Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First-Century City
Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First-Century City by Anna Minton
An absolutely excellent read, though a bit depressing about what we have let the UK become and a damming indication of New Labours policy (sell off the family silver cheaply to private capital) that they have built up on thatcherism.
“Wandering around the streets, allowing spaces for walking and lingering, window shopping and people watching, is one of the real pleasures of life, harking back to the Parisian flâneur, the idler or loafer who walks around seeking experiences and chance encounters in the city. Writing about learning in the 1960s, Kevin Lynch wrote that ‘the best learning happens by surprise’ and that surprising things happen in cities often when we have ‘nothing better to do’ – waiting for someone or something or just hanging around. More recently the research on public space by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation emphasized how important it was to have places where it is possible to ‘do nothing’.” Anna Minton, Ground Control, pp 198-199.
