This book provides an entirely new and authoritative historical introduction to urban planning in Britain from its origins in the 1890s to the current directions of the 1990s and beyond. The author, an acknowledged expert in planning history, makes extensive use of recent research to provide a highly readable, evocatively illustrated and thoroughly comprehensive account.

Three basic themes run through the book: ideas, policies and impacts. The first involves an examination of the origins and development of the major aspects of planning thought. Beginning with the early importance of radical and utopian ideas, the book charts the later advocacy of a comprehensive approach in the 1930s and 1940s, the rise and fall of rational 'scientific' planning in the 1960s and 1970s, and the more recent influence of 'new right' and green ideas.

Second, the importance of ideas in shaping policies is discussed, tracing the growth of the planning system and detailing major policy initiatives. Throughout, the intensely political nature of planning is stressed, with frequent reference to the actions of key ministers, civil servants, local politicians and professional planners.

Third, there is an overall assessment of the actual impacts of planning, showing how powerful economic and social forces have interacted with planning intentions in the actual patterns of urban change. Often these have subverted planning ideas so that the spatial, economic and social outcomes have been rather different to those originally intended. The book ends with a call for a renewed planning vision for the 21st century, embracing both the new concerns for sustainable development, and planning's original, though often forgotten, project for radical reform.