ABSTRACT
Forty years have passed since Peter Hall and his colleagues at Political and Economic Planning (PEP) completed the analysis for their massive groundbreaking study of the workings and impacts of the planning regime set up in the 1940s. The two volumes — and more than 1,100 pages — of The Containment of Urban England were then published to great acclaim in 1973, with the main findings being presented and praised at an afternoon meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in February 1974. At the latter, Peter Cowan, then at UCL, complimented the authors for this ‘splendid example of interdisciplinary research in geography, sociology and economics’ (1974a, p. 408). At the same meeting LSE's Derek Diamond said, ‘I am absolutely sure that the current and future generations of scholars in this field will owe Professor Hall and his colleagues an enormous debt for this massive work’ (1974, p. 410). Book reviews over the next few months were equally laudatory, including the celebrated American urban geographer Brian Berry: ‘These volumes are essential required reading for all urbanists and practising planners … and an awesome exercise in both analysis and self-awareness’ (1974, p. 212). Similarly, Peter Cowan (1974b , p. 354) used a book review to stress the importance of the study's findings for policy-makers, saying: ‘(it) shows that our system has had many unintended side effects — a number of them bad… Only a fool would ignore the main message’.
