Architecture

The book tells the story of the proliferation of gated communities and the privatisation of public life and public space in Mexico over the last three decades. Drawing on research from Lomas de Angelópolis in Puebla, one of the largest gated communities in the world, Emma R. Morales explores why such fortified spaces have proved popular with middle class households.

Weaving together the multiple influences of housing policy, predatory financial markets and an increased fear of crime, the book sets out how policy makers and planners can improve decision-making and provide non-gated solutions to urban anxiety.

Many planning systems are currently locked into growth-dependence, encouraging market-led development which can widen social inequalities and produce adverse environmental outcomes.

This accessible book introduces students to the debates around growth and planning and sets out the solutions to promote genuinely sustainable communities. It includes:

• a positive proposal for reform of the planning system;

• focused discussions from the UK and Europe providing lessons for future planning;

• analysis of the challenges of implementing reform.

Covering chapters on cooperatives, community land trusts, local economic development and community assets and infrastructure, as well as commoning, it provides a roadmap for planning system reform with social justice and sustainability at its heart.

Is it legitimate to prohibit political activities in a shopping centre, or the wearing of the full Islamic veil in a public space? This book addresses such questions of pluralism in a time of increasing ethnic, religious and cultural diversity in the public and private spaces of our cities.

Analysing different types of regulation — property rights, municipal ordinances and urban planning — the authors reflect on the kinds of rules public institutions should accept in relation to private spaces, and should promote in relation to public spaces, in order to protect and support pluralism.

Winner of the 2022 Urban Affairs Association Best Book Award.

City visions represent shared, and often desirable, expectations about our urban futures. This book explores the history and evolution of city visions, placing them in the wider context of art, culture, science, foresight and urban theory.

It highlights and critically reviews examples of city visions from around the world, contrasting their development and outlining the key benefits and challenges in planning such visions.

The authors show how important it is to think about the future of cities in objective and strategic ways, engaging with a range of stakeholders – something more important than ever as we look to visions of a sustainable future beyond the COVID-19 crisis.

Drawing on a unique archive spanning the lifetime of twenty council estate projects in the UK and using hundreds of resident voices, this book reveals the secrets of council housing’s failures and successes, and the reasons for them.

Bringing to light the complex variety of the lived experiences of residents, it shows how estate pathways were predetermined by factors such as location, design and date, as well as by their local and national social, economic and political contexts. The book highlights what can be learned from some of the successes of less successful housing projects and provides lessons for building sustainable communities in the twenty-first century.

Drawing on a unique archive spanning the lifetime of twenty council estate projects in the UK and using hundreds of resident voices, this book reveals the secrets of council housing’s failures and successes, and the reasons for them.

Bringing to light the complex variety of the lived experiences of residents, it shows how estate pathways were predetermined by factors such as location, design and date, as well as by their local and national social, economic and political contexts. The book highlights what can be learned from some of the successes of less successful housing projects and provides lessons for building sustainable communities in the twenty-first century.

In this accessible and passionately argued book, Bob Colenutt goes to the roots of the long-term crisis in housing and planning in the UK.

Providing a much needed, in depth critique of the nexus of power of landowners, house builders, financial backers and politicians that makes up the property lobby, this radical book reveals how this complex, self-serving and intimidating network perpetuates a cycle of low supply, high prices and poor building which has resulted in one of the biggest social and economic challenges of our time. With radical ideas for solutions, this is essential reading for anyone with an interest in housing, planning and social justice.