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Red Metropolis: Socialism and the Government of London
A polemical history of municipal socialism in London and an argument for turning this capitalist capital red again.
London is conventionally seen as merely a combination of the financial centre in the City and the centre of governmental power in Westminster, a uniquely capitalist capital city. This book is about the third London a - social democratic twentieth-century metropolis, a pioneer in council housing, public enterprise, socialist design, radical local democracy and multiculturalism.
This book charts the development of this municipal power base under leaders from Herbert Morrison to Ken Livingstone, and its destruction in 1986, leaving a gap which has been only very inadequately filled by the Greater London Authority under Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan.
Opposing currently fashionable drivel about an imaginary ''metropolitan elite'', this book makes a case for London pride on the left, and makes an argument for using that pride as a weapon against a government of suburban landlords that ruthlessly exploits Londoners.
London is conventionally seen as merely a combination of the financial centre in the City and the centre of governmental power in Westminster, a uniquely capitalist capital city. This book is about the third London a - social democratic twentieth-century metropolis, a pioneer in council housing, public enterprise, socialist design, radical local democracy and multiculturalism.
This book charts the development of this municipal power base under leaders from Herbert Morrison to Ken Livingstone, and its destruction in 1986, leaving a gap which has been only very inadequately filled by the Greater London Authority under Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan.
Opposing currently fashionable drivel about an imaginary ''metropolitan elite'', this book makes a case for London pride on the left, and makes an argument for using that pride as a weapon against a government of suburban landlords that ruthlessly exploits Londoners.
266 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 3, 2021
I absolutely loved this fast paced, lavishly illustrated short book. Red Metropolis is close-to-bursting with the interesting and the obscure, brought into coherence by an author who plainly has very firm views on, and a great love of, his subject area
The book begins with a brief introduction to late 19th and early 20th century municipalism, a creative blend of the technocratic and the utopian which prefigured, but wasn’t quite yet, state socialism. We learn about the way patrimonial, progressive liberal local administrations provided the early labour movement with its first blueprint for what to do with power when it began to achieve it.
This section leads us to the book’s first major set piece, a celebration of the London County Council in the time of Herbert Morrison. Morrison is often reviled on the radical left for his ruthless factionalism and strict constitutionalism, but Hatherley engages us in a spirited defence of this quintessential Labour moderate. We are made to see Morrison’s own radicalism, showing how he turned the LCC into a state within a state, and in doing so pointed confidently ahead to how Labour might behave when they finally came into national government. Morrison’s have indeed been some of the most impressive and long lasting of all Labour’s achievements. Under his watch, London Transport became the first and arguably most successful of the great nationalised industries; sturdy, habitable and aesthetic public housing was built in vast quantities; public spaces and public utilities were made more accessible to all; and free-at-the-point of use healthcare was made available to Londoners a decade before the creation fo the NHS.
Hatherley does not find much of interest to say about the government of London for several decades after Morrison’s tenure, and the book makes a great leap forward to the early 1980s, and the ascension of Ken Livingstone to the leadership of the Greater London Council, the successor of the LCC. Hatherley identifies the GLC as a project of the post-1968 ‘New Left’ and contrasts it with the technocratic statism of the LCC. We see how the GLC struggled against the double pressure of urban dissatisfaction with an unresponsive welfare state and an actively hostile central government. The book mounts a sturdy defence of Livingstone’s attempts at creating an inclusive, anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic body politic - derided as “loony leftism” at the time. However, although the GLC achieved important symbolic progress, redefining London as an inclusive, multicultural metropolis, it’s over-emphasis on devolution and direct democracy led to a program that was neither as effective nor robust as Morrison’s firm handed statism. Nevertheless, we see how, despite the enormous popularity of GLC experiment, it was deemed an unacceptable challenge to Thatcher’s project of rewriting the social contract, leading to its abolition.
The final phase of the book leads us onto the era of London’s Mayoralty, and Livingstone’s second crack at the whip. The Mayoralty had vastly reduced powers compared to the LCC or GLC, and was expected to steer the ship with no firm control on the tiller. Although Livingstone’s run as Mayor was a political success, his legacy was flimsy. A promising start expanding and modernising London Transport was met with visceral hostility from the New Labour government, who forced a disastrous attempt at privatisation on the network, leading to its quiet renationalisation by Livingstone’s successor, Boris Johnson. Although successful by the standards of other, similar neoliberal experiments, City Hall’s strategy of regulating the vast flows of finance capital pouring into London were basically ineffectual, laying the foundations for the housing crisis to come.
At this point the text makes a sharp shift of gear from a slightly polemical history book into an overtly political tract. Hatherley’s treatment of Boris Johnson’s tenure as Mayor is too entwined with our ongoing historical moment to be read with much hindsight as is his broadly sympathetic analysis of Sadiq Khan’s tenure thus far. It’s almost as if the text bifurcates at the final moment, interweaving a fairly mournful reflection on the lost opportunities of Corbynism with a more robust set of policy prescriptions directly aimed at Mayor Khan’s hoped-for second term.
The subtext of Red Metropolis is an argument for a left movement that maintains a clear focus on capturing and effectively leveraging state power. Hatherley argues that socialism in power should act confrontationally and in its own interest, building strong foundations able to whether the storm of the inevitable counter-revolution. Although the sections on the GLC are, perhaps, the most colourful, they contain a warning: the politics of power will always triumph over the politics of good causes - so just build the damn houses!
The book begins with a brief introduction to late 19th and early 20th century municipalism, a creative blend of the technocratic and the utopian which prefigured, but wasn’t quite yet, state socialism. We learn about the way patrimonial, progressive liberal local administrations provided the early labour movement with its first blueprint for what to do with power when it began to achieve it.
This section leads us to the book’s first major set piece, a celebration of the London County Council in the time of Herbert Morrison. Morrison is often reviled on the radical left for his ruthless factionalism and strict constitutionalism, but Hatherley engages us in a spirited defence of this quintessential Labour moderate. We are made to see Morrison’s own radicalism, showing how he turned the LCC into a state within a state, and in doing so pointed confidently ahead to how Labour might behave when they finally came into national government. Morrison’s have indeed been some of the most impressive and long lasting of all Labour’s achievements. Under his watch, London Transport became the first and arguably most successful of the great nationalised industries; sturdy, habitable and aesthetic public housing was built in vast quantities; public spaces and public utilities were made more accessible to all; and free-at-the-point of use healthcare was made available to Londoners a decade before the creation fo the NHS.
