Boom cities : architect-planners and the politics of radical urban renewal in 1960s Britain / Otto Saumarez Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saumarez Smith, Otto, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban renewal--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Urban renewal.

City planning--Great Britain--History--20th century.

City planning.

History.

Great Britain.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 198 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Summary:

Boom Cities' is the first published history of the profound transformations of British city centres in the 1960s. It has often been said that urban planners did more damage to Britain's cities than even the Luftwaffe had managed, and this study details the rise and fall of modernist urban planning, revealing its origins and the dissolution of the cross-party consensus, before the ideological smearing that has ever since characterized the high-rise towers, dizzying ring roads, and concrete precincts that were left behind. 0The rebuilding of British city centres during the 1960s drastically affected the built form of urban Britain, including places ranging from traditional cathedral cities through to the decaying towns of the industrial revolution. Boom Cities uncovers both the planning philosophy, and the political, cultural, and legislative background that created the conditions for these processes to occur across the country.0'Boom Cities' reveals the role of architect-planners in these transformations. The book also provides an unconventional account of the end of modernist approaches to the built environment, showing it from the perspective of planning and policy elites, rather than through the emergence of public opposition to planning.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0198836406

9780198836407

OCLC:

1048125691