The Broken Middle: The Space of the London Riots

This viewpoint looks at the 2011 London riots, and in particular interprets them against a discussion of their urban location. In contrast to previous riots, which generally have happened either in urban centres or urban margins, the London riots happened in the everyday areas of the city, along borderlines between areas of different social inequality. The article centres on riots being seen as a magnification of the ordinary rather than an outburst of the extraordinary, and then discusses the spatial and social implications of this interpretation.