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Ground Control: Fear and happiness in the twenty-first-century city
 
 
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Ground Control: Fear and happiness in the twenty-first-century city [Kindle Edition]

Anna Minton (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews) |
Print List Price: £9.99
Kindle Price: £5.99 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
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Product Description

Review

Anna Minton has done us a service with this book . . . compelling (Hugh Pearman The Sunday Times )

A sharp and urgent anaylsis of our changing towns and cities (Metro )

A timely and powerful study . . . revelatory (Guardian )

Compelling . . . raises important questions about the meaning of liberty in contemporary society and what we are prepared to defend today (Times )

Review

'A sharp and urgent anaylsis of our changing towns and cities.'
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Anna Minton,
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By SJ
Format:Paperback
The author deals with a wealth of issues in one slender volume - it's a fascinating up to date description + explanation of the rise of certain popularist (planning) policies in the UK, copied mostly from the US, which have or are having a negative effect on the towns and cities we live in. And the fact that these decisions are so unpublicised, we are sleep walking into a "clean + safe" yet extremely paranoid and unhappy world. This book made me angry and frustrated - a must read for anyone wondering where the "public" spaces are and who and what "public" bodies control these spaces. Clearly written and concise, and not at all boring or text booky (a book about planning policies??) it explains the links between and consequences of market lead planning decisions, and makes all the issues extremely relevant to every one of us. I now actually want to read alot more about the subject...
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful
A New Civic Space 20 July 2009
Format:Paperback
The importance of this book cannot be overlooked. It is about how growing security, from CCTV to gated developments, is a manifestation of a paranoia that has arisen in society over the past generation. This fear, the author points out, does not correspond to a steady rise in crime, which has in fact gone down. Instead, it can be traced to factors such as the deregulation of the finance markets in the eighties, soaring property prices and boom and bust, as well as policies on crime and anti-social behaviour. Written in an accessible but compelling style it draws together changes in policy with the emotional effects these can have on our lives. By making use of the opinions of experts as well as testimonies of the communities most affected by the changes, the book, which is based on a journey around Britain, clarifies just how these changes happened. For those of us who wonder why all our high streets look the same, or pass a shop or housing that has been empty for some time, when there is a housing crisis, the answers point to the unregulated property economy adopted by the Labour government. The book is important because it also focusses on alternative European models of civic space that could be adopted in the UK. In short it addresses issues of personal well-being that affect society as a whole.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An important book full of insight and understanding into the way that society and its design have been forcefully changed since the early 1980s. I knew about many of the individual subjects and have lived in parts of the country watching the errors that have been made. I'm a doctor and have spoken with the people looked on as dregs of society, and simply are not. I've lived in places where the design of the town has wrecked the interactions of people themselves. I've watched as commercial giants have told us what we want and how we want it in our town.
A brilliant breath of air, simply writing it all down. I have ordered a pile more of these books and will be giving them out to our planning department. Ground Control goes through the important factors in our lives and we should all get going to do something about it. Excellent.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
VERY GOOD!
Very nice book for all those interested in urban studies and how the capital affects space ownership, the right to the city and reduction in the public spaces.
Published 3 months ago by Raphael Silva
superficial but important themes
This is a piece of polemic, the author has read and travelled widely in gathering her research. The book is on a timely theme, and apart from the rather faint and small text it is... Read more
Published 5 months ago by tallmanbaby
Stirring stuff
Every few years I come across a book on cities that I really enjoy. The first was Jane Jacob's Life & Death of Great American Cities and then it was Leadville by Edward Platt. Read more
Published 16 months ago by William Cohen
Interesting book about planning in the UK
A surprisingly interesting book about planning, crime, and social policy. Well written, easy to read - though sometimes that feels a bit like lack of rigour, and I felt myself... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Jezza
Scary
The reviews I've read submitted by readers were very mixed - some felt that Anna Minton hadn't offered solutions to the problems raised in the book, others thought she had. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mark Dene
Well writen quality
An absolutely superb read which I would recommend to anyone with any interest in the way we live today, the way in which policy effects our everyday lives and the insiduous... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Reader
The elephant in the room
An excelent attempt to pull together a cohesive picture of the mess that town planning has increasingly become. Public interest confused with corporate profit. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Ru_Anderson
Land Grabbers
Anna Minton's Ground Control is a chilling read that reminds me of the work of Naomi Klein. Here, Minton gets to grips, not with the exploitation of sweat shop workers in the Third... Read more
Published on 19 April 2010 by Clifford Thurlow
Excellent expose of housing policy and the privatisation of public...
This is an insightful book that illustrates many of the failings of public policy in the UK with regards to housing and urban regeneration. Read more
Published on 18 Nov 2009 by Mr. L. M. Mcivor
Let's have a heated debate....
This is an interesting and well argued book about how changes in property ownership and control, badged as regeneration, coupled with Government policy on anti social behaviour,... Read more
Published on 6 Sep 2009 by J. Coulton
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