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This thesis is an exploration of the politics of urban transformation in the immediate post-war period of British history, between 1945 and 1970. It centres on the Labour Party and considers the relationship of the party’s socialist aims to modernity as a stimulus for radical urban policy, particularly in terms of housing. Whilst prior historical accounts of post-war urban change have tended to eschew ideology as a serious catalyst for the reconstruction of British cities, arguing instead that pragmatism and corruption were of greater consequence, this thesis contends that a modern, socialist utopian ideal was a defining feature of urban transformation undertaken by Labour at both a local and national level. Archival material from Labour and the broader left of British politics, published sociological studies from the period 1945-70 and my own oral history interviews with key figures from the period lead this investigation. A thorough analysis of Labour’s approach to key aspects of the urban environment enables this thesis to challenge existing understandings of post-war urban transformation as irrational or hard-headed. The thesis examines the relationship of Labour to the housing market, urban planning, understandings of community and the party’s sense of history and modernity. It asserts that rent control, slum clearance and tower blocks were indicative of a modern, socialist urban vision for Labour, proposing that the ‘modern moment’ in twentiethcentury British history be taken into greater consideration. As urban history acquires greater prominence in an age of increasing urbanisation, engagement with the rationale behind past urban transformation can make a significant contribution to the understanding of why particular urban policies become reality.

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The research focuses on the transfer of European urban ideas into Caracas, from Antonio Guzman Blanco's urban reforms in the 1870s to the proposal of the 1939 Plan Monumental de Caracas, devised under the guidance of the French urbanist Maurice Rotival. Considering that the emergence of urbanism cannot be reduced to its mere technical contents - especially in the backward context of the Venezuela of that period - the research traces not only the transfer of urbanistic ideas, but also the importation which took place in the domains related to the Caraquenians' urban culture and urbanity. At the same time, that urban transfer is not reduced to a deterministic effect of economic dependence, but is rather regarded as a component of the cultural relationship maintained by the Venezuelan elite with the most advanced countries of North Atlantic capitalism. By tracing the transfer of urban ideas from Europe into Caracas - which remains the core issue of the research -a parallel question is explored: the reconstruction of the primary stages which articulated the urban debate in Venezuela and underpinned modern urbanism as a discipline, a process which apparently occurred against that European background. This reconstruction involves three episodes - the urban art of the Guzmanian city, the hygiene and progress of the belle Opoque and the monumental urbanism of the democratic capital - which are presented as components of a European-oriented cycle in the history of Caracas. In order to trace that transfer and reconstruct those episodes, the research combines four types of urban discourse: the legal, political and administrative texts, the urban literature, the travel chronicles and general descriptions, and technical literature about urbanism. The interlacement of such a catalogue of specialized and non-specialized sources claims to be an innovation of the research.

As North American cities experience rapid changes in demographics, communication technology, and economy, how will urban libraries continue to hold meaning and usefulness to their publics? Investigating the position of the municipal public library in the multicultural city, the thesis focuses on how this civic institution can be a social gathering place and a venue that supports multiple forms of communication and cultural contestation. Oakland, California is the site for an exploration of these concepts and their application in a design proposal. Oakland is a diverse and segregated city which is currently undergoing a new wave of development. The city’s history reveals how the formation of urban communities has often been intimately connected with the uses and transformations of public space. The history also illustrates the ways that public life has been performed within and defined by the public spaces of the city. An investigation of the Library’s story and myths highlights the gap between the institution’s utopian self-conception and its less than egalitarian history. To develop new visions for the municipal library, theories about public space and urban life are considered in light of changing technologies and communication methods currently affecting the public realm. The juxtaposition of these concepts suggests that in order to improve the popularity and relevance of the Library, an expansion and diversification of its urban, social and practical functions is necessary. The design proposal for the Oakland Media Library integrates this broadened idea of the Library into the city fabric, and renews the Library’s meaning and usefulness by conceiving it as an urban communication space.

