ABSTRACT
Most of this effort is long forgotten, but the 1942 MARS Plan has continued to intrigue historians.9 Its best known element, a striking image of a linear city with spines of residential development located north and south of a central transport corridor (Figure 4.1), has been regularly reprinted in commentaries on the development of British planning and reconstruction. It is also frequently cited as representing the uncompromising visionary stance said to have characterised the thinking of the inter-war Modern Movement towards the future city. Yet this plan is almost always presented as a discrete exercise. There is rarely any sense that it was the culmination of a discontinuous series of separate exercises and was shaped, directly and indirectly, by different authors with varying views and intentions.
