Why is London burning?

My sister and I like watching a show, How the Other Half Live, on BBC Canada on Saturday mornings. It shows the interaction between a family living in poverty and a wealthy family in Britain. The relationship involves the wealthy family giving money to help the impoverished one. Some could argue that this is paternalistic but how much more is this paternalistic than the government giving money to families? Usually the impoverished family is in a single female-headed household while the wealthy family has the traditional nuclear family. I'm not sure why my sister and I are fascinated with the show. Maybe it has to do with seeing the extremes of British life; the gritty urban slums verses the large homes in the English countryside.

After reading about the riots in London, the show has a stronger meaning to me. In Britain, 1 in 6 people live in public housing or 10 million people. I'm starting to think that the government as landlord is not a wise idea. The scenes in How the Other Half Live show the housing units as very rundown and dirty. The air of violence and danger permeate the public housing scenes in the show. The riots this past week suggest to me that when people don't have any personal ownership in their housing or their neigbourhoods, an attitude of carelessness thrives. The impoverished families featured in this show look sincere in their attempts to improve their lives. But I can't help thinking that the large amount of public housing in Britain has contributed to the violence.