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"In the past few weeks, two news stories have appeared that prove just how pertinent a book about Britain’s post-war rebuilding is in 2013. The first is the call from the Policy Exchange think tank for a garden city to be built by the next government to solve Britain’s housing crisis. The second is the forced eviction of the final resident of the Heygate estate in south London so that the area can be redeveloped into luxury flats.
"Garden cities are still being hailed as an urban panacea, as they have been for more than a century, while Heygate’s rise and fall reveals the shortcomings of urban planning. Neither of these stories will have come as a surprise to John Grindrod, whose book Concretopia covers their inception with great flair."
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The Guardian:
"Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain"
"Cumbernauld, Croydon, Coventry, Plymouth, Birmingham, Milton Keynes. Chances are that when you read those names, you didn't think, 'Ooh, lovely.'
"I'm guessing that instead those words conjured giant grey car parks, roundabouts, roads on stilts, shapeless office blocks and concrete cows. They are places, it's safe to say, that don't have the best reputation. Their creators also share their infamy.
"John Grindrod says:
"There is an accepted narrative to the way we think about our postwar architectural legacy. That narrative is somewhat akin to the plot of a superhero blockbuster: a team of super-villains – planners, architects, academics – had their corrupt, megalomaniac way with the country for 30 years.
Then, at long last, a band of unlikely heroes – a ragbag of poets, environmentalists and good, honest citizens – rise up against this architectural Goliath and topple it in the name of Prince Charles."
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