ABSTRACT

There is endless talk about the need for an urban renaissance; can it happen in the real world? In this broad, challenging and highly engaging book, Nicholas Schoon argues that the foremost priority for regeneration is to make neighbourhoods and cities places where people with choices choose to live.
The author surveys the last two centuries of metropolitan growth and decay, analyzes the successes and failures of recent changes in urban policy and proposes a wide range of radical measures to make the renaissance a reality. Comprehensively researched, The Chosen City is a wake up call for everyone interested and involved in urban regeneration - degree students and academics, planning and housing professionals, architects, surveyors, developers and politicians. The text is illustrated with powerful black and white images from a leading national newspaper photographer.

chapter 1|18 pages

The Abandoned City

chapter 2|16 pages

Darkshire and Coketown

chapter 3|18 pages

Enter the State

chapter 4|14 pages

Overspill and High Rise

chapter 5|30 pages

Things Can Only Get Better

chapter 6|8 pages

Ten Opportunities

chapter 7|18 pages

Pushes and Pulls

chapter 8|30 pages

The Milton Keynes Effect

chapter 9|18 pages

How to Mingle

chapter 10|24 pages

Education, Education, Regeneration

chapter 11|22 pages

The Frightened City

chapter 12|24 pages

Mixed Uses and Higher Densities, or MUHD

chapter 13|28 pages

The Ideal Home

chapter 14|26 pages

Erosion of Cities or Attrition of Cars

chapter 15|18 pages

Town and Country

chapter 16|16 pages

New New Towns

chapter 17|24 pages

Renaissance or Stillbirth?