The Making of the Urban Landscape

Urban landscapes are an important part of the daily lives of most of the population of the western world. Buildings, streets, gardens and parks are a fundamental means by which we orientate ourselves within cities and contribute significantly to our daily levels of efficiency and well-being (or lack of them). The creation and maintenance of the urban environment account for a sizeable proportion of public and private expenditure. Yet despite the controversy surrounding a few special buildings and places, the people and forces responsible for shaping ordinary town and city landscapes have rarely been systematically investigated and are poorly understood. By viewing urban landscapes in relation to the individuals and organizations responsible for their creation, this book supplies a missing dimension to urban landscape history and an insight into the dynamics of contemporary urban change. The agents responsible for urban landscape development are many and various. They include landowners, building owners, building contractors, developers, architects, and planning authorities.
Their interests and ambitions are equally diverse: developers seek profit, owners to protect their assets, and planners to enforce regulations. The author argues that a clear analysis of the roles of those influencing urban change is essential not only to an understanding of present-day urban landscapes, but to their enlightened management in the future. It becomes clear in the course of this book that the communities and the individuals who are most often affected by urban development are frequently those whose views are either unheard or, even if articulated in the form of protests and movements, have little bearing on final decisions. Jeremy Whitehand's investigation of recent urban change suggests both that planners need to plan and that the process should be a good deal more democratic.