First Published in 2004. The majority of our large manufacturing cities are in decline—thousands of acres of their former industrial greatness have become gigantic scrapheaps. New industries with new technologies no longer make it necessary to locate industry in cities, and social and fiscal pressures are drawing people out into the countryside. Thus a conflict is growing with cities dying for lack of industry and new housing— whilst conservationists resist the spread of development into the green belts or further into the rural landscape. This book is an important contribution to a contemporary debate which is of significance to everyone living in Britain: the need for a land-use policy which looks simultaneously at the towns and country and strikes a balance between urban and rural renewal
Biography
David Nicholson-Lord is a journalist with The Times who has written extensively on environmental issues. A former Westminster lobby correspondent and current affairs lecturer, he was a British Petroleum Press Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge in 1983.
'The author is a journalist, and this shows in the writing. Like most journalists, and unlike most academics, the author writes to communicate. He does it well. The style is breezy and accessible. An interesting book, well written, and well illustrated with photographs.' - Environment and Planning
'David Nicholson-Lord develops an interesting thesis that by returning pockets and ribbons of our derelict cities to wild green space we are recreating our spiritual home. In exploring this, the book is far more than a planning treatise' - The Friend
'This is an interesting book that challenges us to take another look at our sometimes firmly held attitudes to the city and the countryside.' - Heritage Outlook
'A cheerful book, telling the success story of a deeply rooted form of environmentalism ... an intelligent and well-written book, brimming with ideas and with a commendable breadth of vision.' - New Scientist
'The case studies are illuminating, the data telling selected...and the book perhaps the first to recognize the enormous importance of the injections of cash and labour, via MSC and other schemes, into the environment movement since 1981' - Times Education Supplement
`an invaluable source for anyone involved in the environment'. - Northern Echo, Dec 1988
`David Nicholson-Lord's book celebrates, praises and evokes the symbolism of the admission of wilderness into the city...It is a deep analysis, an outpouring of ideas, an interweaving of humanity and ecology, and the beginning of a manifesto. It is one of the few books that provide a far-reaching lesson in the relationship between people and nature, presenting both an ecological and a behavioural view of the need for, and value of, green areas in cities.' - Ian Douglas, THES