Hatherley does not find much of interest to say about the government of London for several decades after Morrison’s tenure, and the book makes a great leap forward to the early 1980s, and the ascension of Ken Livingstone to the leadership of the Greater London Council, the successor of the LCC. Hatherley identifies the GLC as a project of the post-1968 ‘New Left’ and contrasts it with the technocratic statism of the LCC. We see how the GLC struggled against the double pressure of urban dissatisfaction with an unresponsive welfare state and an actively hostile central government. The book mounts a sturdy defence of Livingstone’s attempts at creating an inclusive, anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic body politic - derided as “loony leftism” at the time. However, although the GLC achieved important symbolic progress, redefining London as an inclusive, multicultural metropolis, it’s over-emphasis on devolution and direct democracy led to a program that was neither as effective nor robust as Morrison’s firm handed statism. Nevertheless, we see how, despite the enormous popularity of GLC experiment, it was deemed an unacceptable challenge to Thatcher’s project of rewriting the social contract, leading to its abolition.
The final phase of the book leads us onto the era of London’s Mayoralty, and Livingstone’s second crack at the whip. The Mayoralty had vastly reduced powers compared to the LCC or GLC, and was expected to steer the ship with no firm control on the tiller. Although Livingstone’s run as Mayor was a political success, his legacy was flimsy. A promising start expanding and modernising London Transport was met with visceral hostility from the New Labour government, who forced a disastrous attempt at privatisation on the network, leading to its quiet renationalisation by Livingstone’s successor, Boris Johnson. Although successful by the standards of other, similar neoliberal experiments, City Hall’s strategy of regulating the vast flows of finance capital pouring into London were basically ineffectual, laying the foundations for the housing crisis to come.
At this point the text makes a sharp shift of gear from a slightly polemical history book into an overtly political tract. Hatherley’s treatment of Boris Johnson’s tenure as Mayor is too entwined with our ongoing historical moment to be read with much hindsight as is his broadly sympathetic analysis of Sadiq Khan’s tenure thus far. It’s almost as if the text bifurcates at the final moment, interweaving a fairly mournful reflection on the lost opportunities of Corbynism with a more robust set of policy prescriptions directly aimed at Mayor Khan’s hoped-for second term.
The subtext of Red Metropolis is an argument for a left movement that maintains a clear focus on capturing and effectively leveraging state power. Hatherley argues that socialism in power should act confrontationally and in its own interest, building strong foundations able to whether the storm of the inevitable counter-revolution. Although the sections on the GLC are, perhaps, the most colourful, they contain a warning: the politics of power will always triumph over the politics of good causes - so just build the damn houses!
February 21, 2022
I enjoyed how this book sorts through different conceptions of municipal socialism as they related to the struggles and gains of everyday people. The scale and expertise involved in public housing and transit under the old reformist machine politicians is given its due. At the same time, limitations of the New Left, whether by circumstance or of its own making, are outlined fairly. This careful walk through contributions and appreciation for reversal and paradox is more useful than forcing everything into a narrative that would flatter this or that left faction. Overall, it increased my appreciation for the "boring" work that often forces people together without regard for ideological tendency.
May 10, 2021
A book about my greatest love of the last few years--London, of course? What's not to like? More seriously, the history of Londoners' municipal socialism did make me emotional, because it reminded me of what can be done, and the people willing to fight for livable lives for everyone deserve to be remembered.
Also an especially....meaningful read this week as the local elections results came in around the UK and, well, the meltdown continues. There's so much in this book to learn from.
Also an especially....meaningful read this week as the local elections results came in around the UK and, well, the meltdown continues. There's so much in this book to learn from.
May 26, 2021
“Here we all were, in a futuristic skyscraper city at breaking point, with an authoritarian nationalist government aided and abetted by a servile press that had repeatedly and demonstrably lied to keep it in power, in strict lockstep with a global hegemon headed by a sociopathic reality TV tycoon.”
This is Hatherley reflecting at the start of 2020, seemingly mired in a bleak Ballardian landscape drenched in doom and pessimism. And to think things were only going to get worse, a lot worse.
"Red Metropolis" is a thoroughly researched book which throws up all sorts of fascinating facts and stats, showing that in spite of what many vested interests would have us believe, London is not merely a city made up of the well-heeled metropolitan elite. In fact the vast majority of people are actually liberal and left leaning, as reflected in the voting trends, after all voting, working class Londoners are exposed daily to the worst and most crass excesses of the ruling class, whether it be their iceberg mansions and garish towers or gated communities and luxury brands.
He places specific attention on the likes of Herbert Morrison, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson to make his point. He reminds us that it is thanks to Herbert Morrison that London enjoyed free (at point of use) healthcare over a decade before the founding of the NHS in 1948. We see some more of the effects and fallout from the brutality that was Thatcherism and the vitriol of the tabloid and right wing media who helped keep her in power for so long.
We see that during his first spell as London mayor Livingstone was down on the Brixton front line in 1981, and he was consistently ridiculed and sneered at by the right wing gutter press and broadsheets, because he was outspoken speaking up for a united Ireland. He was also anti-racist, anti-sexism, anti-imperialist, anti-homophobia and stood up for the unemployed etc. During his second spell in the 2000s he brought in congestion charges, which led to an immediate 10% decrease in car usage. He also denounced Bush as a war criminal at the Stop The War rally, though his decision to publicly defend the bungling and incompetent Met’s killing of the Brazilian student de Menezes, was the act of a misguided moron.
At one point Hatherley insists that “London has the only public transport system in Britain that can be compared with any in Europe without embarrassment.” I would disagree there and say that Glasgow with its underground, train and bus services also has a strong transport system. At one point he rues the demolition of “the sublime Brutalist castles of Hutchesontown C.” in Glasgow, which I find a little short sighted, it may have looked like that from an outside perspective, but to many of those consigned to such poverty, illness and crime magnets, they didn’t hold such an exotic allure.
At various points this reminded me of the likes of Ian Nairn, Iain Sinclair and Rowan Moore, and this book makes a fine accompaniment to some of the work done by those writers. This contains a wide and generous scattering of photos which help establish many of the locations or help enhance a point he’s trying to make. And overall this is yet another solid and sound outing for Hatherley, this is clearly well-researched and he knows his subject really well and as ever his prose is clear, engaging and you are always learning something new and interesting.
October 8, 2024
A short read on the history of London, mainly through the various projects undertaken by the London County Council, Greater London Council and the current Greater London Authority.
I was reading this for an upcoming weekend trip to London and I think it suited me well for that, the focus on the socialist histories of the city were really engaging and I got to learn about the first Black mayor in Battersea in the 1910s (John Archer, who endorsed Shapurji Saklatvala to help gain his seat as the first communist MP, also in Battersea) as well as the councillors in Poplar refusing to levy full rates in the inter-war period, ('better to break the law than break the poor') resulting in imprisonment and the tragic death of Minnie Lansbury. Even the inter-war projects under the LCC providing a precursor to the NHS is something that challenges the accepted origins of it from Tredegar and mining communities. The history sections are the strongest and the most fascinating for me and give me a new understanding of London.
