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Many poor neighbourhoods, home to both socially disadvantaged populations and to foreigners, are characterised by a strong perception of insecurity. The purpose of this article is determine the origin of this perception. To do so, two possible causes are dissociated: racial prejudice and racial proxy (the ethnic minorities are perceived in terms of the negative social characteristics that are often associated with them). More specifically, it is shown that the ‘ethnic’ variable captures the effects of an overconcentration of poverty, approximated here by the concentration of unemployment, but that these two variables act separately. This result should be taken into account in the policies implemented by public authorities and local actors. In this study, an original methodology is applied based simultaneously on individual geocoded data, the proportion of foreigners, the unemployment rate at the neighbourhood level and an indirect indicator of perceived insecurity.

Shrinking mining cities — once prosperous settlements servicing a mining site or a system of mining sites — are characterized by long-term population and/or economic decline. Many of these towns experience periods of growth and shrinkage, mirroring the ebbs and flows of international mineral markets which determine the fortunes of the dominant mining corporation upon which each of these towns heavily depends. This dependence on one main industry produces a parallel development in the fluctuations of both workforce and population. Thus, the strategies of the main company in these towns can, to a great extent, determine future developments and have a great impact on urban management plans. Climate conditions, knowledge, education and health services, as well as transportation links, are important factors that have impacted on lifestyles in mining cities, but it is the parallel development with the private sector operators (often a single corporation) that constitutes the distinctive feature of these cities and that ultimately defines their shrinkage. This article discusses shrinking mining cities in capitalist economies, the factors underpinning their development, and some of the planning and community challenges faced by these cities in Australia, Canada, Japan and Mexico.

This article explores a culturally sensitive topic, envy, among Bolivian migrants in Spain. Following a constructivist approach to emotions, we examine discourses of envy, as they are shaped by the cultural contexts in which they emerge. Our study uses a sample of 30 transnational households and multi-sited ethnography to illustrate the ways emotions and their effects on sociality serve as a mechanism of social control, especially when the boundaries of such a community have been stretched transnationally. Envy is an important component of a belief system central to understanding the emergence, or lack thereof, of trust and solidarity among migrants and can shape the types of social relations and conflicts between migrants and non-migrant households back in Bolivia. These conflicts have been exacerbated by economic instability, high unemployment rates and precarious wages especially for the undocumented migrant community in Spain.

This article draws together unusual characteristics of the legacy of apartheid in South Africa: the state-orchestrated destruction of family life, high rates of unemployment and a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The disruption of family life has resulted in a situation in which many women have to fulfil the role of both breadwinner and care giver in a context of high unemployment and very limited economic opportunities. The question that follows is: given this crisis of care, to what extent can or will social protection and employment-related social policies provide the support women and children need?

Never is the fraught relationship between the state-run custodial mental hospital and its host community clearer than during the period of rapid deinstitutionalization, when communities, facing the closure of their mental health facilities, inserted themselves into debates about the proper configuration of the mental health care system. Using the case of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, site in the 1960s of one of Canada's earliest and most radical experiments in rapid institutional depopulation, this article explores the government of Saskatchewan's management of the conflict between the latent functions of the old-line mental hospital as a community institution, an employer, and a generator of economic activity with its manifest function as a site of care made obsolete by the shift to community models of care.

The research presented in this paper explores, in the French context, the hypothesis that employment problems experienced by low-skilled jobseekers are partially caused by spatial urban factors. Many low-skilled workers live in poor neighbourhoods where they are exposed to a distressed social environment and/or weak job accessibility. For reasons discussed in this article, living in such neighbourhoods may increase the duration of unemployment for jobseekers. On the basis of an empirical study, this hypothesis is tested in the Paris-Ile-de-France metropolitan area and addresses the question: all other things being equal, are low-skilled workers living in high-poverty neighbourhoods and/or neighbourhoods with low job accessibility exposed to a greater risk of long-term unemployment?

This article explores young women's orientation to work and motherhood in the post-communist context of radical socio-economic transformation in Europe. Based on a qualitative-explorative study into meanings of work and unemployment among young people in post-Soviet Lithuania, the paper introduces an empirically grounded classification of imagined gender-work arrangements. The single patterns of the classification are based on the three configurations of work and motherhood, work and partnership, and work and provision. The findings inform the reconstruction of the 'landscape' of imagined gendered adulthoods in Europe as well as the analysis of emerging gender relations under conditions of rapid social change.

In recent times, Lagos Island has been hit by a cyclical crescendo of juvenile crime perpetrated by "Area Boys," jobless youths who deal in robbery, extortion, and blackmail. Such deviant behavior has historical roots back to colonial times, when youths labeled "alkali boys," "boma boys," and "cowboys" roamed the heart of the capital of Britain's colony of Nigeria between the 1920s and 1960s. Examining the various types of juvenile delinquents on Lagos Island, this article explores the urban experience of criminally minded youths through exploration of street-life, vagrancy, criminality, and public reactions.

During 2008, rumours about revolting incestuous encounters between sons and their mothers circulated in the Bushbuckridge municipality of the South African lowveld. This article views these rumours as expressing moral panic, paying particular attention to the historical contexts of their emergence and circulation, and to their temporal orientation. I locate these rumours in the periphery of South Africa's de-industrialising economy, marked by increased unemployment and criminality among men and by a growing prominence of women-headed households. They express a regressive temporalisation and pessimistic vision, not of development, progress and civilisation, but rather of deterioration and de-civilisation. Through the alleged act of incest, sons who engage in crime usurp the authority of fathers who once produced value in strategic industries and mines. As such the rumours envision a dystopia marked by the 'death of the father' and chaotic disorder without morality and law.

Based on a large-scale household survey conducted in 2007, this article reports on poverty concentration and determinants in China's low-income neighbourhoods and social groups. Three types of neighbourhood are recognized: dilapidated inner-city neighbourhoods, declining workers' villages and urban villages. Respondents are grouped into four categories: working, laid-off/unemployed and retired urban residents, together with rural migrants. We first measure poverty concentration across different types of neighbourhood and different groups. The highest concentrations are found in dilapidated inner-city neighbourhoods and among the laid-off/unemployed. Mismatches are found between actual hardships, sense of deprivation and distribution of social welfare provision. Second, we examine poverty determinants. Variations in institutional protection and market remuneration are becoming equally important in predicting poverty generation, but are differently associated with it in the different neighbourhoods and groups. As China's urban economy is increasingly shaped by markets, the mechanism of market remuneration is becoming a more important determinant of poverty patterns, especially for people who are excluded from state institutions, notably laid-off workers and rural migrants.

Problems of violent youth groups have escalated in Indonesia, following economic recession, unemployment, and weakened state institutions. Young people have been hit by the lack of income and broken expectations. In consequence, youth groups emerge and arrange for members' economic revenue as well as identity creation and confidence. Religion in some cases is used to legitimize violence and to strengthen the boldness of group members. The paper offers a brief overview of gangster (preman) traditions in Indonesia. Empirical findings on violent youth groups in the two selected provinces are presented within a multi-factor analytical framework, where the need for income and identity strengthening, political élite interests, and the lack of law enforcement contribute to explaining criminal and vigilante violence. Interviews with leaders and members of movements engaged in violent actions offer insights into a problem that threatens national security and control.