TOWN PLANNING NO ANSWER TO DRUGS

SO WHEN will Canberra's authorities give up this ridiculous, naive,
and depressingly seventies idea that you can address all social
problems with town planning? ('Canberra drug bust . . .', CT,
September 5, p.3)

Dudes, kids don't start taking loads of heroin and committing property
offences and violent crime because they have problems with urban design.

The average criminal mind does not think to itself: ' Oh no, this
public park area suffers from a lack of sensitive landscaping and
fails to promote a sense of community ownership with the contours of
its garden beds! How can I protest against all this alienating
modernist architecture? Why, yes! Of course! I'll acquire a raging
skag habit and then go and hold up a service station with a meat cleaver.'

Has it occurred to anyone that maybe some education, employment or
drug-rehabalitation programs would have more effect on this town's
crime problems than any number of misguided landscaping
initiatives?

CATHY COOTE
Campbell