London Voices, London Lives


Book Description

London Voices, London Lives addresses a question of great current importance for urban policy: what kind of a place is London in the 21st century, and how does it differ significantly from other parts of urban Britain? It addresses these questions in a unique way: over one hundred ordinary Londoners provide their answers in their own voices.




London Voices, 1820–1840


Book Description

London, 1820. The British capital is a metropolis that overwhelms dwellers and visitors alike with constant exposure to all kinds of sensory stimulation. Over the next two decades, the city’s tumult will reach new heights: as population expansion places different classes in dangerous proximity and ideas of political and social reform linger in the air, London begins to undergo enormous infrastructure change that will alter it forever. It is the London of this period that editors Roger Parker and Susan Rutherford pinpoint in this book, which chooses one broad musical category—voice—and engages with it through essays on music of the streets, theaters, opera houses, and concert halls; on the raising of voices in religious and sociopolitical contexts; and on the perception of voice in literary works and scientific experiments with acoustics. Emphasizing human subjects, this focus on voice allows the authors to explore the multifaceted issues that shaped London, from the anxiety surrounding the city’s importance in the musical world at large to the changing vocal imaginations that permeated the epoch. Capturing the breadth of sonic stimulations and cultures available—and sometimes unavoidable—to residents at the time, London Voices, 1820–1840 sheds new light on music in Britain and the richness of London culture during this period.




Why London is Labour


Book Description

This book answers the question why London has been a stronghold for the Labour Party for relatively long periods of the last century and continues to be so to this day to an extent that surprises contemporaries. The book draws on evidence from history and political sociology as well as the personal experience of the author in London local government during the 1980s. It argues that while changes in the London economy, plus the ability of the party to forge cross-class alliances, can go some way to explain the success of the Labour Party in London, a range of other demographic and social factors need to be taken into account, especially after the year 2000. These include the size of London’s growing black and ethnic minority communities; higher concentrations of well-educated younger people with socially liberal values; the increasing support of the middle-classes; the impact of austerity after 2008; and the degree of poverty in London compared to non-metropolitan areas. This book will be of key interest to readers interested in the history of the Labour Party, the politics of London, Socialist politics/history, British politics/history, government, political sociology, and urban studies.




Noting Voices


Book Description

Noting Voices: Contemplating London's Culture is author Haseeb Iqbal's take on the bubbling 'London Jazz Scene' and live music explosion that has consumed the capital in recent years. Having grown up within it all, Haseeb focuses on the spaces that have aided a scene so rich and layered, basing his reflections on five conversations from his 'Mare Street Records' podcast. He maps the scene's growth via the perspective of those who have provided the space, appreciating the instrumental role of such environments and the figureheads who have driven them. He navigates the unconventional template many of these spaces have observed, dissecting how a cultural movement, now internationally acclaimed, found its voice and established its identity. This story takes it back to the grassroots spaces and DIY communities who can be forgotten when an underground movement turns more mainstream. It appreciates a set of community-based values that have underpinned a radical cultural shift in London's sound, acknowledging the role of gentrification throughout, and the threat it poses to the spaces that birth and nurture this culture.




Voices


Book Description

From the Huguenots in the seventeenth century, Irish silk weavers in the late 1700s and East European Jews at the turn of the twentieth century through to recent immigrants from South-east Asia, East London has been shaped by a multicultural reality closely linked to a unique spirit of creative enterprise. Over the last thirty years in particular, the area has been transformed from a crumbling no-go area on the fringe of the nation's capital into a cluster of hip neighbourhoods buzzing with creative energy where a wide range of communities have come together. Voices East London connects the dots around the creative perspectives that make the area unique while providing colourful glimpses into its past by means of dynamic interviews with eighty of the area's leading movers and shakers. Among them are such artists, designers and cultural leaders as Gilbert & George, Sue Webster, Langlands & Bell, Charles Saumarez Smith, Iwona Blazwick, Maureen Paley, Viktor Wynd, Sandra Esquilant, David Waddington and Pablo Flack. Brimming with striking new photography and engaging insights into a distinctive milieu, Voices East London demonstrates that the area has well and truly moved beyond its old Dickensian aura.




The Planning Imagination


Book Description

Knighted in 1998 ‘for services to the Town and Country Planning Association’, and in 2003 named by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a ‘Pioneer in the Life of the Nation’, Peter Hall is internationally renowned for the breadth and depth of his studies and writings on urban and regional planning. For the last 50 years, he has captured and helped to create the ‘planning imagination’. Here the editors have brought together in five themes a series of critical reflections on Peter’s vast and diverse contributions. Those reflections are provided by colleagues familiar with his work. The five parts are devoted to Peter Hall’s breadth of academic work, covering the history of cities and planning, London, spatial planning, connectivity and mobility, and urban globalization. Finally, as a sixth part, the editors have asked Peter Hall himself to reflect on his career and the sources of his imagination. The story this book tells is not one of a singular, totally consistent theoretical and philosophical view elaborated over several decades. Rather it covers a set of views that necessarily admits signs of Peter’s inconsistency and imperfection over the years – the insights and imperfections that inevitably accompany the exercise of a nonetheless remarkably fertile, restless and inspiring planning imagination.