But Hatherley is not romantic, he can demonstrate the successful projects under Herbert Morrison, as well as his expulsion of communists in the Labour Party and his eventual shift from Marxist conscientious objector to Home Secretary who praised the 'jolly old Empire.' That and it is refreshing to have an account of the GLC years (especially in the 1980s) that is more grounded and realistic, this was during population declines and a gradual disinterest in council housing which would return in the 2000s under Livingstone and his policies (despite the Blair/Brown pushback) that have fundamentally shaped the ongoing housing crisis in London. Still, you can't help but look back on these moments with a sense of yearning for something more, that they could do so much despite the numerous obstacles, from the Works Departments, to the socialist and communist architects in the LCC and GLC departments. It reminds me that things can be done as well as the impacts of what even mild forms of municipal socialism can have on a city like London. One thing that I would have liked to have read more about is the period between the abolition of the GLC in 1986 and the establishment of the GLA in 2000 and the long 90s of London without any kind of local council management.
I have new knowledge of the city now and it is so refreshing to get a perspective of London like this against the usual diatribes I'm used to in northern England (many of which are justifiably so, but still!)
I was reading this for an upcoming weekend trip to London and I think it suited me well for that, the focus on the socialist histories of the city were really engaging and I got to learn about the first Black mayor in Battersea in the 1910s (John Archer, who endorsed Shapurji Saklatvala to help gain his seat as the first communist MP, also in Battersea) as well as the councillors in Poplar refusing to levy full rates in the inter-war period, ('better to break the law than break the poor') resulting in imprisonment and the tragic death of Minnie Lansbury. Even the inter-war projects under the LCC providing a precursor to the NHS is something that challenges the accepted origins of it from Tredegar and mining communities. The history sections are the strongest and the most fascinating for me and give me a new understanding of London.
But Hatherley is not romantic, he can demonstrate the successful projects under Herbert Morrison, as well as his expulsion of communists in the Labour Party and his eventual shift from Marxist conscientious objector to Home Secretary who praised the 'jolly old Empire.' That and it is refreshing to have an account of the GLC years (especially in the 1980s) that is more grounded and realistic, this was during population declines and a gradual disinterest in council housing which would return in the 2000s under Livingstone and his policies (despite the Blair/Brown pushback) that have fundamentally shaped the ongoing housing crisis in London. Still, you can't help but look back on these moments with a sense of yearning for something more, that they could do so much despite the numerous obstacles, from the Works Departments, to the socialist and communist architects in the LCC and GLC departments. It reminds me that things can be done as well as the impacts of what even mild forms of municipal socialism can have on a city like London. One thing that I would have liked to have read more about is the period between the abolition of the GLC in 1986 and the establishment of the GLA in 2000 and the long 90s of London without any kind of local council management.
I have new knowledge of the city now and it is so refreshing to get a perspective of London like this against the usual diatribes I'm used to in northern England (many of which are justifiably so, but still!)
April 22, 2021
Interesting and engaging read on the history of local London politics. Clearly written from an informed and empathetic perspective that contains a genuine passion for communal architecture as well as sober reflections on the successes and failings of those at the helm of often deeply flawed authorities. When viewed in such a way, London's history is at once a damning criticism of Thatcherite and Blairite economic theory and a call to action to create better, more just structures. This means devolving power away from a callous and unjust Westminster towards local authorities that actually want to help their communities - and are able to (as opposed to a limp mayoral position whose depressingly mild proposals are still blocked by a spiteful hard-right parliament). London's history also demonstrates the many dire failings with how the housing crisis is being handled (aka, allowed to worsen in order to make international billionares profit), and the ever-pressing need for more social housing - the only real solution. The pictures provided throughout the book were a nice touch, though there were a handful of noticeable spelling and grammatical errors in this edition. Thoroughly recommend the book, and look forward to passing it on to London-based friends.
January 22, 2024
I read it as a thriller but then I was already previously very excited about the achievements of the London Left. It gave me some hope (it was really very well written for that) with the usual dose of depression but most importantly it gave me perspective. London Housing Crisis is too profitable for some to be seriously tackled nationally and the idea of an effective municipal socialism is much more plausible, esp. given the electorate.
The only thing I didn’t enjoy were the too many typos but I didn’t have the heart to lose a ⭐️ for that reason either.
The only thing I didn’t enjoy were the too many typos but I didn’t have the heart to lose a ⭐️ for that reason either.
July 29, 2021
Hatherley is as brilliant as ever.
December 23, 2023
Hatherley is a truly brilliant writer who brings alive the riveting story of socialism in London, especially through the lens of local government & home building.
I found it fascinating because I know little about British socialist history, which I'm interested in & ought to know more about. & also because I know little about local gov home building (county councils aren't housing authorities) - and anyway, you don't see this kind of mass council home building today - & basically never in-house either (to be fair, as Hatherley does note, not really local gov's fault). I didn't even know local government had architects ! - I suppose, as Hatherley points out, they're gone now... So, this book opened my mind to what local government could look like... Exciting (but also sad 😭) !
One of the best qualities of this book is that it is eminently readable - most books covering this type of topic are slow and boring. But Hatherley's is not because he weaves a story, knows when not to twiddle with details (and when to), uses evocative language, and takes an unabashedly political perspective. His journalistic experience really serves him well here. Hatherley really has a knack for pithy descriptions, "Johnson’s County Durham eminence grise Dominic Cummings" being one of my favourites.
One reservation though: at times Hatherley is too brief & assumes too much of his reader. There are times when it's genuinely quite challenging to understand the sequence of events as he describes them, or his chain of reasoning. Mostly I could figure this stuff out by re-reading or playing the logic out but I think the book could have benefitted from with an extra 3% with some supporting explanation etc. Worse, Hatherley uses a lot of comparative descriptors that require knowledge I just don't have, eg describing someone/-thing as X-esque when I don't know what X is. Since I was reading without WiFi, this did defeat me at times. Eg, just opening the book to a random page to find an example, the very first sentence I found contained a perfect example: “[The Metropolitan Board's appointed board] was less a parallel to Birmingham’s "municipal socialism” so much as a rather shabby partial emulation of Haussmann’s Paris" - I have no knowledge of Haussmann (?) and he's not mentioned anywhere else in the book so this point is lost on me. Hatherley is making a point here not just describing something, so this is a genuine issue - especially since this happens about once a paragraph lol. That's primarily why I held back 1 star.
I found it especially interesting to think - very big picture - about the impact of how local gov operates (eg mayor vs cabinet, county vs greater London Vs borough, procurement, 'regeneration', etc) on what it actually does and then how that impacts people. I think this book has finally tipped me over the edge and convinced me of the desperate need for true regional devolution! It also deepens my serious concern for local gov's terrible reliance on outsourcing & the tyranny of the procurement act (& the new Social Value act is barely an improvement), which is a barely concealed attempt to use taxpayer money to drive the private sector, putting the people's money into the few's pockets at the expense of quality, safety, wellbeing, etc. Simply put, enforcing mandatory tender increases the risk of Grenfell-like incidents. It's hardly rocket science - it almost always means giving operational responsibility for building crucial public infrastructure to private companies that 1) don't have any local roots - and so don't have skin in the game; 2) are totally undemocratic; 3) are removed from communities and so, unlike local gov architects, will never be found walking around buildings asking communities what they want; 4) prioritize profit & so cut corners and quality; & 5) can walk away if everything goes to shit. Trying to build 300,000 houses a year under those conditions is like playing Russian roulette 300,000 times - once is too many. Fundamentally, local government delivered housing is better: "the proof of the programme’s rightness was in the superior workmanship of those estates, and looking at them today, with their red tiles and brickwork gleaming and with the trees they planted still sheltering their courtyards, he was clearly correct".
