Colin Ward

"Peter Hall and Colin Ward wrote Sociable Cities to celebrate the centenary of publication of Ebenezer Howard's To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1998--an event they then marked by co-editing (with Dennis Hardy) the magnificent annotated facsimile edition of Howard's original, long lost and very scarce, in 2003. In this revised edition of Sociable Cities, sadly now without Colin Ward, Peter Hall writes: 'the sixteen years separating the two editions of this book seem almost like geological time. Revisiting the 1998 edition is like going back deep into ancient history'. The glad confident morning following Tony Blair's election has been followed by political disillusionment, the fiscal crash, widespread austerity and a marked anti-planning stance on the part of the Coalition government. But--closely following the argument of Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe discovered the Lost Art of Urbanism (Routledge 2013), to which this book is designed as a companion--Hall argues that the central message is now even stronger: we need more planning, not less. And this planning needs to be driven by broad, high-level strategic visions--national, regional--of the kind of country we want to see. Above all, Hall shows in the concluding chapters, Britain's escalating housing crisis can be resolved only by a massive programme of planned decentralization from London, at least equal in scale to the great Abercrombie plan seventy years ago. He sets out a picture of great new city clusters at the periphery of South East England, sustainably self-sufficient in their daily patterns of living and working, but linked to the capital by new high-speed rail services.This is a book that every planner, and every serious student of policy-making, will want to read. Published at a time when the political parties are preparing their policy manifestos, it is designed to make a major contribution to a major national debate"-- "Peter Hall and Colin Ward wrote Sociable Cities to celebrate the centenary of publication of Ebenezer Howard's To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform in 1998 - an event they then marked by co-editing (with Dennis Hardy) the magnificent annotated facsimile edition of Howard's original, long lost and very scarce, in 2003. In this revised edition of Sociable Cities, sadly now without Colin Ward, Peter Hall writes: 'the sixteen years separating the two editions of this book seem almost like geological time. Revisiting the 1998 edition is like going back deep into ancient history'. The glad confident morning following Tony Blair's election has been followed by political disillusionment, the fiscal crash, widespread austerity and a marked anti-planning stance on the part of the Coalition government. But - closely following the argument of Good Cities, Better Lives: How Europe discovered the Lost Art of Urbanism (Routledge 2013), to which this book is designed as a companion - Hall argues that the central message is now even stronger: we need more planning, not less. And this planning needs to be driven by broad, high-level strategic visions - national, regional - of the kind of country we want to see. Above all, Hall shows in the concluding chapters, Britain's escalating housing crisis can be resolved only by a massive programme of planned decentralization from London, at least equal in scale to the great Abercrombie plan seventy years ago. He sets out a picture of great new city clusters at the periphery of South East England, sustainably self-sufficient in their daily patterns of living and working, but linked to the capital by new high-speed rail services. "--

"All Quiet on the Hooligan Front is a compelling exploration into the changing face of football. Covering the years just prior to the Hillsborough disaster up to the present day it shows how the mood of English football has changed dramatically since the era of hooliganism described in its predecessor the hugely successful Steaming In." "The book revolves around the author's travels and gives a vivid portrayal of the fun that fans have when supporting their team. It looks at how football has changed now that the terraces have gone, and gives an insight into how members of the press often distort the truth about the game in order to sell more papers. The book emphasises the importance now assigned to marketing within football and, on a darker note, looks at the advent of the drugs culture amongst fans." "All Quiet on the Hooligan Front chronicles all of the changes which have occurred in the game post-Hillsborough, and leaves it for the reader to decide whether these have been good or bad for the beautiful game."--Jacket.

Ten lectures. Endless variations on a few simple but neglected truths. From An Anarchist Approach To Urban Planning, to Do-It-Yourself New Towns.