A Social History Of Milton Keynes

This book discusses the prejudices that have distorted understandings of the city of Milton Keynes and focuses upon the original thinking that went into the planning of Milton Keynes.

Established in 1967, Milton Keynes is England's largest new city and one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the UK. It is also a suburban city, genuinely liked and appreciated by most of its citizens. For many reasons, however, Milton Keynes is misunderstood, and its valuable recent lessons are mostly ignored in debates about national urban policy. This book discusses the popular and intellectual prejudices that have distorted understandings of the new city. A city is nothing without its people, of course, so Mark Clapson looks at who has moved to Milton Keynes, and discusses their experiences of settling in. He also confronts the common myth of the new city's soullessness with an account of community and association that emphasizes the strength of social interaction there.

The new town of Milton Keynes was designated in 1967 with a bold, flexible social vision to impose "no fixed conception of how people ought to live." Despite this progressive social vision, and its low density, flexible, green urban design, the town has been consistently represented in British media, political rhetoric and popular culture negatively. as a fundamentally sterile, paternalistic, concrete imposition on the landscape, as a "joke", and even as "Los Angeles in Buckinghamshire". How did these meanings develop at such odds from residents' and planners' experiences? Why have these meanings proved so resilient? Milton Keynes in British Culture traces the representations of Milton Keynes in British national media, political rhetoric and popular culture in detail from 1967 to 1992, demonstrating how the town's founding principles came to be understood as symbolic of the worst excesses of a postwar state planning system which was falling from favour. Combining approaches from urban planning history, cultural history and cultural studies, political economy and heritage studies, the book maps the ways in which Milton Keynes' newness formed an existential challenge to ideals of English landscapes as receptacles of tradition and closed, fixed national identities. Far from being a marginal, "foreign" and atypical town, the book demonstrates how the changing political fortunes of state urban planned spaces were a key site of conflict around ideas of how the British state should function, how its landscapes should look, and who they should be for.

Milton Keynes comes to life in this concise, yet comprehensive and multi-dimsensional exploration of a city often misunderstood. Carefully and lovingly researched, this is a tale of roundabouts and concrete cows, of ancient settlers mostly marginalised and in danger of being forgotten, of a promising football team, of lakes and water sports, a thriving business and social community with unique issues and a promising future. The reader is drawn into a place of growing beauty and charm that truly has something for everyone. Details are woven together with the robust opinion of a proud stakeholder. A strong sense of the authors experience of and passion for the city is conveyed right through the pages. It occurs to me that of all those who will benefit from this book, it is most valuable to the city herself. Milton Keynes will be very proud of a certain patrotic author resident called Susan Popoola. Nnamdi Dime, CEO, Dimensional Solutions Ltd

Horizons -- Planning -- Architecture -- Community -- Consulting -- Housing.

Neue Städte: Materialisierungen ihrer Zeit an einem konkreten Ort. Neue Städte sind Ausdruck einer Utopie: Mit ihnen sollte die Wohnungsnot im kriegszerstörten Europa gelöst, Wohnraum für groß angelegte Industrialisierungsprojekte und die Verwirklichung einer modernen Lebensweise ermöglicht werden. Zugleich stellten sie Repräsentation von Herrschaft und Raumkontrolle dar. Neue Städte altern jedoch schneller als andere Städte. Grund sind Strukturwandel und soziale Veränderungen. Es erfolgten Abrisse, aber auch denkmalpflegerische Rekonstruktion und der Aufbau Neuer Städte an anderen Orten. Die Beiträge des Buches beschreiben den Wandel der Neuen Stadt seit 1945 und verfolgen ihre Entwicklung bis zur Gegenwart - mit Beispielen aus Frankreich, Großbritannien, Albanien, Polen, Ungarn, Israel und China. Dabei geht es auch um die urbane und historische Authentizität der Neuen Stadt und den jeweiligen Umgang mit der eigenen Geschichte.