Towns, Plans and Society in Modern Britain
Towns, Plans and Society in Modern Britain

Author: Helen Meller

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1997-08-07

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 9780521576444

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In this concise survey, Helen Meller aims to explore the interaction of the social and physical environment of cities. All modern societies have experienced mass urbanisation, and have been subject to the economic, social and technological forces which have produced this urbanisation. Yet all towns and cities are not the same. The author points out that historical and cultural factors have played, and are still playing, an important part in shaping responses to these forces. This becomes even more clearly evident when the urban environment becomes subject to planning. Urban regeneration has facilitated not just an improvement in the physical environment of cities but in their economic and social fortunes as well. This study is an accessible analysis of the way in which social, cultural and physical factors have created the quality of life in British cities over the past two centuries.

The Genesis of Modern British Town Planning
The Genesis of Modern British Town Planning

Author: William Ashworth

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1040274579

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First published in 1954, The Genesis of Modern British Town Planning is a study from a historical standpoint of the social and economic factors which have made town planning one of the normal functions of government. The author begins with an examination of the rapid growth of towns in the nineteenth century and the consequent emergence of inescapable new problems of health, morality, and economic efficiency, and goes on to discuss the chief ways in which a remedy for these problems was sought in the later part of the century. Separate chapters are devoted to new model villages and towns to the spread of suburbs, and to the improvement of already established towns by means of clearance and rebuilding schemes, bye-law control, and efforts of private philanthropy. The final section of the book shows how the successes and failures of earlier attempts at reforms stimulated a demand for something more comprehensive, which found expression in the town planning act of 1909, and ends by considering the influences that brought to the town planning movement a new strength and importance in the 1930s and the war years. The author has drawn his material from a wide range of government and local authority reports, the writing of philanthropists and social workers, local guides and topographical works and the book will be of great value to those interested in social history, architecture and urban sociology.

Patrick Geddes and Town Planning
Patrick Geddes and Town Planning

Author: Noah Hysler-Rubin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-12-16

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1317796497

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Patrick Geddes is considered a forefather of the modern urban planning movement. This book studies the various, and even opposing ways, in which Geddes has been interpreted up to this day, providing a new reading of his life, writing and plans. Geddes' scrutiny is presented as a case study for Town Planning as a whole. Tying together for the first time key concepts in cultural geography and colonial urbanism, the book proposes a more vigorous historiography, exposing hidden narratives and past agendas still dominating the disciplinary discourse. Written by a cultural geographer and a town planner, this book offers a rounded, full-length analysis of Geddes' vision and its material manifestation, functioning also as a much needed critical tool to evaluate Modern Town Planning as an academic and practical discipline. The book also includes a long overdue model of his urban theory.

Cycling and the British
Cycling and the British

Author: Neil Carter

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-12-10

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 1472572114

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Cycling is currently enjoying a boom in popularity. What are the reasons behind this phenomenon? How have perceptions and the popularity of cycling shifted? This book charts the historical development of cycling both as a leisure and sporting activity since the 19th century and explores the wider political and cultural context in which cycling in Britain emerged. In particular, it examines cycling's relationship with environmental politics and its place in popular culture. Neil Carter successfully traverses several historical sub-disciplines, including the history of transport, leisure, sport, medicine and politics, employing the analytical tools of class, gender, political culture, the role of the state and commercialism to demonstrate how British identity has shaped and been shaped by cycling. At a time when it has become part of debates over transport and health, Cycling and the British: A Modern History provides a timely and clear analysis of the changes and continuities in attitudes towards cycling.

Cities of Ideas: Civil Society and Urban Governance in Britain 1800000
Cities of Ideas: Civil Society and Urban Governance in Britain 1800000

Author: Robert Colls

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-01-18

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1351161660

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Cities of Ideas: Civil Society and Urban Governance in Britain 1800-2000 addresses the changing nature of individualism and public service in the 19th and 20th centuries, and consists of a collection of essays authored by senior figures in economic, social, cultural and educational history. The question of the balance between the life of the private citizen and the need to play an active role in the wider community, is one that recurs throughout history. In this book the shifting nature of civic responsibility between 1800 and 1990 is addressed, looking at the balance of individual and collective responsibilities as well as obligation to a growing democratic state. The ten essays by leading scholars in the field of urban and social history offer fresh and important insights into governance and civil society in the modern period.

