Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and photographs
- Preface
- one Introducing Jigsaw cities
- Part 1 How did we get here?
- Part 2 Where are we now?
- Part 3 Where do we go from here?
- Afterword: the urban jungle or urban jigsaw?
- Notes and references
- Bibliography
- Index
- Also available in the CASE Studies on Poverty, Place and Policy series
one - Introducing Jigsaw cities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and photographs
- Preface
- one Introducing Jigsaw cities
- Part 1 How did we get here?
- Part 2 Where are we now?
- Part 3 Where do we go from here?
- Afterword: the urban jungle or urban jigsaw?
- Notes and references
- Bibliography
- Index
- Also available in the CASE Studies on Poverty, Place and Policy series
Summary
The best way to solve some of our global problems is to break them down analytically into local ones. Not because local ones are easier; not at all. But because disenfranchisement, hate and misery always have local roots. It is in making safe and healthy neighbourhoods, towns and cities, that Europe will become what it was decided in 1945 that it should be, a land of peace and justice. (Pasqual Maragall, Mayor of Barcelona, 1982-97)
Judge a civilization by its cities. (Will Hutton, 2000)
The history of the housing question in Birmingham is a troubled and chequered one, as full of changes as the kaleidoscope of life.(Birmingham Evening Mail, 1922)
Our urban future
This book is grounded in the reality of life of Britain's major cities, particularly Birmingham, the city that inspired this book. The pessimistic view holds that cities are too polluted, too scarred by decades of demolition and ugly concrete building and too fundamentally untamed to work. Our cities are a costly burden, and although urbanism has enjoyed a revival in recent years it has not inspired the millions who have left Britain's cities over the past century to give them another chance, particularly not working families with children. In cities across the world, environmental degradation, dirt and congestion, stark inequalities and low quality of life drive out households who have the choice and resources. As a result many cities have become trapped in a vicious cycle of heavier traffic, worsening environmental decay and deeper social polarisation. Yet we are a highly urbanised society and cities across the world are growing at breakneck speed. In the developing world more people are coming in than leaving. In the developed world the opposite has been true for decades. But cities have spread out rather than diminished and there are many signs of recovery at the core of cities that were basket cases of decline 30 years ago.
We believe that cities have a vibrant and sustainable future if we alter the way we think about them, plan, rebuild and govern them. If we empower communities at the neighbourhood level and concentrate on people-based solutions, dual carriageways to facilitate outward growth will no longer seem such attractive solutions to the problems within them.
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- Information
- Jigsaw CitiesBig Places, Small Spaces, pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2007