Poverty of Planning

Using a neo-Marxian, urban political economy perspective, this book examines the absence of urban planning in nineteenth-century England. In its analysis of urbanization in England, the book considers the influences of landed property owners, inheritance laws, local government structures, fiscal crises of the local and central state, shifts in voter sentiments, fluctuating economic conditions, and class-based pressure group activity.

Engels has authored a significant contribution to 19th-century English industrial history and the history of urban planning. Using an explicit neo-Marxist interpretation of class, political power, and property, Engels identifies key elements that prohibited more effective urban planning in an age of improvement. Historians...will revel in the quantity of data gathered and the analyses that proceed thereon. Engels explicates the role of property and politics in industrial urban England effectively and persuasively. According to this neo-Marxist interpretation, class interests were often subordinated to or even contradicted by property-owning interests. Despite permissive legislation from parliament and localized political pressure from urban progressives, the divisions of property ownership and the resulting conflicts of interest led to stalemates and inaction regarding the infrastructure necessary for a growing industrial urban society. Only by expanding the urban franchise and thoroughly nationalizing urban planning by creating parliamentary mandates did significant planning measures get enacted at the end of the 19th century, often by overriding the competing and conflicting interests of land owners. The Poverty of Planning is worthy of deep engagement by historians, urban planners, and others interested in industrial urban societies. Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.-- "Choice"

Benno Engels is senior lecturer at RMIT University.