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Click above for what became the consented plan, plus Transport page.

2015-03-19

[Reposted] London and Planning: the post-war experience


"Apart from things like atom bombs and so on, I'm quite satisfied"


"First transmitted in 1959, American reporter Ed Murrow returns to London where, during the war years, he had broadcast vivid descriptions of Britain during her 'finest and darkest hours, trying to report the suffering, the sacrifice and the steadiness of her people' to a listening world.

"This film features dramatic reports of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, which gave rise to his celebrated closing phrase 'Good night and good luck'. Murrow returned to London to examine 'what Britain has done with her years of victory'. He reports from London’s East End, which still bore the scars of the wartime raids, the London docks where dockers claim that taxing them for working on Sundays is 'the greatest liberty that’s been took by a worker in his life', and asks London’s younger generation what kind of world they would like to live in.

"'This is London...' on the brink of the 1960s, from where Murrow argues that post-war hopes for better health, better education, better housing and full employment are falling short of expectations."




"London's strength, and London's weakness, lies in it being a pattern of accidents - no great planner seized on London..."
 [certainly not at Brent Cross Cricklewood]


"First transmitted in 1964, this film charts how London has grown in size and spread into the surrounding country. Written and narrated by architectural critic Reyner Banham, 'A City Crowned with Green' describes the unique character of London as a capital city.

"Banham looks at how it has, from the time of Elizabeth I, defied the efforts of the planners to curb its growth, but he is alarmed by the urban sprawl.

"Is to too late to get back closer to the heart, and make London a city crowned with green?"


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