Rioting Against Architecture?

"When the world's architects held their biennial gathering in Venice these past few weeks, some of the top minds in their profession chose the anniversary of the Paris car-burning riots -- which reached their peak a year ago this weekend with almost 9,000 cars torched by alienated young men -- to ask a few hard questions.

Were the riots on the edges of French cities caused, in whole or in part, by the utopian-intentioned housing enclaves that were supposed to prevent such things? Were the gangs of young men from the suburbs who became actual and would-be al-Qaeda terrorists in London and Toronto this year driven to their deeds by the alienating effects of their built surroundings? In short, are crummy buildings and badly designed neighbourhoods turning a generation of new arrivals violently against the society around them?"