Mary Mellor (talking about something totally different) argues that money creation should be the state's responsibility for the simple reason that when things go wrong (financial crisis), people immediately look to the state for a solution, not banks. By contrast, if their car fails, people look to the manufacturing company. As such, the public view money creation as a state responsibility. I would make the similar argument that, since people look to local gov whenever housing goes wrong, housing must be delivered in great part by local government, as it once was.
How to get there? Well, clearly, we need to abolish Right to Buy, properly fund local government, support the training of more planners (& architects!!), seriously build public sector industrial capacity - in this case, develop in-house local government construction capability, change procurement to prioritise public values over 'best value' (or indeed 'social value') & abolish mandatory tender, and create & fully empower local regional authorities, who should have strategic responsibility for housing (which should be delivered by lower tier/unitary authorities).
These are not small suggestions. Just to take developing in-house industrial and construction capacity for example, Hatherley notes that all the way back in 1892 (!!) "the notion of setting up a publicly-owned and democratically-controlled building company that would pay union rates was considered extremely dangerous both by the private building industry and by pro-business opinion in Britain more generally." So getting local gov directly into construction ('Works Department') seems a far cry in our current situation... But it's very sensible, as I've argued above. *Obviously* building homes, one of humanity's basic needs, should be publicly owned and democratically controlled. It should not be a means for private profit.
Relatedly, I like Hatherley's explicit drawing out of the point that the LCC "did not merely step in where the market could not tread, it directly competed with the market". This is, imo, one of the key missing pieces for the public sector right now - not only has public sector failed to operationally deliver its own exclusive responsibilities (see above) & come to rely on the private sector, but the possibility that the public sector deliver non-state responsibilities in the market *when it comes to delivery of public services & infrastructure* has totally fled our blinkered thinking. (NB although local gov has, at David Cameron's urging, developed commercial portfolios - sometimes disastrously, as in the cases of Slough and Woking - and, as Hatherley himself talks about, property speculation, I'm not talking about those. After all, they don't directly provide public service at all, but are intended to make money to subsidise council activities, eg selling off expensive London flats to fund Education Maintenance Activities). How do we not already have a national energy company to at least compete in the market? Drugs development & production company to support the NHS? Why hasn't most of local gov developed local money systems & currencies? Construction? Manufacturing? Primary material producers & managers? Habitat conservation? Modelling (which has been almost exclusively outsourced to consultancy companies)? The almost total loss of industrial capacity in the public sector has hamstrung our ability to eg tackle climate change & save our natural world - and, as this book highlights, deliver sufficient housing. Actually, one area where local government *has* stepped in to deliver crucial public service in the marketplace is climate change, but due to procurement laws, it has little sway sadly. I digress... the point is, local gov should have the tenacity to not only itself deliver those services that are its exclusive responsibility, but to go find parts of the market it can deliver better - and do so.
This is what happens elsewhere in Europe and, alongside regulatory options, offers an exciting political vision if only London looked at anything besides itself, as Hatherley powerfully points out in his call to action: "1. London needs to look outward. Paris has built thousands of new (as opposed to replacement) council flats, often in wealthy parts of the city, and has refurbished and extended tower blocks without clearances or rent rises under the mayoralty of Anne Hidalgo. It has been much more aggressive with the car and carbon lobbies than London. Berlin has instituted its own city-wide rent freeze — it has far more powers than London, but this remains a legally risky policy which is likely to be fought in the courts. Barcelona has municipalised energy and water companies on its own, in the absence of a nationalisation programme from the top. The GLA could legally fund housing on the model of Paris, could sponsor municipal utilities, and it could publicise much more widely its symbolic support for rent controls, mobilising a popular campaign rather than arguing with unpersuadable ideologues behind closed doors."
Some other points I really enjoyed:
"parliamentary interest in metropolitan local government has emerged only when parliamentarians are severely inconvenienced." - what better argument could there be for localism & the importance of place? Where power geographically sits *does* impact decision making. That's why we need regional governments provided with full legislative & fiscal devolution. Or, as Hatherley puts it: "London needs to govern the rest of the country less, and govern itself more. An unrepresentative and gerrymandered parliament in London dictates whether or not Manchester can municipalise its buses, whether Leeds can build a tram or Leicester a trolleybus, and whether Scotland can hold a referendum in its own parliament on its own future. It also dictates whether the second biggest city in Europe can control its own rents, whether its council tenants can decide whether or not their house is demolished, and whether the London Borough of Redbridge can legally find out who its landlords are. This is an obscene situation. Devolution of powers and, crucially, resources, to local authorities is beyond urgent." Mic drop! 🎤
On the 2019 election and the false 'red wall' narrative: "The much mythologised “red wall”, invented mere months ago, bands together a huge quantity of ex-industrial seats whose young people have been forced to move to the cities (and especially, to London), leaving a resentful, nationalist pensioner class living in horrendously neglected towns but personally insulated from the worst of austerity by the triple-lock on pensions, and by much more widespread home ownership."
On healthcare: "Londoners had healthcare free at the point of use over a decade before the NHS, but in socialist folk memory, socialised healthcare was south Wales’ gift to Britain"
On growth: "London needs to recognise that its incessant growth and thirst for infrastructure and concrete is environmentally, geographically and politically disastrous." That growth is the one (national) political ideology, trumpeted from Truss to Starmer to Sunak, shows how narrow the (national) political imagination is these days, and the paucity of ideology on offer by mainstream (national) politics. That said, some local government has grasped this point - now London boroughs need to too!
In the context of brutal local government cuts, the most centralised major European state, & poor public perception of local gov, what to do? Local government officers and Cllrs are being forced to make horrendous choices - closing children's centres, selling off ridiculously expensive London homes (& thereby pricing out locals) to fund crucial welfare activities, underpaying employees, & raising council tax. Hatherley's historical example of Poplar Council - radical indeed - got me thinking about what to do if/when local gov is forced to make too unethical decisions:
"[Poplar Council's] large spending programme on poor relief, housebuilding and healthcare, with all workers at the council to be paid full union rates, would be funded by simply refusing to pay the rate to the LCC. This was, of course, illegal. “Better to Break the Law than to Break the Poor”, was their slogan. In 1922, thirty Poplar councillors were jailed. They were released after six weeks, upon major public pressure." 🤔
I found it fascinating because I know little about British socialist history, which I'm interested in & ought to know more about. & also because I know little about local gov home building (county councils aren't housing authorities) - and anyway, you don't see this kind of mass council home building today - & basically never in-house either (to be fair, as Hatherley does note, not really local gov's fault). I didn't even know local government had architects ! - I suppose, as Hatherley points out, they're gone now... So, this book opened my mind to what local government could look like... Exciting (but also sad 😭) !
