Blue, White, and Red Heat

This chapter looks at central government’s role in directing the way in which local authorities enacted central-area redevelopment schemes. It shows how modernist ideas were sustained by a broadly consensual cross-party political culture in central government. It shows how the Joint Urban Planning Group, set up within the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, provided guidance to local authorities in how to form public–private partnerships to redevelop their city centres. The last section discusses the fate of these ideas during Labour’s first term after the 1964 election, and argues for an economic explanation of the initial reaction against modernist approaches to the built environment.

Introduction

The introduction to Boom Cities sets out the arguments and methodology of the book. It contends that the reshaping of central areas cannot be understood solely through architectural culture, but needs to be understood through the way that architectural culture became entangled with the political culture and ambitions of the period. Modernism, which has been the defining key in understanding this moment in all previous accounts, is therefore implicitly downgraded as an explanatory tool, and the book looks instead towards other explanatory categories, to better explain the seemingly contradictory features of complex individuals and the variety of their motives.

Blackburn Goes Pop

This chapter illustrates how modernist ideas related to local concerns and aspirations, through a representative case study of the building of a new central-area shopping centre in the Lancashire city of Blackburn. The first section introduces the scheme and its architect-planners, Building Design Partnership. The second section discusses aspects of Blackburn’s political culture that were influential in such a drastic approach being taken, stressing especially the background of deindustrialization. And the third section argues for the importance of local shopkeepers in how schemes panned out in local contexts, contrasting different conceptions of civic pride that were perceivable in Blackburn at this date. Blackburn’s city-centre development is then compared with similar schemes in Salisbury and Leicester, where local contexts led to different outcomes.

Optimism, Traffic, and the Historic City in Post-War British Planning

The first chapter introduces the way architectural and planning ideas were conceived and perceived as responses to concurrent British concerns and ambitions. A widespread optimism about Britain’s economic future led planners to revise many of their assumptions about planning that had been formed in the aftermath of the Second World War. This chapter stresses the centrality of the growth of traffic for architectural thinking in the period, while also showing how architect-planners were influenced by a cross-cultural reinvestment in distinctly urban values, often centred on the slippery term ‘urbanity’. Planners developed an approach to the buildings of the past, where what was at stake was providing a new environment to a selected number of historical buildings, often at the expense of the more mundane built fabric of cities.

The Trajectory of Central-Area Redevelopment

The final chapter looks at the way that the very planning and political elites who had been at the heart of the changes came to disavow the ideas that they had espoused only a few years before. The chapter argues that architecture ceased to be the dominant profession in the planning profession. It traces the widespread disillusionment with modernist planning, showing the disavowal of modernist approaches from the perspective of planning and political elites, including a section on the Labour politician Richard Crossman. A new set of priorities for cities was indicated by the emergence of the term ‘inner city’, which saw urban decision makers tackling problems centred around the persistence of poverty rather than affluence.

Planning for Affluence

This chapter focuses on the architect-planner Graeme Shankland. Shankland’s planning practice is understood through the influence of the political culture and concerns of the British Left in this period. The chapter charts his formation as a planner for the London County Council, especially through his work on the unrealized New Town of Hook in Hampshire. The chapter details Shankland’s notorious plan for Liverpool city centre, showing how, despite its radical forms, it was inspired by a deep love of the city. The chapter goes on to look at Shankland’s plan for Bolton, in which he developed a much more sensitive appreciation of the qualities of a northern townscape.

Modernism in an Old Country

This chapter provides a biographical account of the architect-planner Lionel Brett fourth Viscount Esher. It shows how Brett attempted to combine modernist approaches with a passionate and pioneering commitment to the preservation of the historic urban environment. Brett’s planning work is also shown to have been informed and motivated by his patrician mentality. The chapter shows Brett formulating an approach to cities through his extensive journalism as well as his engagement with the New Towns movement through his planning of Hatfield as well as his involvement in organizations such as the Society for the Promotion of Urban Renewal and the Royal Fine Art Commission. The chapter goes on to give an account of Brett’s plans for Portsmouth and for York. It shows Brett’s profound disillusionment following the commercialization of the urban renewal agenda.