Evolution of Scotland's Towns
Evolution of Scotland's Towns

Author: Patricia Dennison

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2018-01-23

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1474409830

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A new analysis of mind/body unity, based on the philosophy of Spinoza

Making Sense of Dictatorship
Making Sense of Dictatorship

Author: Celia Donert

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2022-03-22

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9633864283

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How did political power function in the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe after 1945? Making Sense of Dictatorship addresses this question with a particular focus on the acquiescent behavior of the majority of the population until, at the end of the 1980s, their rejection of state socialism and its authoritarian world. The authors refer to the concept of Sinnwelt, the way in which groups and individuals made sense of the world around them. The essays focus on the dynamics of everyday life and the extent to which the relationship between citizens and the state was collaborative or antagonistic. Each chapter addresses a different aspect of life in this period, including modernization, consumption and leisure, and the everyday experiences of “ordinary people,” single mothers, or those adopting alternative lifestyles. Empirically rich and conceptually original, the essays in this volume suggest new ways to understand how people make sense of everyday life under dictatorial regimes.

The Greening of London, 1920–2000
The Greening of London, 1920–2000

Author: Matti O. Hannikainen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-05-15

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1134807473

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The long-term development of public green spaces such as parks, public gardens, and recreation grounds in London during the twentieth century is a curiously neglected subject, despite the fact that various kinds of green spaces cover huge areas in cities in the UK today. This book explores how and why public green spaces have been created and used in London, and what actors have been involved in their evolution, during the course of the twentieth century. Building on case studies of the contemporary boroughs of Camden and Southwark and making use of a wealth of archival material, the author takes us through the planning and creation stages, to the intended (and actual) uses and ongoing management of the spaces. By highlighting the rise and fall of municipal authorities and the impact of neo-liberalism after the 1970s, the book also deepens our understanding of how London has been governed, planned and ruled during the twentieth century. It makes a crucial contribution to academic as well as political discourse on the history and present role of green space in sustainable cities.

Spaces of Congestion and Traffic
Spaces of Congestion and Traffic

Author: David Rooney

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-09-03

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0429016468

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This book provides a political history of urban traffic congestion in the twentieth century, and explores how and why experts from a range of professional disciplines have attempted to solve what they have called ‘the traffic problem’. It draws on case studies of historical traffic projects in London to trace the relationship among technologies, infrastructures, politics, and power on the capital’s congested streets. From the visions of urban planners to the concrete realities of engineers, and from the demands of traffic cops and economists to the new world of electronic surveillance, the book examines the political tensions embedded in the streets of our world cities. It also reveals the hand of capital in our traffic landscape. This book challenges conventional wisdom on urban traffic congestion, deploying a broad array of historical and material sources to tell a powerful account of how our cities work and why traffic remains such a problem. It is a welcome addition to literature on histories and geographies of urban mobility and will appeal to students and researchers in the fields of urban history, transport studies, historical geography, planning history, and the history of technology.

Deprivation, State Interventions and Urban Communities in Britain, 1968–79
Deprivation, State Interventions and Urban Communities in Britain, 1968–79

Author: Peter Shapely

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-08-16

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 1317125762

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Focusing on a series of policy initiatives from the late 1960s through to the end of the 1970s, this book looks at how successive governments tried to address growing concerns about urban deprivation across Britain. It provides unique insights into policy and governance and into the socio-economic and cultural causes and consequences of poverty. Starting with the impact of redevelopment policies, immigration and the rise of the ‘inner city’, this book examines the pressures and challenges that explain the development of policy by successive Labour and Conservative governments. It looks at the effectiveness and limits of different community development approaches and at the inadequacies of policy in tackling urban deprivation. In doing so, the book highlights the restricted impact of pilot projects and reform of public services in resolving deprivation as well as the broader limits of social planning and state welfare. Crucially, it also plots the shift in policy from an emphasis on achieving statutory service efficiencies and rolling out social development programmes towards an ever-greater stress on regeneration and support for private capital as the solution to transforming the inner city.