Urban Crisis, Urban Hope resurrects the concept of the city and its neighbourhoods as a crucible for new ideas and a site of innovative action when cities in the UK are struggling with an unfolding crisis, exacerbated by a policy vacuum and lack of strategic vision about how to resolve a series of growing divisions, social problems and injustices. It celebrates what is being achieved against the odds. But it also recognises the desperate need for support, resources and complementary visions at urban and national scales, and sets out an agenda to meet this need.
The collection of essays, edited by Julian Dobson and Rowland Atkinson and published by Anthem Press in June 2020, brings together leading thinkers and doers from across the spectrum of policy and practice to present both critical analysis and an agenda for action. It seeks to reinvigorate a sense of the city as a space where more progressive and fairer futures can be imagined, planned and realised. It aims to challenge stultifying discourses of incremental bureaucratic devolution that frame and delimit current urban debates. It alerts policymakers and the public to the unfolding crisis that has been allowed to develop in our cities and rehumanises the debate on urban futures to focus on citizenship and wellbeing in an age of precarity.
Urban Crisis, Urban Hope presents just over 50 practical, implementable policy solutions that could make a real difference now. A pdf of these ideas is available as a free download.
Contents
Chapter 1. Asking for Trouble Julian Dobson and Rowland Atkinson
Chapter 2. The Hungry City
A Growing Resistance to Britain’s Food Poverty Crisis Madeleine Power
What Will It Take to End Hunger in the United Kingdom? Niall Cooper
Chapter 3. The Unhomed City
Housing Crisis, Austerity and the Production of Precarious Lives Emma Bimpson and Richard Goulding
Council Housing in the Urban Mixer Glyn Robbins
Chapter 4. The Anxious City
Rediscovering ‘We-ness’ Rhiannon Corcoran
The Anxious City Is a Complicated Place Graham Marshall
Chapter 5. The Violent City
Violence in the City: Inequality, Intimidation and Fear Elizabeth Cook and Anthony Ellis
Mattering and the Violence in Our Cities Luke Billingham and Keir Irwin-Rogers
Chapter 6. The Sick City
Do Black Lives Matter in Polluted Cities? Bethany Thompson
Growing Our Way to Healthier Cities Pam Warhurst
Chapter 7. The Withering City
How Can We Save and Restore Our Urban Green Spaces? Ian Mell
Cities Can Be Green Havens Natalie Bennett
Chapter 8. The Dispossessed City
Dispossession through Gentrification Loretta Lees
Land and Displacement Kate Swade and Mark Walton
Chapter 9. The Unravelling City
Facing the Public Services Crisis Annette Hastings
Resisting the New Normal Julian Dobson
Chapter 10. The Unaccountable City
An Unfinished Democracy Simin Davoudi
Does Urban Government Have to Be Destructive? Jess Steele
Chapter 11. The Challenge of Change Rowland Atkinson and Julian Dobson
Chapter 12 A Manifesto for Urban Policy