{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.019986216402481046, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.39647577092511, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book Review: Encountering Urban Places: Visual and Material Performances in the City

It is a pity that the publishers did not give the production of the book the attention it deserves: more careful editing and proof reading would increase the reader’s appreciation of the strengths of the study. There are frequent examples of sentences and phrases (and somewhat idiosyncratic hyphenations) in need of attentive editing; and unfortunately also, the reproduction quality of the photographs sometimes makes it diffi cult to see what is being illustrated. Nevertheless, these are minor shortcomings that are easily outweighed by the book’s strengths. The discussion of the use of ethnographic methods in a Marxist framework is extremely useful, making a significant contribution to methodological literature. Disparate perspectives and academic disciplines are brought into productive dialogue and this is particularly valuable in the case of the German ‘everyday historians’ and their work on labour subjectivities. These discussions form the framework for a rich depiction of the work practices of those charged with community policing and public safety ‘on the street’, the theoretical and practical implications of which are all too often ignored. This makes Towards Safe City Centres? an important study for policy-makers, urban designers, urban planners, spatial theorists and students alike. I hope it will be issued in paperback before too long.