The Guardian: "We are returning to an undemocratic model of land ownership"

Link to The Guardian

"The Olympic Legacy Company executives who planned the Olympic Park often compare this new part of the city to 'a great London estate', in the manner of the 18th-century estates run by Grosvenor, the property company behind much of London's Belgravia.

"What they omit to mention is that this was a pre-democratic model of land ownership. Today, the Georgian squares and terraces are part of the fabric of the city, but what is no longer visible is that these places were once barricaded and closed to the public.

"Following growing public outrage, which paralleled the rise in local government and was reflected by two major parliamentary inquiries, control over the streets was passed to local authorities and the gates, fences and guards were removed. Since then it has been standard for local authorities to 'adopt' the streets and public spaces of the city which means that they control and run them whether they own them or not.

"Until recently, that is. Over the last decade this hard-won democratic achievement has started to go into reverse."

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GROUND CONTROL

Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City

ANNA MINTON

To be published by Penguin Books, paperback original, 26 June 2012, £9.99

"Brought up-to-date with new material, including a chapter on the true Olympic legacy, Ground Control is a revelatory and passionate defence against the privatisation of our streets and the disturbing reality of Britain today.

"Britain’s streets have been transformed by the construction of new property – but it’s owned by private corporations, designed for profit and watched over by CCTV. Have these gleaming business districts, mega malls, gated developments – even the Olympic Park – led to ‘regeneration’, or have they intensified social divisions and made us more fearful of each other?

"Anna Minton’s acclaimed polemic, now updated to cover the UK property collapse and London’s controversial Olympic Park, shows us the face of Britain today. It reveals the untested – and unwanted – urban planning that is changing not only our cities, but the nature of public space, of citizenship and of trust."

“Anna Minton has done us a service with this book…compelling” Hugh Pearman, Sunday Times
“Anna Minton has put her finger on one of the most profound and disturbing shifts in modern British cities” Evening Standard
“timely and powerful study…revelatory” Rafael Behr, Observer