The Spiv and the Architect

As London emerged from the devastation of the Second World War, planners and policy makers sought to rebuild the city in ways that would reshape the behavior of its citizens as much as its buildings and infrastructure-a program defined by a strong emphasis on civic order and conservative values of national community. One of the groups most significantly affected by this new, moralisticclimate of reformation and renewal was queer men, whom the police, the media, and lawmakers targeted as an urgent urban problem by marking their lives and desires as criminal and deviant.