Images of the Street: Planning, Identity, and Control in Public Space

This text aims to capture the vitality, excitement and tensions of the street. Drawing on historical and contemporary international research in cultural geography, cultural studies, sociology and planning, Nicholas Fyfe focuses contributions into three main sections. Planning and design examines how specific streetscapes are shaped by the interplay between dominant ideas in politics, planning, and local economic and political circumstances. The book draws on a seam of qualitative material, teasing out social differences of peoples' experiences of the street; to examine how social identities are shaped and represented in fiction and film; and to explore the meaning and significance of streets as settings in which social practices are played out. The final section, Control and Resistance, focuses on how social life on the street is increasingly regulated, both directly by formal agencies of social control, such as the police, and indirectly through architecture and urban design.