As North American cities experience rapid changes in demographics, communication technology, and economy, how will urban libraries continue to hold meaning and usefulness to their publics? Investigating the position of the municipal public library in the multicultural city, the thesis focuses on how this civic institution can be a social gathering place and a venue that supports multiple forms of communication and cultural contestation. Oakland, California is the site for an exploration of these concepts and their application in a design proposal. Oakland is a diverse and segregated city which is currently undergoing a new wave of development. The city’s history reveals how the formation of urban communities has often been intimately connected with the uses and transformations of public space. The history also illustrates the ways that public life has been performed within and defined by the public spaces of the city. An investigation of the Library’s story and myths highlights the gap between the institution’s utopian self-conception and its less than egalitarian history. To develop new visions for the municipal library, theories about public space and urban life are considered in light of changing technologies and communication methods currently affecting the public realm. The juxtaposition of these concepts suggests that in order to improve the popularity and relevance of the Library, an expansion and diversification of its urban, social and practical functions is necessary. The design proposal for the Oakland Media Library integrates this broadened idea of the Library into the city fabric, and renews the Library’s meaning and usefulness by conceiving it as an urban communication space.

A distinctive subset of late medieval drama are those customs which involved an element of subversion or inversion on the occasion of a calendar feast. These customs, which may generically be labelled as misrule, have long been a source of interest to antiquarians, local historians and students of medieval drama and popular culture. One particular view which has dominated the discussion and interpretation of misrule is the approach which sees such practices as a conservative force in late medieval society, that is, by temporarily challenging authority these customs merely reaffirm it in the long run. It is the contention of this thesis that although this model has raised the important question of the relationship between misrule, politics and social structure in this period, it is inappropriate both as a metaphor and as a tool for the analysis of these themes. I review the scholarly literature on misrule over the past twenty-five years in Chapter One, drawing attention to the problems of previous approaches. In Chapter Two I put forward what I believe to be a more appropriate vocabulary and framework in which those calendar customs with a transgressive element can be discussed. I suggest that misrule is more constructively approached as an instance of symbolic inversion, which enables functionalist terms like 'safety-valve' to be replaced by a neutral language that does not prejudge the function of a custom. I use this new methodology to undertake a series of case-studies in Chapters Three to Six, each of which examines the function of a particular custom. I am able to show that misrule could have a variety of functions in the late medieval town, playing a part in local change as part of wider strategy of resistance, as well as being one means through which social status could be accumulated and articulated.

The aim of the thesis is to investigate the main stages of the physical development of Härnösand. The investigation includes not only buildings, but also streets, quays, bridges and other establishements which form an essential part of the physical environment. Since comparatively few buildings from the period have been preserved, the material for the theses has mainly been collected from archives, it has been the author's ambition to find a material which can be used in antiquarian contexts as much as possible. The theses is mainly arranged as follows: 1. Historical background. An outline of the economic, administrative and so cial development. 2. The physical development of the town. The development of the inhabited areas of the town is described on the basis of preserved maps. In particular, suggested revisions of existing town plans are studied, and to what extent these were effected. In addition the development of the stipulations for buildings, such as the fire stipulations and the architectural stipulations are studied. 3. Public buildings and establishements. A technical and historical description of the church, the town hall, streets, bridges, etc is given. Particular attention is paid to monumental buildings which are interesting from the point of view of the history of art, especially the county governor's house by Olof Tempelman built in 1790 in neo-classistic style, and the »gymnasium« from 1791 with its unique, round pillared hall. The old hospital from 1788 is also stressed as an example of neo-classistic stone architecture »translated« into wood. In a subsequent Part II private buildings will be treated. There the social and geographical distribution of buildings of defferent kinds (dwelling-house, wash-house, cowshed etc) will be studied. The physical shape of these different buildings will also be described - main types and variants of these. A special chapter will be devoted to the development of building techniques. A description will be given of the development of wooden panelling, house-paints, tiled roofs etc. Part II will also include an aesthetic analysis of the town milieu with special emphasis on local traditions of style. / <p>Diss. Umeå : Univ., 1980</p> / digitalisering@umu

