The Chosen City

by Nicholas Schoon

Overview

There is endless talk about the need for an urban renaissance; can it happen in the real world? In this broad, challenging and highly engaging book, Nicholas Schoon argues that the foremost priority for regeneration is to make neighbourhoods and cities places where people with choices choose to live.
The author surveys the last two centuries of metropolitan growth and decay, analyzes the successes and failures of recent changes in urban policy and proposes a wide range of radical measures to make the renaissance a reality. Comprehensively researched, The Chosen City is a wake up call for everyone interested and involved in urban regeneration - degree students and academics, planning and housing professionals, architects, surveyors, developers and politicians. The text is illustrated with powerful black and white images from a leading national newspaper photographer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134515653
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/24/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Michelle Rae Hebl, Charles L. Brewer, Jr. Benjamin, Ludy T.

Table of Contents

1. The Abandoned City. 2. Darkshire and Coketown - the Approach to 1900. 3. Enter the State - 1900 to 1951. 4. Overspill and High Rise - 1951 to 1976. 5. Things Can Only Get Better - 1976 to 2000. 6. Ten Opportunities. 7. Pushes and Pulls. 8. The Milton Keynes Effect. 9. How to Mingle. 10. Education, Education, Regeneration. 11. The Frightened City. 12. Mixed Uses and High Densities, or MUHD. 13. The Ideal Home. 14. Erosion of Cities or Attrition of Cars. 15. Town and Country. 16. New New Towns. 17. Renaissance or Stillbirth?

Editorial Reviews

'His radical options are interesting and challenge current assumptions.' - Roof

'This lively, readable book offers new answers to today's urban blight. Here are city solutions that will save the countryside too. The government should read this from cover to cover - and act on it.' Polly Toynbee

'Nicholas Schoon has written a brilliantly provocative book about the great British urban debate.' - Professor Sir Peter Hall, Regeneration and Renewal

'An exceptionally informative book.' - Anthony Fyson, Planning

'The Chosen City is densely argued discursive and ambitious. There is much here to think about and to stoke up the urban policy debate. - Housing Magazine

'This is a serious, thoughtful book, packed with energy, enthusiasm and ideas. It is a refreshingly readable and genuinely useful work, thoroughly researched and standing in the best traditions of well-informed polemic. - Search (Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

'It is this ability to think out of the box that makes Schoon's ideas so interesting ... ought to be used to show Britain's politicians, that they can get better, if only there is the will.' - New Statesman

'This is an important book that thoroughly deserves to be widely read and discussed.' - Town and Country Planning

'This is the most stimulating book on Britain's housing issues that I haveread in the last decade. Although I don't agree with absolutely everythingin it, it's essential reading for anyone struggling with the regeneration ofhousing in our inner cities' - Matthew Fox, Chief Executive, Harding Housing Association

'His book should be read by everyone from government ministers to those engaged in the task of urban regeneration.' - New Statesman

'Both diagnostic and prescriptive, he makes a positive contribution to a debate often preoccupied with descriptions of the problem and short practical policies for its solution...This debate would enliven discussions on the urban dilemma and the book will be a useful and reasonably priced addition to college and sixth form libraries.' - Geography

From the Publisher