Lecture date: 2011-02-15
Why is fear of crime soaring although crime itself continues to fall? Britons are increasingly aware of living in a society plagued by fear and unhappiness. Could our towns and cities be the cause? Ground Control is about the architecture of boom and bust and the architecture of fear it creates. This in-depth and passionate exploration of the state of Britain today reveals how the marketplace has taken control from the electorate. Over the last decade, property-driven policies, imported from the US, have transformed not only our cities, but the very nature of public space, of citizenship and of trust.
Anna Minton is a writer and journalist and the author of Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the 21st Century City, published by Penguin. She is also the author of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Viewpoint on fear and distrust and a member of the writers’ panel for the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. She appears regularly on television and radio and is a contributor to The Guardian and the New Statesman.
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