Remaking London

Between the slum clearances of the early twentieth century and debates about the post-Olympic city, the drive to 'regenerate' London has intensified. Yet today, with a focus on increasing land values, regeneration schemes purporting to foster diverse and creative new neighbourhoods typically displace precisely the qualities, activities and communities they claim to support. In Remaking London Ben Campkin provides a lucid and stimulating historical account of urban regeneration, exploring how decline and renewal have been imagined and realised at different scales. Focussing on present-day regeneration areas that have been key to the capital's modern identity, Campkin explores how these places have been stigmatised through identification with material degradation, and spatial and social disorder. Drawing on diverse sources - including journalism, photography, cinema, theatre, architectural design, advertising and television - he illuminates how ideas of decline drive urban change.

Drawing upon historical, cultural, economic and socio-demographic perspectives, this book examines the role of a sporting mega-event in promoting urban regeneration and social renewal. Comparing cities that have or will be hosting the event, it explores the political economy of the games and the changing role of the state in creating post-industrial metropolitan spaces. It evaluates the changing perceptions of the Olympic Games and the role of sport in the global media age in general and assesses the implication of 'mega-event' regeneration policies for local communities and their cultural, social and economic identities, with specific reference to east London and the Thames Gateway.

Symbolizing both commerce and culture, London has always been a magnet for the ambitions of the middle classes. However, the past three decades have witnessed a dramatic fragmentation in inner-city Londons social map. New and highly distinctive middle-class neighbourhoods have sprung up where embattled workers seek to combat the deleterious effects of long working hours, travel, and stress on traditional family values. This book is the first to explore the powerful impact of globalization on Londons economy and those who are caught up in it. More and more people are responding to the negative effects of working life as well as the lack of structure in their lives and particularly those of their children. The gentrification of certain areas and the differences among them directly reflects this desire to impose cultural values and structure on urban surroundings. How do these areas reflect middle-class values, ideologies, lifestyles, social backgrounds and occupational choices, and how have old neighbourhoods been refashioned and made amenable to middle-class life? In what ways has family life been affected by this new emphasis on values, structure and security, and what does the future hold? This fascinating book provides the first sustained analysis of the profound effects of globalization on city dwellers. Its original account of the relationship between urban space and cultural reproduction will inspire new research for years to come.

This book, published in 1980, is an iconoclastic account of one of the pillars of the welfare state, British town and country planning, between 1945 and 1975. Always a fine balance between central control and market forces, it was challenged by strains within and between the environmental professions and protest by people dispossessed or alienated by re-shaped urban environments. Remaking Cities critiques the export of western-style planning to the developing world and reviews initiatives rooted in different understandings of ‘growth’ appearing in those years. Nearly forty years on, many of the same issues beset us, notably the depressingly familiar inner city problem, despite countless reports, funds and ‘programmes’. But now our infrastructure and services, once publicly owned, are privatised and fragmented, and local government progressively relegated. The very core of planning, development control, is being pared in a struggle to regain the ‘growth’ which led to our current crisis. This gives fresh importance to the need for new modes of creating liveable, sustainable environments, emphasised in this important work.

An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, written by one of the most accomplished journalists of our time Technology has radically altered the news landscape. Once-powerful newspapers have lost their clout or been purchased by owners with particular agendas. Algorithms select which stories we see. The Internet allows consequential revelations, closely guarded secrets, and dangerous misinformation to spread at the speed of a click. In Breaking News, Alan Rusbridger demonstrates how these decisive shifts have occurred, and what they mean for the future of democracy. In the twenty years he spent editing The Guardian, Rusbridger managed the transformation of the progressive British daily into the most visited serious English-language newspaper site in the world. He oversaw an extraordinary run of world-shaking scoops, including the exposure of phone hacking by London tabloids, the Wikileaks release of U.S.diplomatic cables, and later the revelation of Edward Snowden’s National Security Agency files. At the same time, Rusbridger helped The Guardian become a pioneer in Internet journalism, stressing free access and robust interactions with readers. Here, Rusbridger vividly observes the media’s transformation from close range while also offering a vital assessment of the risks and rewards of practicing journalism in a high-impact, high-stress time.

From the inception of cinema to today’s franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing film production. Hollywood Remaking challenges the categorical dismissal in film criticism of remakes, sequels, and franchises by probing what these formats really do when they revisit familiar stories. Kathleen Loock argues that movies from Hollywood’s large-scale system of remaking use serial repetition and variation to constantly negotiate past and present, explore stability and change, and actively shape how the film industry, cinema, and audiences imagine themselves. Far from a simple profit-making exercise, remaking is an inherently dynamic practice situated between the film industry’s economic logic and the cultural imagination. Although remaking developed as a business practice in the United States, this book shows that it also shapes cinematic aesthetics and cultural debates, fosters film-historical knowledge, and promotes feelings of generational belonging among audiences.

Remaking Planning challenges the common misconception that planning under the Conservative government has been dismantled and abandoned to market forces. This new edition of a very well received text brings the original study up to date with an analysis of how planning in the 1990s has responded to continuing economic restructuring, political fragmentation and social change, and developed a new awareness of uncertainty and risk. The book illustrates how planning remains as a never-ending attempt to reconcile the demands of economic efficiency with those of democratic legitimacy.

The relationship between urbanism and fundamentalism is a very complex one. This book explores how the dynamics of different forms of religious fundamentalisms are produced, represented, and practiced in the city. It attempts to establish a relationship between two important phenomena: the historic transition of the majority of the world’s population from a rural to an urban existence; and the robust resurgence of religion as a major force in the shaping of contemporary life in many parts of the world. Employing a transnational interrogation anchored in specific geographic regions, the contributors to this volume explore the intellectual and practical challenges posed by fundamentalist groups, movements, and organizations. They focus on how certain ultra religious practices of Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism have contributed to the remaking of global urban space. Their work suggests that it is a grave oversimplification to view religious orthodoxies or doctrines as the main cause of urban terrorism or violence. Instead they argue that such phenomena should be understood as a particular manifestation of modernity’s struggles. Nezar AlSayyad and Mejgan Massoumi’s book provides fascinating reading for those interested in religion and the city, with thought provoking pieces from experts in anthropology, geography sociology, religious studies, and urban studies.