London's suburbs are home to many thousands of people who travel
into the centre every day to work, but they also house many
thousands who rarely find a reason to do so. They contain all the
essential infrastructure for the city, too, including airports,
offices, shopping centre, factories and warehouses. Outer London is
therefore both metropolitan and suburban at the same time - it is
Metroburbia. In this book Paul Knox examines the architectural
history and development of London's suburbs, and celebrates their
surprising variety and organized structure, refuting the common
claim that they are monotonous or amorphous. The first chapter, The
Foundations of Metroburbia, explains the foundation and development
of Metroburbia and looks at how topography and geology influenced
the siting of the villages that would become part of Greater
London. The River Thames, of course, is one of London's most
important and well-known structural elements, and in this chapter
Knox examines how its meanders and bends have produced distinct
patterns of settlement and development. He also describes in detail
the seven distinctive sectors of London, which are (running
clockwise from the west) the Thames Valley, Northwest London, North
London, the Lea Valley, Northeast London, the Thames Estuary and
South London. Finally, he looks at how early settlements, country
estates and royal palaces shaped Metroburbia, and how the increase
in roads and industry consolidated the development of what would
become suburbia. Chapter 2, Pattern-book London, looks at Victorian
and Edwardian suburbs - the first developments to be given that
name. The building booms and their effect on employment in the
city, and the difference in style and purpose between the various
suburbs, are discussed, and Knox also examines the effects of
immigration and industrialization on the city's housing
requirements. He also describes the genesis of the parks,
cemeteries and garden villages that now provide such valuable green
space for Londoners, and the creation of the impressive industrial,
civic and institutional buildings that are still striking parts of
the city's infrastructure. Chapter 3, Inter-war Suburbia:
Metro-Land and the Universal Plan, describes the acceleration of
building projects between the wars and the beginning of the
transition from Edwardian society to the modern welfare state. The
term 'Metro-Land', introduced by the Metropolitan Railway Company
in the early twentieth century, gives the chapter its title, and
describes the expansion of residential London along the route of
the Underground lines into Buckinghamshire. The effect of
widespread car ownership is discussed, and the various housing
styles - Stockbroker Tudor, Suburban Moderne, the mansion block,
and so on - are described. The fourth chapter, Secular Reformation
and Modernism, covers the thirty years from the end of the Second
World War, during which time the welfare state brought about
radical changes to life in London and the architecture of the city.
Chapter 5, Counter-Reformation, describes the changes wrought on
the country by the new neo-liberal agenda, as the welfare state was
overtaken by a market-driven economy that fostered free-for-all
development. By this time Metroburbia had spread outwards to
incorporate Chelmsford, Southend-on-Sea, Maidstone, Guildford,
Reading and Luton. This was an era of radical new infrastructure
projects - from the rise of the suburban shopping centre to the
construction of the new Thames Barrier - and huge increases in
house prices. The regeneration of the Isle of Dogs into the
Docklands commercial area is one of the most high-profile
developments of the era, but infill house-building and small-scale
environmental developments were also produced, and social housing
regenerated. Finally, the last chapter, Megapolitan Futures,
explores the various theories about the capital's future and
conjectures about the shape of the city in the twenty-first
century.
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