URBLOG

Surveillance city

These cities within cities are eating up Britain's streets

Anna Minton on how urban regeneration has seen entire districts pass into the hands of private companies – and their security guards.

This monitoring and surveillance of innocent activities, which does not necessarily require anti-terror laws, is taking place all around Britain as a result of the growing private ownership and private control of cities. Liverpool One, which spans 34 streets in the heart of Liverpool, is effectively owned by the Duke of Westminster's property company, Grosvenor, which leased the entire site, including streets and public places, from the council for 250 years. Cabot Circus in Bristol, Highcross in Leicester and what promises to be the biggest of all, Stratford City in London, are all owned and run by property companies.

DIY Streets

How locals transformed rat runs into public spaces

Getting cars cars to slow down instead of racing through backstreet rat runs benefits everyone from cyclists to residents. Clapton Terrace is one of 11 "DIY Streets", a nationwide project launched by sustainable transport charity Sustrans as a cheap solution to local traffic problems.

 "Residents take ownership, so it becomes a public space not just for car traffic but for play and doing everything related to civic life. It gives residents the opportunity to design streets how they want and take ownership. That is part of the philosophy."

two shopping centres from the inside

City Network and the School of Sociology at Kingston University guest lecture 

'Architecture and affect: two shopping centres from the inside' 

Professor Gillian Rose (The Open University).

The event will take place on Tuesday, 24th of November 2009, 5.30pm in

the C-Scaipe Debating Chamber of Kingston University (Penrhyn road campus).

Migration in European Cities

Free online access for a limited period to a special issue of European Urban and Regional Studies.   (available until 31^st December 2009).

Special Issue: Migration    Volume 16, Issue 3, July 2009

Diane Perrons  Migration: Cities, Regions and Uneven Development

 Enzo Mingione  Family, Welfare and Districts: The Local Impact of New Migrants in Italy

Jane Wills, Jon May, Kavita Datta, Yara Evans, Joanna Herbert, and Cathy McIlwaine  London's Migrant Division of Labour

Alison Stenning and Stuart Dawley  Poles To Newcastle: Grounding New Migrant Flows in Peripheral Regions

Allan M. Williams  International Migration, Uneven Regional Development and Polarization

In Britain's dockland mirror, China is sailing into view

Tristram Hunt in The Guardian

Emblems first of empire, then post-industrial drift and rampant capitalism, London's docks are now in hock to a new power. [...] This unbecoming location on the Isle of Dogs has always told us a broader truth about the condition of Britain. In the Victorian era, the docks symbolised the prosperity and progress of empire.

Canary Wharf, an icon of modern capitalism, is now a totem of state-funded corporatism. The docks that once played host to the British empire and housed the finance titans of US imperialism are now in hock to a new power rising in the east.

LSE Autumn Public Lectures

Events open to the LSE community and the public

 

Tuesday 6 October, 6.30-8pm

Bringing the Penal State Back In

SPEAKER: Professor Loïc Wacquant

 

Monday 19 October, 6.30-8pm

Beijing Inside Out: Caochangdi

SPEAKERS: Robert Mangurian, Mary-Ann Ray

 

Tuesday 10 November, 6.30-8pm

 The First Legacy Games: the physical and

socio-economic transformation of East London

SPEAKERS: Andrew Altman, Councillor Paul Brickell,  Ricky Burdett

 

Tuesday 17 November, 6.30-8pmC

Cities, Design and Climate Change

SPEAKERS: Professor Saskia Sassen, Professor Richard Sennett

Bees in the City

Bringing the buzz back to gardens and rooftops

The Beehaus, a new  contemporary beehive for the urban beekeeper, launched today (Wednesday 5 August) by Omlet with support from Natural England, will make it easy for anyone - from amateurs to seasoned apiarists - to help bees find a home in urban gardens up and down the country.

“There is no reason why our towns and cities should exist as wildlife deserts - wildlife can thrive when we design our urban areas with nature in mind and the Beehaus is a great example of how easy it is for anyone to bring the natural world closer to their doorstep.”

Creating a buzz in Britain's towns and cities

Apiarist courses in many places are over-subscribed and membership of beekeeping associations has shot up with the increased awareness of the plight of the productive pollinator. Those without gardens are increasingly using rooftops for their hives.

Bishops and bees

Legacy of the docks

Questions at 'the very centre of globalisation'

It is time to rethink the London Docklands development as simply a struggle between powerless locals and 'yuppie' colonisers.

The monumental Canary Wharf is central to the story of the Docklands and its success, but it is not the whole story. Beyond it there remain pockets that still await regeneration and renewal. The current interest in its evolution should be a reminder that 30 years on it is no less a work in progress than the Thames Gateway or the London Olympics.

Glancey on the warning of Lakanal

Our lethal estates    The Lakanal House deaths cast shame on Britain. We urgently need to audit all similar blocks.

The fact, however, that Lakanal House is no more unsafe than many other housing blocks of its type is not cause for concern but for a public outcry. How can such a wealthy country as Britain still house its people in lethal settings? Why is our housing stock so poor when Britain's public housing, a century ago, was often held up as a model to be copied across Europe?

...if Lakanal House is typical then we can expect more fatal fires in the future. Of course, there should be fire drills in such buildings, and of course residents should be offered the best possible information on how to survive a fire. But we urgently need to hold a national audit of these and similar buildings, to investigate their weaknesses, and to equip them with secondary fire escapes.

Architects Journal 

“I’m sorry, you can’t drink here.”

A Public Nuisance:  Tim Abraham investigates the increasing control of public space.

“Something is lost when our understanding of the public is reduced to consumers on best behaviour.”