaces. Other work has looked at how the zero tolerance policies being espoused in the United States are now implemented on home front as the Labour Government calls for a clean up of the disorder on Britain's streets.
More recent research is interested in the fate of youth in public space.
Housing and social change Research on this theme explores patterns of change across all housing sectors. Our work looks at the causes of changing household compositions, tenure groupings, and geographies of housing. Investigations here concentrate on specific housing sectors and are concerned with the occupants of housing, the economic and cultural values attached to housing, the politics of housing provision, and the physical condition and fabric of dwelling units. While our work has a strong London emphasis, comparative investigations of housing in cities like Lisbon and New York have also been undertaken. Associations between social mobility, tenure changes, neighbourhood transformation, and the politics of place have been explored, as have the housing options and conditions of various minority populations in urban areas.