The Rookery of London's St Giles-in-the-Fields became the city's most notorious slum by the eighteenth century. This article asks why? Why there, why then and why for so long? Building on existing research about urban development and the failure of local government, by considering the geography, economics and legal influences acting upon the space and the people who interacted with it over the long durée, it becomes clear that the Rookery of St Giles-in-the-Fields was always high risk because of happenstance of geography, but that a lack of leadership from its owners and a system of urban upkeep that distributed responsibility too widely led to its longevity and the depth of its misfortune.

到 18 世纪，伦敦 St Giles-in-the-Fields 的 Rookery 成为该市最臭名昭著的贫民窟。这篇文章问为什么？为什么在那儿，为什么在那儿，为什么这么久？在现有关于城市发展和地方政府失败的研究的基础上，通过考虑地理、经济和法律对空间以及长期与之互动的人的影响，很明显，St Giles-in 的 Rookery由于地理上的偶然性，-the-Fields 一直是高风险的，但缺乏其所有者的领导以及过于广泛地分配责任的城市维护系统导致了它的长寿和不幸的深度。