Full Description
The Thames Gateway plan is the largest and most complex project of urban regeneration ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. This book provides a comprehensive overview and critique of the Thames Gateway plan, but at the same time it uses the plan as a lens through which to look at a series of important questions of social theory, urban policy and governmental practice. It examines the impact of urban planning and demographic change on East London's material and social environment, including new forms of ethnic gentrification, the development of the eastern hinterlands, shifting patterns of migration between city and country, the role of new policies in regulating housing provision and the attempt to create new cultural hubs downriver. It also looks at issues of governance and accountability, the tension between public and private interests, and the immediate and longer term prospects for the Thames Gateway project both in relation to the 'Olympics effect' and the growth of new forms of regionalism.
Contents
Contents: Preface; Editorial introduction, Philip Cohen and Michael J. Rustin; Part 1 Big Pictures, Small Details: Ex-ports: the laboratory role of London's docklands, Han Meyer; Smokestack: the industrial history of Thames Gateway, John Marriott; 120 years of regeneration, from East London to the Thames Gateway: fluctuations of housing type and city form, William Mann; Daring to plan? Concepts and models of urban regeneration in Thames Gateway, Michael Keith; Thames Gateway oxymorons: some reflections on 'sustainable communities' and neoliberal governance, Massimo De Angelis; Forcing the market, forging community: culture as social construction in the Thames gateway, Andrew Calcutt; Stuff happens: telling the story and doing the business in the making of Thames Gateway, Philip Cohen. Part 2 Case Studies in Urban Change: City to sea: some socio-demographic impacts of change in East London, Tim Butler, Chris Hamnett, Mark Ramsden and Sadiq Mir; Moving to a better place? Geographies of aspiration and anxiety in the Thames Gateway, Paul Watt; Homing in on housing, Penny Bernstock; 'Alright on the night'? Envisioning a 'night time economy' in the Thames Gateway, Karina Berzins and Iain MacRury; From bedsit-land to 'cultural hub': re-generating Southend-on-Sea, Gareth Millington; The Thames Gateway bridge: a new 'solution' to an old problem?, Andrew Blake; The airport next door; London City airport - regeneration, communities and networks, Iain MacRury; Involving local communities in the Thames Gateway developments, Alice Sampson; Blues sky over Bluewater?, Michael Edwards; After London's turning: prospects and legacies for Thames Gateway, Philip Cohen and Miichael J.Rustin; Index.
