Urban life has always involved a balancing of opportunities and rewards against dangers and stress; its motivating force is, in the broadest sense, money. Opportunities to make money mean competition and competition is stressful; it is often at its most intense in the largest cities, where opportunities are greatest. The presence of huge numbers of people inevitably involves more conflict, more travelling, the overloading of public services and exposure to those deviants and criminals who are drawn to the rich pickings of great cities. Crime has always flourished in the relative anonymity of urban life, but today's ease of movement makes its control more difficult than ever; there is much evidence that its extent has a direct relationship to the size of communities. City dwellers may become trapped in their homes by the fear of crime around them.
As a defence against these developments, city dwellers tend to use various strategies to try and reduce the pressures upon themselves: contacts with other people are generally made brief and impersonal; doors are kept locked; telephone numbers may be ex-directory; journeys outside the home are usually hurried, rather than a source of pleasure. There are other strategies too which are positively harmful to the individual; for example, reducing awareness through drugs or alcohol. Furthermore, all these defensive forms of behaviour are harmful to society in general; they cause widespread loneliness and destroy the community's concern for its members. Lack of informal social contact and indifference to the misfortunes of others, if they are not personally known to oneself, are amongst the major causes of urban crime.
Inner areas of cities tend to be abandoned by the more successful and left to those who have done badly in the competitive struggle or who belong to minority groups; these people are then geographically trapped because so much economic activity has migrated to the suburbs and beyond.
Present-day architecture and planning have enormously worsened the human problems of urban life. [I] Old-established neighbourhoods have been ruthlessly swept away, by both public and private organisations, usually to be replaced by huge, ugly, impersonal structures. [II] People have been forced to leave their familiar homes, usually to be rehoused in tower blocks which are drab, inconvenient, and fail to provide any setting for human interaction or support. [III] Instead, every effort should be made to conserve the human scale of the environment, and to retain familiar landmarks. [IV]
(Adapted from: Cambridge Proficiency Examination Practice 5)
