Book review Politics, Planning and Homes in a World City

摘要

Duncan Bowie's book is an interesting discussion of spatial planning and housing strategy in London during the tenure of Ken Livingstone as Mayor of London. This period covers 2000-2008 and represents a return to metropolitan government in London. It was a period that continued the process, first evident back in the mid-1980s, of the dissolution of political dissent and dissonance relating to London's spatial development. Bowie provides a fascinating account of what some have termed 'post-political times', and the building of an alleged consensus around the future of London's planning. Bowie intimates that the planning of London was, prior to Livingstone, a highly charged and contested process between different interest groups and political values. This process, for Bowie, became increasingly prone to the ascendancy of'the neo-liberal paradigm', and the convergence of values around the idea that 'unconstrained capitalism' was good for London.