The Longest Night


Book Description

On 10-11 May 1941, Londoners thought the Nazi bombs would never stop falling as the London Blitz reached its furious zenith. These are the true stories from the survivors of one of the longest nights in the Second World War 'An excellent book . . . Mortimer has interviewed scores of survivors for this gripping tale' Scotland on Sunday On the afternoon of Saturday 10 May 1941, crowds gather at Wembley to watch Arsenal play Preston in the Cup Final. Australian journalist John Hughes starts his shift at Reuters in Fleet Street; 20-year-old Reenie Carter reports for duty at her fire station in Westminster Abbey; RAF pilot Guy Gibson relaxes in the sun before his night patrol; Vera Lynn drives in for an evening concert. Meanwhile, thousands of German airmen are preparing for a massive night raid. Gavin Mortimer has interviewed many survivors of this night to reveal the reality of the London Blitz. In a matter of hours, 1,486 Londoners were killed, 11,000 houses were destroyed, and millions of lives were changed for ever.




Performance and Community


Book Description

Performance practice in community settings is an established part of the cultural landscape. However, this practice is frequently viewed as functional: an intervention that seeks to solve, educate or heal. Performance and Community presents an alternative vision, focussing, instead, on the aesthetic and political ambitions of artists, organisations and cultural producers committed to this area. Through case studies, this edited collection gives unprecedented access to some of the leading organisations in the field, examining their creative processes and placing them in their historical context. In parallel, a series of interviews with individual artists explores their approaches and how they are re-shaped by the communities that they encounter. Case studies include: the Grassmarket Project, the Lawnmowers Independent Theatre Company, London Bubble, Magic Me and the partnership between the artist, Mark Storor and producer, Anna Ledgard; while interviews in this collection include: Mojisola Adebayo, Bobby Baker, Sue Emmas, Tony Fegan, Paul Heritage, Rosemary Lee and Lois Weaver. An invaluable resource for students of applied, social, community and contemporary theatre practices, Performance and Community provides vivid evidence of the complex negotiations between artist and community that lie at the heart of this delicate work.




Migrant City


Book Description

The first history of London to show how immigrants have built, shaped and made a great success of the capital city London is now a global financial and multicultural hub in which over three hundred languages are spoken. But the history of London has always been a history of immigration. Panikos Panayi explores the rich and vibrant story of London- from its founding two millennia ago by Roman invaders, to Jewish and German immigrants in the Victorian period, to the Windrush generation invited from Caribbean countries in the twentieth century. Panayi shows how migration has been fundamental to London's economic, social, political and cultural development. Migrant City sheds light on the various ways in which newcomers have shaped London life, acting as cheap labour, contributing to the success of its financial sector, its curry houses, and its football clubs. London's economy has long been driven by migrants, from earlier continental financiers and more recent European Union citizens. Without immigration, fueled by globalization, Panayi argues, London would not have become the world city it is today.




The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies


Book Description

Provides comprehensive coverage of major topics in urban and regional studies Under the guidance of Editor-in-Chief Anthony Orum, this definitive reference work covers central and emergent topics in the field, through an examination of urban and regional conditions and variation across the world. It also provides authoritative entries on the main conceptual tools used by anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and political scientists in the study of cities and regions. Among such concepts are those of place and space; geographical regions; the nature of power and politics in cities; urban culture; and many others. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies captures the character of complex urban and regional dynamics across the globe, including timely entries on Latin America, Africa, India and China. At the same time, it contains illuminating entries on some of the current concepts that seek to grasp the essence of the global world today, such as those of Friedmann and Sassen on ‘global cities’. It also includes discussions of recent economic writings on cities and regions such as those of Richard Florida. Comprised of over 450 entries on the most important topics and from a range of theoretical perspectives Features authoritative entries on topics ranging from gender and the city to biographical profiles of figures like Frank Lloyd Wright Takes a global perspective with entries providing coverage of Latin America and Africa, India and China, and, the US and Europe Includes biographies of central figures in urban and regional studies, such as Doreen Massey, Peter Hall, Neil Smith, and Henri Lefebvre The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies is an indispensable reference for students and researchers in urban and regional studies, urban sociology, urban geography, and urban anthropology.