Britain is more and more often portrayed as a broken society. Politicians, religious leaders, media commentators and academics appear increasingly convinced that the social cement that binds local and national social systems together is crumbling and the established standards and values essential for maintaining civic order are collapsing around us. The demise of ‘community’ is presumed, by Left and Right alike, to be the key driver of this breakdown in society. Problems as diverse as Islamic terrorism, educational underachievement, gang violence, teenage pregnancy, worklessness, drug crime and anti-social behaviour are all explained through reference to the erosion of the informal ties and reciprocal arrangements that bind communities together.

This reasoning, evident in the pronouncements of the Prime Minister (see for example, Brown, 2006) and the Leader of the Opposition (see for example, Cameron, 2007a, 2007b), was first applied to the problems of urban society in the aftermath of the street disturbances in various Pennine mill towns in the summer of 2001. The political response to the disturbances centred on the perceived crisis of cohesion in the social fabric of the affected towns. Various reports were commissioned and charged with explaining this situation (Community Cohesion Independent Review Team, 2001; Home Office, 2001; Oldham Independent Panel Review, 2001; Ouseley, 2001; Burnley Task Force, 2002). In response to the reports, the paradigm of ‘parallel lives’ was forged, whereby particular ethnic and religious groups are presumed to be self-segregating into ethnic enclaves, limiting contact between themselves and wider society, undermining a common sense of belonging and purpose and allowing misunderstanding and suspicion to flourish. In response, the challenge was identified as being the promotion of cohesive communities.

The presumption at the heart of the community cohesion agenda – that towns and cities increasingly consist of socially cohesive but divided neighbourhoods – has become the starting point for public policy efforts to understand and respond to a wide range of contemporary problems in urban society. This is not to suggest that all residentially segregated and socially isolated communities are considered problematic. Problems are only perceived to arise when either internally cohesive, segregated communities nurture a culture that asserts values and allegiances at odds with the dominant moral order (for example, in ethnic or religious enclaves) or where the mainstays of community governance collapse and the void is filled by values and practices at odds with accepted norms of behaviour (for example, in residualised housing estates).