An article on the BBC website gives details of the new forms of "anti-homeless sleeping design" that have become a brutally familiar part of the urban landscape in London, Paris, New York and elsewhere. Spikes, metal studs, sloped benches and pointed concrete sections of pavement are among the new measures designed to discourage the homeless from curling up by shop-fronts, luxury flats or bus shelters. Nor is jagged architecture the only means of deterring the would-be rough sleeper. Managers of San Francisco's Bill Graham Auditorium have taken to blasting the sounds of chain-saws, motorcycles and jackhammers through their outdoor PA system from 11pm to 7am in order to rid their doorsteps of the homeless.
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