GROUND CONTROL - fear and happiness in the XXIst century city - Anna Minton

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 an in-depth and passionate exploration of the state of Britain today, revealing how the market place has taken control from the local electorate. Now, untested urban planning has transformed not only our cities, but the very nature of public space, of citizenship and of trust.
More property is being built in Britain than at any time since WW2 - from high security gated apartment developments, gleaming business districts and plazas, to homogeneous city centres. However, Anna Minton argues that this 'regeneration' actually has a negative impact on our lives, because it is the result of private companies wresting control away from local government, creating spaces designed for profit and watched over by CCTV.
From Liverpool to Manchester, London to Newcastle, more and more streets owned by private companies with the sole aim of making money and homes are left to deliberately fall into dereliction so the land can be bought cheaply, imposing skyscrapers and fortress-like developments which not only provide physical barriers but engineer fear and mistrust. Yet there is another way. Offering some surprising solutions, Anna Minton argues for an alternative, continental approach that celebrates a socially cohesive and shared public space and will reinvigorate our civic engagement.

Autophobia

Autophobia is a treasure house of cultural commentaries and anecdotes about car’s history.
Excerpt:
"In 1913, The Paris Newspaper Le Figaro recounted the legend of the ‘automotive chicken’: farmers, it was said, bred it especially for its ability to dash under the wheels of passing cars, thus enabling its owner to extract five francs in damages from the motorist."

LONDON ORBITAL by IAN SINCLAIR

In a series of daily treks, Sinclair, accompanied by a menagerie of companions, completes the M25 circuit on the eve of the millennium. But "London Orbital" is no guidebook. And with its incessant detours and constant diversions into the socio-political, architectural, or artistic implications of the terrain, it can hardly be called a travel narrative.

So, what is it?

Somewhere around South Mimms, Sinclair himself dubs the journey a fugue, "transient mental illness. Madness as a voyage." Psychological fugue. Characterized by a loss of awareness of self in combination with a flight from one's home. Sinclair revels in his mad fugue. "You didn't walk to forget, you walked to forget the walk." The payoff lay "in the heightened experience of present-tense actuality." In American: Zen and the Art of Walking around London.

Sinclair eschews the automobile out-of-hand. He is admittedly ignorant of a passing car's make or model: "I only do cars by their color." The consummate walker, he regards the drivers on the London Orbital with pity at best:

On the M25, fixed in their lanes, trying to make sense of flashing overhead signs and warnings, smoking, finger-drumming, jumping radio bands, jabbering into cellphones, the motorists are out of time, out of place…Tensed travelers, sweating in their metal pods, discover the insides of the outside. Nerves are stretched. Memories of the miles they've driven, to arrive at this compulsory stasis, melt into exhaust fumes.

Sinclair's own memories are carefully chronicled, detailed, archived. Each image carefully cross-referenced with his vast compendium of exquisitely arcane knowledge - ruminations on British civil engineering, literary references ranging from J.G. Ballard (who he visits on one of his tramps) to William Blake and back again to Michael Moorcock, the historical and architectural minutia of a Victorian-aged mental institution. "London Orbital" is so teeming and seething with Sinclair's breadth of Anglo-data that unless the reader is a longtime inhabitant of London, or at the very least British (or a devoted Anglophile), he can easily become mired in its vastness.

ON THE ROAD

On the road explores some of the most significant buildings and engineering structures built in Britain to serve motor vehicles. It focuses on ten key examples -including the Dartford Tunnel, the Humber Bridge and Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction- and examines the ways in which these new forms have changed almost every square mile of the country during the twentieth century. All the chosen project have been specially photographed by architect Alex de Rijke, and are annotated with sketches by engineer Michael Hadi. Other contributors concentrate on how we experience the structures, as well as investigating their cultural context.

(Clic to enlarge) - (picture: Alex de Rijke, drawings: Michael Hadi)

(Clic to enlarge) - (picture: Alex de Rijke, drawings: Michael Hadi)

(Clic to enlarge) - (picture: Alex de Rijke)

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The beginning…
In a speech in the 60’s, the Soviet Nikita Khrushchev proposed a socialist motorisation; a form of collective owned vehicle in order to fulfil practical needs without becoming an object of conspicuous consumption. But without success…
In the Meanwhile, Car sharing or ‘ Carpool’ has been developed in the United States during the petrol crisis in the 70’s. The lack of public transport and the high cost of petrol have encouraged this practice especially for home/work travels and between people of the same company. 2 or 3 peoples were sharing their car with each other’s. Each week the cars were swaping in order to have no exchange of money.
But this practice has progressively disappeared especially during the 90’s; the years of individualism development.

Car sharing is coming back!
The awareness of global warning, city sprawling effects, health problems due to pollutions, death by accidents, city congestion, public space disappearance … encourage the development of new transport modalities.
The car sharing is today well spread, helped by the development of new technologies of information and telecommunication. A lot of people have now access to Internet. Car sharing websites are manage by local communities, students associations, or firms interested by their employees’ mobility, …
But this practice is not only interesting for private people; it does also participate to the reduction of roads congestion and car park sprawling. Jean Pierre Orfeuil explained the eventuality of a financial advantage by the firm for the employees who don’t use a car park as the Californian example from the 70’s where the employees' wage was increased if they didn’t need to park a car.
Car sharing is a good vector of sociability and promotes communities’ exchange and solidarity.
But sharing a car is not only a practice between car’s owners; it can also be an exchange via a firm that provide cars for users. This practice is interesting to reduce production of cars and pollutions and to question the property.
Loic Mignotte is the founder of ‘Caisse-commune’, which exist in Paris since 1999 and propose attractive rates. This firm presents itself as an alternative of individual vehicle and a complement for the use of public transport or taxi: ‘We are part of a multi modal process according to uses. We aim to develop ecological behaviour with economy. Because the user is paying for using, he is encouraged to think about his consumption.’ The city mayor is also encouraging commercial agents of municipal car park to be involved in the development of those ‘car-sharing’ stations with interesting prices. (Novethic)
This process is also taking part of the optimisation of car park space because a car is in constant use between different people. ‘Caisse-Commune’ estimates 20 users for one car!