One of the best qualities of this book is that it is eminently readable - most books covering this type of topic are slow and boring. But Hatherley's is not because he weaves a story, knows when not to twiddle with details (and when to), uses evocative language, and takes an unabashedly political perspective. His journalistic experience really serves him well here. Hatherley really has a knack for pithy descriptions, "Johnson’s County Durham eminence grise Dominic Cummings" being one of my favourites.
One reservation though: at times Hatherley is too brief & assumes too much of his reader. There are times when it's genuinely quite challenging to understand the sequence of events as he describes them, or his chain of reasoning. Mostly I could figure this stuff out by re-reading or playing the logic out but I think the book could have benefitted from with an extra 3% with some supporting explanation etc. Worse, Hatherley uses a lot of comparative descriptors that require knowledge I just don't have, eg describing someone/-thing as X-esque when I don't know what X is. Since I was reading without WiFi, this did defeat me at times. Eg, just opening the book to a random page to find an example, the very first sentence I found contained a perfect example: “[The Metropolitan Board's appointed board] was less a parallel to Birmingham’s "municipal socialism” so much as a rather shabby partial emulation of Haussmann’s Paris" - I have no knowledge of Haussmann (?) and he's not mentioned anywhere else in the book so this point is lost on me. Hatherley is making a point here not just describing something, so this is a genuine issue - especially since this happens about once a paragraph lol. That's primarily why I held back 1 star.
I found it especially interesting to think - very big picture - about the impact of how local gov operates (eg mayor vs cabinet, county vs greater London Vs borough, procurement, 'regeneration', etc) on what it actually does and then how that impacts people. I think this book has finally tipped me over the edge and convinced me of the desperate need for true regional devolution! It also deepens my serious concern for local gov's terrible reliance on outsourcing & the tyranny of the procurement act (& the new Social Value act is barely an improvement), which is a barely concealed attempt to use taxpayer money to drive the private sector, putting the people's money into the few's pockets at the expense of quality, safety, wellbeing, etc. Simply put, enforcing mandatory tender increases the risk of Grenfell-like incidents. It's hardly rocket science - it almost always means giving operational responsibility for building crucial public infrastructure to private companies that 1) don't have any local roots - and so don't have skin in the game; 2) are totally undemocratic; 3) are removed from communities and so, unlike local gov architects, will never be found walking around buildings asking communities what they want; 4) prioritize profit & so cut corners and quality; & 5) can walk away if everything goes to shit. Trying to build 300,000 houses a year under those conditions is like playing Russian roulette 300,000 times - once is too many. Fundamentally, local government delivered housing is better: "the proof of the programme’s rightness was in the superior workmanship of those estates, and looking at them today, with their red tiles and brickwork gleaming and with the trees they planted still sheltering their courtyards, he was clearly correct".
Mary Mellor (talking about something totally different) argues that money creation should be the state's responsibility for the simple reason that when things go wrong (financial crisis), people immediately look to the state for a solution, not banks. By contrast, if their car fails, people look to the manufacturing company. As such, the public view money creation as a state responsibility. I would make the similar argument that, since people look to local gov whenever housing goes wrong, housing must be delivered in great part by local government, as it once was.
How to get there? Well, clearly, we need to abolish Right to Buy, properly fund local government, support the training of more planners (& architects!!), seriously build public sector industrial capacity - in this case, develop in-house local government construction capability, change procurement to prioritise public values over 'best value' (or indeed 'social value') & abolish mandatory tender, and create & fully empower local regional authorities, who should have strategic responsibility for housing (which should be delivered by lower tier/unitary authorities).
These are not small suggestions. Just to take developing in-house industrial and construction capacity for example, Hatherley notes that all the way back in 1892 (!!) "the notion of setting up a publicly-owned and democratically-controlled building company that would pay union rates was considered extremely dangerous both by the private building industry and by pro-business opinion in Britain more generally." So getting local gov directly into construction ('Works Department') seems a far cry in our current situation... But it's very sensible, as I've argued above. *Obviously* building homes, one of humanity's basic needs, should be publicly owned and democratically controlled. It should not be a means for private profit.
Relatedly, I like Hatherley's explicit drawing out of the point that the LCC "did not merely step in where the market could not tread, it directly competed with the market". This is, imo, one of the key missing pieces for the public sector right now - not only has public sector failed to operationally deliver its own exclusive responsibilities (see above) & come to rely on the private sector, but the possibility that the public sector deliver non-state responsibilities in the market *when it comes to delivery of public services & infrastructure* has totally fled our blinkered thinking. (NB although local gov has, at David Cameron's urging, developed commercial portfolios - sometimes disastrously, as in the cases of Slough and Woking - and, as Hatherley himself talks about, property speculation, I'm not talking about those. After all, they don't directly provide public service at all, but are intended to make money to subsidise council activities, eg selling off expensive London flats to fund Education Maintenance Activities). How do we not already have a national energy company to at least compete in the market? Drugs development & production company to support the NHS? Why hasn't most of local gov developed local money systems & currencies? Construction? Manufacturing? Primary material producers & managers? Habitat conservation? Modelling (which has been almost exclusively outsourced to consultancy companies)? The almost total loss of industrial capacity in the public sector has hamstrung our ability to eg tackle climate change & save our natural world - and, as this book highlights, deliver sufficient housing. Actually, one area where local government *has* stepped in to deliver crucial public service in the marketplace is climate change, but due to procurement laws, it has little sway sadly. I digress... the point is, local gov should have the tenacity to not only itself deliver those services that are its exclusive responsibility, but to go find parts of the market it can deliver better - and do so.
This is what happens elsewhere in Europe and, alongside regulatory options, offers an exciting political vision if only London looked at anything besides itself, as Hatherley powerfully points out in his call to action: "1. London needs to look outward. Paris has built thousands of new (as opposed to replacement) council flats, often in wealthy parts of the city, and has refurbished and extended tower blocks without clearances or rent rises under the mayoralty of Anne Hidalgo. It has been much more aggressive with the car and carbon lobbies than London. Berlin has instituted its own city-wide rent freeze — it has far more powers than London, but this remains a legally risky policy which is likely to be fought in the courts. Barcelona has municipalised energy and water companies on its own, in the absence of a nationalisation programme from the top. The GLA could legally fund housing on the model of Paris, could sponsor municipal utilities, and it could publicise much more widely its symbolic support for rent controls, mobilising a popular campaign rather than arguing with unpersuadable ideologues behind closed doors."
