We appeal to the government not to take for granted our inner city neighbourhoods and our aboriginal communities and to put the necessary resources in place to help youth out of the tragic downward spiral into despair and violence.

This will not only rejuvenate some of our most beautiful buildings, it will also encourage economic growth in the surrounding areas, which are often located in the oldest and most neglected parts of our cities.

Although tight community networks can bring new life and regeneration to neglected neighbourhoods - for example through the setting up of small businesses - ethnic and social segregation in cities can also be a major barrier to integration.

Although tight community networks can bring new life and regeneration to neglected neighbourhoods - for example through the setting up of small businesses - ethnic and social segregation in cities can also be a major barrier to integration.

Urban areas face significant challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, cities are key locations for the growth and competitiveness of the European Union.

47. Calls on the Council, the Commission, the Member States and the regions to carry out intensive information campaigns concerning the effects of organized crime and to take effective measures against the circumstances which tend to encourage involvement in organized crime; calls for these preventive measures to counteract in particular rising unemployment, social security systems with ever-greater shortcomings, increasing poverty, looser links with traditional social systems (leisure clubs, schools, churches, the family) and failures of urban planning (slums and residential ghettos); these measures should, however, also take account ...[+++]of positive experiences with community policing (particularly in the area of youth work) and recent discoveries about crime prevention, such as the fact that crime is encouraged when damage to public places is not repaired (the 'broken window theory');