A symbolic location is an expression coined by Sir

Kenneth Newman Sir Kenneth Leslie Newman (15 August 1926 – 4 February 2017) was a senior British police officer. He was Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) from 1976 to 1980, and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1982 to 1987 ...

, when he was Commissioner of the London

Metropolitan Police Service The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

(the Met) from 1982 to 1987. The term was used by the police in London in the 1980s to refer to a no-go area, one regarded by local youths as their territory, where police were viewed as intruders.Rose, David. ''A Climate of Fear''. Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, 1992, pp. 31–32. John Smith, former deputy commissioner of the Met, said in 1991 that the term was no longer in use. Symbolic locations were identified with high unemployment, a high crime rate, drug dealing, and illegal drinking and gambling. Newman said in 1983 that they "equated closely with the criminal rookeries of

Dickensian Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

London," and symbolized the inability of the police to maintain law and order. In a report that year to the Home Secretary, he offered as examples Broadwater Farm in Tottenham,

Railton Road Railton Road runs between Brixton and Herne Hill in the London Borough of Lambeth. The road is designated the B223. At the northern end of Railton Road it becomes Atlantic Road, linking to Brixton Road at a junction where the Brixton tube statio ...

in Brixton, and

All Saints Road All Saints Road is a street in London's Notting Hill district, best known as being an important centre for the UK's Afro-Caribbean community. It runs north to south from Tavistock Crescent to Westbourne Park Road, and has junctions with Tavist ...

in Notting Hill. Stonebridge Estate in Harlesden was cited as another example, as was the

Notting Hill Carnival The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean festival event that has taken place in London since 1966

. P.A.J. Waddington wrote in 1999 that the police sought on occasion to restore—"take back"—symbolic locations as public spaces, leading to raids under a pretext of breaking up criminality. The term was criticized for identifying largely black communities in England with crime, or as a social problem. John Solomos and Les Black argued in 1996 that such thinking was an example of "profound historical amnesia," because, they wrote, Britain has a long history of civil unrest.Solomos, John and Back, Les. ''Racism and Society''. Palgrave Macmillan, 1996, p. 182.

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