Some other points I really enjoyed:
"parliamentary interest in metropolitan local government has emerged only when parliamentarians are severely inconvenienced." - what better argument could there be for localism & the importance of place? Where power geographically sits *does* impact decision making. That's why we need regional governments provided with full legislative & fiscal devolution. Or, as Hatherley puts it: "London needs to govern the rest of the country less, and govern itself more. An unrepresentative and gerrymandered parliament in London dictates whether or not Manchester can municipalise its buses, whether Leeds can build a tram or Leicester a trolleybus, and whether Scotland can hold a referendum in its own parliament on its own future. It also dictates whether the second biggest city in Europe can control its own rents, whether its council tenants can decide whether or not their house is demolished, and whether the London Borough of Redbridge can legally find out who its landlords are. This is an obscene situation. Devolution of powers and, crucially, resources, to local authorities is beyond urgent." Mic drop! 🎤
On the 2019 election and the false 'red wall' narrative: "The much mythologised “red wall”, invented mere months ago, bands together a huge quantity of ex-industrial seats whose young people have been forced to move to the cities (and especially, to London), leaving a resentful, nationalist pensioner class living in horrendously neglected towns but personally insulated from the worst of austerity by the triple-lock on pensions, and by much more widespread home ownership."
On healthcare: "Londoners had healthcare free at the point of use over a decade before the NHS, but in socialist folk memory, socialised healthcare was south Wales’ gift to Britain"
On growth: "London needs to recognise that its incessant growth and thirst for infrastructure and concrete is environmentally, geographically and politically disastrous." That growth is the one (national) political ideology, trumpeted from Truss to Starmer to Sunak, shows how narrow the (national) political imagination is these days, and the paucity of ideology on offer by mainstream (national) politics. That said, some local government has grasped this point - now London boroughs need to too!
In the context of brutal local government cuts, the most centralised major European state, & poor public perception of local gov, what to do? Local government officers and Cllrs are being forced to make horrendous choices - closing children's centres, selling off ridiculously expensive London homes (& thereby pricing out locals) to fund crucial welfare activities, underpaying employees, & raising council tax. Hatherley's historical example of Poplar Council - radical indeed - got me thinking about what to do if/when local gov is forced to make too unethical decisions:
"[Poplar Council's] large spending programme on poor relief, housebuilding and healthcare, with all workers at the council to be paid full union rates, would be funded by simply refusing to pay the rate to the LCC. This was, of course, illegal. “Better to Break the Law than to Break the Poor”, was their slogan. In 1922, thirty Poplar councillors were jailed. They were released after six weeks, upon major public pressure." 🤔
January 14, 2023
Hatherley describes his book as "an argument for the achievements of municipal socialism conceived for the mandarin Marxists of NLR." Given that as its objective it is replete with a 'cultural' dimension which makes the case for where-we-are-now being not the product of political error, (those damned Labour reformists!) but the unfolding development of class struggles that extend beyond economic dimensions to include the whole of society.
From this perspective an entity as complex as the capital city of the UK could not have come into existence without something we chose to call planning, and the need for plans generated the forces that pitted leftist progressives against against the professions that placed themselves at the service of capital. The growth of London to its present preeminence in the UK nation is a story of absorption over generations as the city core expanded and drew once independent towns into its structure, rechristened as 'suburbs'. This has been a dynamic process, calling instruments of government into existence along the way, from the Corporation of the City of London, the London County Council, the Greater London Council , and now the Office of the Mayor of London to do the necessary work. Also in this record is the fourteen years - from 1986 to 2000 - when the capital was deprived of any form of accountable governance as the Thatcherites handed everything over to profit-seeking developers to rule the roost.
The book identifies progressive moments at each stage of London's development. in the 1920s electoral fortunes ebbed and flowed, with Labour winning control of all the poorest boroughs in 1919 only to loses all but its strongholds in the Five Red Boroughs - Battersea, Bermondsey, Deptford, Poplar and Woolwich - in 1922. In four boroughs this led to a concentration on 'respectable' reforms - well-planned factory districts, cooperatives, etc. But in the case of Poplar a more militant confrontation with the national state a more radical plan for poor relief, housebuilding, healthcare and union rates for council workers was declared illegal and 30 councillors were jailed for refusing to stand down with their plans. Their stance contributed to partial reforms of local government during the years of the minority Labour governments of 1924 and '29-31. Labour won control of the LCC and, under the leadership of Herbert Morrison from 1934 onwards, embarked on ambitious programmes of municipalisation. Better treatment at LCC hospitals, more support for the blind and mentally ill, small class sizes in schools, teachers better paid, swimming pools and public gymnasiums and the 'beautification' of London parks and the establishment of a London Public Transport Board were all part of the improvements of this period.
The downside was that the task of managing all this change was left to a structure that reproduced the remoteness and bureaucracy of the preceding period, with very little room created for workers control or input from user of the services. But it was because the model for the management of what became London Transport by Morrison was so successful that it became the template for the nationalisation which became the policy of the Labour party and the government that came to power in 1945. The last gasp of LCC progressivism was probably the Festival of Britain on the site of the south bank of the Thames which was cleared especially for this purpose. But the futuristic imagination to attempted to project was eclipsed by the election of Conservative governments that lasted for the rest of the decade.
The fifties and sixties were years of population decline as people drifted from the inner core of the county of London to its suburbs. Labour control of the LCC did had little to offer the people in these areas and the sense that the government of the capital needed to be revitalised led to the formation of the Greater London Council in 1964, Actually the product of Conservative efforts at reform, the LCC came into being at the beginning of the 'Swinging Sixties' which had seen the mood of the country swing back to the left. Even so, the expansion of London government to the prosperous suburbs meant the end of one-party rule that had been associated with the LCC. Leadership of the GLC now changed with each election. The 1970s largely belonged to the Tories and produced plans for an inner-London ring motorway and an extensive development of the Covent Garden area which would have required the demolition of many historic listed buildings produced a community battles which swung the public mood against the Tories. But recognition of the need for some sort of modernisation remained and at the beginning of the 1980s this worked to the benefit of a fraction of Labour radicals led by the GLC councillor Ken Livingstone,
This was a new left that distanced itself from the top-down structures of Morrisonian municipal socialism. The Livingstone group saw London's greater diversity as an advantage which moved the business of consultation away from keeping a few trade union bosses onside and instead finding ways to bring ethnic community activists and feminists into the Labour fold. 'People's Plans' which came from extensive consultation with local communities and rank-and-file workers became the engine-room for planned reforms. Hatherley provides a chronical of the innovation that came out of this period. It was a challenge thrown out to the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher which could only be responded to with an early version of culture wars which required every new proposal to be dismissed as a product of 'loony lefties'. Westminster fought back with the nuclear option of abolition - ending London-wide local government for the remaining years of Tory rule.