This thesis is about the post-war British state’s use of space to organise society and to manage the individual in ways which have been largely ignored within post-war historiography. The thesis shows that the state’s power over the physical fabric of everyday life was deployed in a manner, and in pursuit of objectives, which demand a reassessment of the ways in which the relationship between the state and society in post-war Britain is conventionally understood. Space was used in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways, but state actors evidenced a persistent desire to restructure the physical environment in order to construct normative models of the citizen-subject, to enable new modes of wealth creation, and to disrupt and marginalise unwanted places and practices. Crucially, the thesis argues that state spatial interventions were often used to construct and privilege a model of the citizen-subject as a consuming individual. The thesis focuses on state intervention in four aspects of social experience: shopping, personal mobility, domesticity, and employment. In each case the study shows that reorganising space was viewed as a key tool of government, and was deployed in order to service and manage perceived socio-economic needs. The thesis demonstrates that spatial reordering had identifiable social consequences—spatial projects were not simply indications of the aspirations of governing elites, but reconstituted the material conditions in which a whole range of social, economic, and cultural practices took shape. The thesis argues that historians have not found adequate ways of integrating the structuring force of space into their analyses of socio-historical processes. The focus of much recent historiography on the agency and identity of the individual is in danger of overlooking the ways in social and cultural practices are constrained, shaped, and managed by external factors. This thesis particularly engages studies of post-war consumerism, where the inventive cultural practices of the individual consuming subject have been emphasised at the expense of interrogating how consuming habits were managed and organised by the state and commercial actors. A central claim of this thesis is that, through spatial reorganisation, state actors regulated mass consumerism in the interests of ensuring a continued economic base for deindustrialising cities facing an uncertain political and financial future. This thesis also makes a concerted effort to overcome disciplinary divides, and to demonstrate the value of empirical historical research in testing and revising theories developed in adjacent disciplines. Within urban geography, sociology, and contemporary urban studies, characterisations of the post-war, Fordist, Keynesian, welfare state have been used to construct an influential narrative of epochal social, political, and cultural change across the second half of the twentieth century. An inclusive, collectivist, and redistributive regime is widely understood to have been radically transformed from the late-1970s into a neoliberal, entrepreneurial, consumerist, and individualistic polity. This thesis uses empirical historical research to produce conclusions which challenge this narrative of epochal political and social change.

This thesis is a study of the urban sporting culture of Middlesbrough between c.1870 and 1914, a period that witnessed an enormous expansion in participant and spectator sports. It examines the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the town’s sporting culture, and explains how its social and economic structures shaped the development of sporting organisations. In light of a population dominated by working class men, the thesis contextualises the growth of recreational football into the town’s most popular sport. Through a detailed examination of local newspapers and archival sources, this thesis reveals the depth and diversity of the town’s sporting culture. In particular, it illustrates the role of the middle classes in the development of clubs and the importance of class and social relations in determining an individual’s access to sport. As a consequence, the thesis will demonstrate both how the town’s working class populace were often excluded from the sporting culture, and the lack of sporting opportunities for women. Clubs were given further importance by the involvement of members of Middlesbrough’s elite, and allows for an exploration of the notion of elite withdrawal. The role played by employers in providing leisure opportunities for workers in the early twentieth century was also one of the most important developments in Middlesbrough’s sporting culture. Amateurism is also explored through the initial rejection of professional football, but the thesis will illustrate the increased popularity of the professional game during this period. In addition, in view of Middlesbrough’s migrant population, the extent of football’s role in forming and reinforcing identities will be examined. This thesis offers an original contribution to knowledge by examining the largely unexplored social and cultural history of Middlesbrough and the leisure habits of its people, as well as adding to existing studies of urban sport.