Anna Minton on the Twenty-First Century City

Anna Minton, Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City (London: Penguin, 2009), xi + 240pp., ISBN 9780141033914.

A well-researched but readable account of the modern built environment looking at the city, the home, and civil society. Minton argues that the creation of cities within cities, stripped of local history and culture, complete with up-market housing, gated communities and private security forces has generated a culture of authoritarianism and control, the effect of which is to make the city a more fearful place where the pursuit of profit threatens to undermine the quality of urban life.