But change did not cease in the capital city at that point. The doctrines of neoliberalism instead gave central place to corporate interests which aimed to cash in on the inflation of asset values which ballooned from the 'big bang' reform of the stock exchange in the mid-80s and the opportunities it created for a second City of London based on the old docklands which had been the hub of the port of London. Hatherley has a lot to say as to how this property boom influenced architectural design with a new generation of towers and 'signature' buildings erected as monuments to the new era of private wealth.
The pendulum continued to swing and by the end of the 1990s a government was in power that, while keen not to displace the aspirational initiative that Thatcherism had unleashed, at least thought that it could be channeled to more productive ends if it permitted a degree of regulation in the public interest. A pallid version of the GLC was brought into existence, in the form of a powerful, directly elected London Mayor, whose office was scrutinised by a Greater London Authority. The London electorate rejected the opportunity to place a Blairite mayor in office as the first holder of that role, instead opting for the return of Ken Livingstone, now as an independent standing in opposition to the official Labour candidate. But Hatherley describes how this did not lead to a revival of the activism of the civic groups which had been the hallmark of the 1980w GLC. Livingstone showed a willingness to work within the limited powers granted to the mayor, which played no direct role in relation to housing needs of the city's population and tied the prestige of its office to the continuation of London's role as as global financial capital.
The left has found it difficult to envisage a progressive role for the GLA in quite the same way as it was able to do with the LCC and the GLC. The casting of the role of London mayor as the chief advocate of the capital's interests, rather than as the shaper and administrator of its public services, has skewed it in a populist direction which could be manipulated as much to the advantage of rumbustious Tories as Labour radicals - which explains the years of the Boris Johnson mayoralty. Competing for the attention of global capitalism for investment in such bright shiny things as Olympic stadia and glass skyscrapers is not the same thing as building communities in which millions of millions of diverse citizens could live together with shared agreement as to what constitute social justice and the best ways it can be obtained.
But Hatherley does not despair of the hope that the left might find a way back into the game and once again show it has the better ideas and the capacity to mobilise the resources, chiefly in the form of people committed to democracy and equality, to achieve these ends. If it feels like we are back at the beginning of the race, then perhaps the all important question posed by radical geographers like Doreen Massey and her colleagues - what is this place and what is it here for? - is the thing that we have to ask about London.
From this perspective an entity as complex as the capital city of the UK could not have come into existence without something we chose to call planning, and the need for plans generated the forces that pitted leftist progressives against against the professions that placed themselves at the service of capital. The growth of London to its present preeminence in the UK nation is a story of absorption over generations as the city core expanded and drew once independent towns into its structure, rechristened as 'suburbs'. This has been a dynamic process, calling instruments of government into existence along the way, from the Corporation of the City of London, the London County Council, the Greater London Council , and now the Office of the Mayor of London to do the necessary work. Also in this record is the fourteen years - from 1986 to 2000 - when the capital was deprived of any form of accountable governance as the Thatcherites handed everything over to profit-seeking developers to rule the roost.
The book identifies progressive moments at each stage of London's development. in the 1920s electoral fortunes ebbed and flowed, with Labour winning control of all the poorest boroughs in 1919 only to loses all but its strongholds in the Five Red Boroughs - Battersea, Bermondsey, Deptford, Poplar and Woolwich - in 1922. In four boroughs this led to a concentration on 'respectable' reforms - well-planned factory districts, cooperatives, etc. But in the case of Poplar a more militant confrontation with the national state a more radical plan for poor relief, housebuilding, healthcare and union rates for council workers was declared illegal and 30 councillors were jailed for refusing to stand down with their plans. Their stance contributed to partial reforms of local government during the years of the minority Labour governments of 1924 and '29-31. Labour won control of the LCC and, under the leadership of Herbert Morrison from 1934 onwards, embarked on ambitious programmes of municipalisation. Better treatment at LCC hospitals, more support for the blind and mentally ill, small class sizes in schools, teachers better paid, swimming pools and public gymnasiums and the 'beautification' of London parks and the establishment of a London Public Transport Board were all part of the improvements of this period.
The downside was that the task of managing all this change was left to a structure that reproduced the remoteness and bureaucracy of the preceding period, with very little room created for workers control or input from user of the services. But it was because the model for the management of what became London Transport by Morrison was so successful that it became the template for the nationalisation which became the policy of the Labour party and the government that came to power in 1945. The last gasp of LCC progressivism was probably the Festival of Britain on the site of the south bank of the Thames which was cleared especially for this purpose. But the futuristic imagination to attempted to project was eclipsed by the election of Conservative governments that lasted for the rest of the decade.
The fifties and sixties were years of population decline as people drifted from the inner core of the county of London to its suburbs. Labour control of the LCC did had little to offer the people in these areas and the sense that the government of the capital needed to be revitalised led to the formation of the Greater London Council in 1964, Actually the product of Conservative efforts at reform, the LCC came into being at the beginning of the 'Swinging Sixties' which had seen the mood of the country swing back to the left. Even so, the expansion of London government to the prosperous suburbs meant the end of one-party rule that had been associated with the LCC. Leadership of the GLC now changed with each election. The 1970s largely belonged to the Tories and produced plans for an inner-London ring motorway and an extensive development of the Covent Garden area which would have required the demolition of many historic listed buildings produced a community battles which swung the public mood against the Tories. But recognition of the need for some sort of modernisation remained and at the beginning of the 1980s this worked to the benefit of a fraction of Labour radicals led by the GLC councillor Ken Livingstone,
This was a new left that distanced itself from the top-down structures of Morrisonian municipal socialism. The Livingstone group saw London's greater diversity as an advantage which moved the business of consultation away from keeping a few trade union bosses onside and instead finding ways to bring ethnic community activists and feminists into the Labour fold. 'People's Plans' which came from extensive consultation with local communities and rank-and-file workers became the engine-room for planned reforms. Hatherley provides a chronical of the innovation that came out of this period. It was a challenge thrown out to the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher which could only be responded to with an early version of culture wars which required every new proposal to be dismissed as a product of 'loony lefties'. Westminster fought back with the nuclear option of abolition - ending London-wide local government for the remaining years of Tory rule.
But change did not cease in the capital city at that point. The doctrines of neoliberalism instead gave central place to corporate interests which aimed to cash in on the inflation of asset values which ballooned from the 'big bang' reform of the stock exchange in the mid-80s and the opportunities it created for a second City of London based on the old docklands which had been the hub of the port of London. Hatherley has a lot to say as to how this property boom influenced architectural design with a new generation of towers and 'signature' buildings erected as monuments to the new era of private wealth.
