The second lecture in the ‘OUR KIND OF TOWN’ series will take place on September 27th and be given by Michael Edwards and Anna Minton. We are delighted to welcome two of London’s leading urban analysts and campaigners who have played an important role in defining and challenging the direction of London’s development since the 1960s.
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LONDON’S REGENERATION: OPPORTUNITY FOR WHOM?
Drawing on many years of engagement with London’s ‘regeneration’ including Covent Garden, Tolmers Square, Coin Street, Docklands, King’s Cross, Elephant and Castle, Haringey, Michael Edwards will review some of the conflicts between tenants, resident and community groups, the development industry and public authorities since the 1960s in an attempt to separate enduring structural issues from conjunctural shifts. Will New Labour and London First continue to be in charge or is a community led plan for London possible?
Anna Minton looks at London’s regeneration through the prism of housing, tracing the processes which have transformed it from a basic civic right into a financialised asset. She draws on original research to document this transition through a series of political actions and inactions on the part of successive governments, which have allowed property developers and global real estate to manipulate the housing market to their own advantage and immense profit. She examines the predicament of ‘generation rent’ and explores possible strategies to challenge the hegemony of finance and property capital in shaping London’s future.
PRESENTERS
Michael Edwards studied planning at UCL 1964-6. He worked in Nathaniel Lichfield’s office, mainly doing economic inputs to the Plan for Milton Keynes. He has enjoyed lecturing at the Bartlett School, UCL, since 1969, been involved in various London community actions and in all the hearings on London Plans since 2000, working with the network of community groups JustSpace.org.uk His publications are at www.michaeledwards.org.uk and he tweets as @michaellondonsf
Anna Minton is a writer, journalist and academic. She is the author of Big Capital: Who is London for? (Penguin 2017) and Ground Control: Fear and happiness in the 21st Century City (Penguin 2012, 2009). She is Reader in Architecture at the University of East London and Programme Leader of UEL’s MRes Architecture, ‘Reading the Neoliberal City’. She is a contributor to the Guardian and appears regularly on TV and radio. Her website is www.annaminton.com
OUR KIND OF TOWN LECTURES
This public lecture series has been launched by the Livingmaps Network, to support the creation of an online Citizen’s Atlas of London. The atlas will provide a platform through which communities on the front line of regeneration can explore and map their fears and hopes for the future development of this great city as well as their concerns about its present direction.
The first lecture in the series ‘Stretched City’ was given in June 2017 by Iain Sinclair. For details of other forthcoming lectures in this series please make sure you register on our mailing list.
Venue: UCL Lecture Theatre 2