The pendulum continued to swing and by the end of the 1990s a government was in power that, while keen not to displace the aspirational initiative that Thatcherism had unleashed, at least thought that it could be channeled to more productive ends if it permitted a degree of regulation in the public interest. A pallid version of the GLC was brought into existence, in the form of a powerful, directly elected London Mayor, whose office was scrutinised by a Greater London Authority. The London electorate rejected the opportunity to place a Blairite mayor in office as the first holder of that role, instead opting for the return of Ken Livingstone, now as an independent standing in opposition to the official Labour candidate. But Hatherley describes how this did not lead to a revival of the activism of the civic groups which had been the hallmark of the 1980w GLC. Livingstone showed a willingness to work within the limited powers granted to the mayor, which played no direct role in relation to housing needs of the city's population and tied the prestige of its office to the continuation of London's role as as global financial capital.
The left has found it difficult to envisage a progressive role for the GLA in quite the same way as it was able to do with the LCC and the GLC. The casting of the role of London mayor as the chief advocate of the capital's interests, rather than as the shaper and administrator of its public services, has skewed it in a populist direction which could be manipulated as much to the advantage of rumbustious Tories as Labour radicals - which explains the years of the Boris Johnson mayoralty. Competing for the attention of global capitalism for investment in such bright shiny things as Olympic stadia and glass skyscrapers is not the same thing as building communities in which millions of millions of diverse citizens could live together with shared agreement as to what constitute social justice and the best ways it can be obtained.
But Hatherley does not despair of the hope that the left might find a way back into the game and once again show it has the better ideas and the capacity to mobilise the resources, chiefly in the form of people committed to democracy and equality, to achieve these ends. If it feels like we are back at the beginning of the race, then perhaps the all important question posed by radical geographers like Doreen Massey and her colleagues - what is this place and what is it here for? - is the thing that we have to ask about London.
February 21, 2023
Fascinating and radical - if you have even a slight interest in social housing, public infrastructure or the radical potential of devolved power, read this or FOREVER HOLD YOUR SILENCE.
September 27, 2021
Repeat after me - housing, housing, housing - public housing to be sure. Time and again, a spotlight shone on a big (and especially ‘global’) city reveals a multitude of social opportunities and threats that have their roots in the state of the city’s housing. Red Metropolis does not advertise itself as being explicitly about housing but this is where it finds its home, if you can forgive the pun.
As such the book can and should have an enormous audience, but before completing even two pages I feared that Hatherly had given up before he had even started, betraying his fear that he was preaching to a narrow crowd of the already converted. Nevertheless Red Metropolis is bracketed by reminders of the importance of its message given that nationally, London has an outsize degree of power and influence and internationally its impact means that it plays a part in setting the narrative rather than just being subject to it.
Here the spatial history of this global city is given a solid social and political framing. In places the pure political narrative is a little dry but it comes to life in the recounting of the practical idealism of the post-war efforts of the LCC and the cultural impact of the later GLC. Hatherly correctly points out that the abolition of the latter, coupled with the financial transformations of the 1980’s ‘Big Bang’ define London to this day. However in this equation the mechanics and the motivations driving the financial element are much less explored.
But of course, they come together in the realities of 21st century London housing - the failures of later-Ken Livingston’s attempts to co-opt private property developers from a somewhat neutered mayoral position, to the incompetence bordering on criminality that was shown in the actions of Southwark council at the Heygate and Aylesbury Estates.
London, not to mention the UK has a whole, desperately needs coherent social movements that are politically and spatially aware. For them, Red Metropolis provides an essential foundation in establishing the context of where we are now. Not the future of London perhaps, but eminently its history.
If the subtext of this book is indeed housing, housing, housing then it needs a wider audience. Much as the Conservative and New Labour successes were (and are) grounded in a command of the media, Red Metropolis should find its place in that sphere as well.
Perhaps Patrick Keiller, whose seminal 1994 documentary "London" which gets more than a few mentions, could be persuaded to make it into a film.
As such the book can and should have an enormous audience, but before completing even two pages I feared that Hatherly had given up before he had even started, betraying his fear that he was preaching to a narrow crowd of the already converted. Nevertheless Red Metropolis is bracketed by reminders of the importance of its message given that nationally, London has an outsize degree of power and influence and internationally its impact means that it plays a part in setting the narrative rather than just being subject to it.
Here the spatial history of this global city is given a solid social and political framing. In places the pure political narrative is a little dry but it comes to life in the recounting of the practical idealism of the post-war efforts of the LCC and the cultural impact of the later GLC. Hatherly correctly points out that the abolition of the latter, coupled with the financial transformations of the 1980’s ‘Big Bang’ define London to this day. However in this equation the mechanics and the motivations driving the financial element are much less explored.
But of course, they come together in the realities of 21st century London housing - the failures of later-Ken Livingston’s attempts to co-opt private property developers from a somewhat neutered mayoral position, to the incompetence bordering on criminality that was shown in the actions of Southwark council at the Heygate and Aylesbury Estates.
London, not to mention the UK has a whole, desperately needs coherent social movements that are politically and spatially aware. For them, Red Metropolis provides an essential foundation in establishing the context of where we are now. Not the future of London perhaps, but eminently its history.
If the subtext of this book is indeed housing, housing, housing then it needs a wider audience. Much as the Conservative and New Labour successes were (and are) grounded in a command of the media, Red Metropolis should find its place in that sphere as well.
Perhaps Patrick Keiller, whose seminal 1994 documentary "London" which gets more than a few mentions, could be persuaded to make it into a film.
October 1, 2022
A very good history and analysis of London's municipal socialism. Owen Hatherley's Red Metropolis traces the various London city council structures throughout the years, their specific undertakings, and prescriptions for the future. Lots of details about specific council housing projects, city level initiatives and amenities, and the various radical, moderate, and reactionary factions that have fought for control of the city for the past 150+ years. Unfortunately it's written in the moment of the early 2020's which leaves the ending a bit flat since we know how some of the recent developments at the time shake out. I learned a lot, but as it's a very narrow subject I feel some of it washed over me. But it's a quick read, so if this is an interesting subject to you, you can't pick a better book. And it has lots of pictures, which is nice!
July 2, 2021
Endlessly fascinating, insightful and eminently readable history of the government of London by socialist iterations of London County Council, the Greater London Council and more recently the Mayors office in the last century or so. The latter part of the book (from the abolition of the GLC onwards) is at once both utterly depressing and a fiery call to action as it highlights the injustices and huge issues around the availability and affordability of housing.
August 26, 2021
Not really sure what I was expecting but I didn’t think very much of this book. Felt like the author had an agenda the whole way through. Some interesting historical context on it but overall it wasn’t that great a read.
January 19, 2021
Really excellently written history of labour local government in London.
April 17, 2021
Endlessly fascinating and beautifully demonstrated
April 18, 2021
Essential reading
June 11, 2021
A fantastic historical narrative of the development and regression of London's municipal socialism - all with a tint of architecture throughout
August 7, 2022
RIP the GLC 😿
April 11, 2022
An unashamedly-biased and thoroughly-researched look at socialism in London's local government from the late 1800s to the present day. I learned a lot - a lot! - about municipal architecture and the current housing crisis in London as well as the ebb and flow of left-wing politics in the city. An interesting book.
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