Ground Control Synopsis

	Synopsis
'Ground Control' is about the architecture of boom and bust and the climate of fear it creates. Based on a journey around Britain, it tells the story of how our cities have changed as a result of American policies towards property, crime and planning, first introduced by Mrs Thatcher and continued enthusiastically by New Labour.
It is a story that began in Docklands in the 1980s when the global financial services industry emerged from the ashes of Britain's failing industrial economy. Docklands created a new entirely private high security environment where even the streets were privately owned. Nearby, finance professionals lived in gated communities, separated by high walls from the surrounding communities, which were among the poorest in the UK.
Back in the 1980s Canary Wharf and the nearby Broadgate Centre were the only parts of the city which functioned like this. Today, every new part of the city is privately owned and controlled, creating a very different culture and environment. So far few people have noticed but the public life of British cities is changing beneath our feet, from Stratford City in London to old industrial cities, regional centres, commuters towns and market towns. It is not only creating sterile, strangely similar places based on high security, round the clock CCTV and fear, it is also replacing local government and local democracy.
At the same time most new homes are being built surrounded by gates and security, from luxury gated communities to social housing. The result is a far more divided and security conscious environment where people fear rather than trust each other. Fear is linked to happiness and this is why levels of unhappiness are double those of continental Europe, where civic life remains stronger and the architecture of fear is the exception to the rule.
Property speculation and debt fuelled this city, creating new private city centres based purely on profit. The same reliance on property speculation and rising prices was behind a demolition policy in the north of England which echoes the slum clearances of the 1950s and 60s. This is called 'housing market renewal'. It has ripped through communities, leaving hundreds of thousands Victorian terraces empty and boarded up. Meanwhile, the acute shortage of housing gets worse. Social housing is barely available and ghettoes of poverty in the private rented sector are springing up in every town and city, often just a stone's throw from gated enclaves.
The result is soaring fear of crime, which bears no relationship to actual crime figures. Counter intuitively, it is today's emphasis on too much security which is one of the main causes of fear. Yet rather than address the real causes of fear, which are security and segregation, the government falls back on American policies towards crime which are making the situation worse. The anti-social behaviour and 'Respect' agendas, which are based on American thinking, were introduced to combat growing fear of crime but this approach is part of the problem rather than the solution.
Creating cities based on rising property prices, speculation and debt is neither economically viable or socially desirable. 'Ground Control' argues that increasing control over the environment removes personal and collective responsibility, undermining trust between people. This model is broken but there is another way of doing things which relies on a more cooperative, continental approach, built on a mixed economy which emphasises public life and shared space, strengthening civil society in the process.

Synopsis

'Ground Control' is about the architecture of boom and bust and the climate of fear it creates. Based on a journey around Britain, it tells the story of how our cities have changed as a result of American policies towards property, crime and planning, first introduced by Mrs Thatcher and continued enthusiastically by New Labour.

It is a story that began in Docklands in the 1980s when the global financial services industry emerged from the ashes of Britain's failing industrial economy. Docklands created a new entirely private high security environment where even the streets were privately owned. Nearby, finance professionals lived in gated communities, separated by high walls from the surrounding communities, which were among the poorest in the UK.

Back in the 1980s Canary Wharf and the nearby Broadgate Centre were the only parts of the city which functioned like this. Today, every new part of the city is privately owned and controlled, creating a very different culture and environment. So far few people have noticed but the public life of British cities is changing beneath our feet, from Stratford City in London to old industrial cities, regional centres, commuters towns and market towns. It is not only creating sterile, strangely similar places based on high security, round the clock CCTV and fear, it is also replacing local government and local democracy.

At the same time most new homes are being built surrounded by gates and security, from luxury gated communities to social housing. The result is a far more divided and security conscious environment where people fear rather than trust each other. Fear is linked to happiness and this is why levels of unhappiness are double those of continental Europe, where civic life remains stronger and the architecture of fear is the exception to the rule.

Property speculation and debt fuelled this city, creating new private city centres based purely on profit. The same reliance on property speculation and rising prices was behind a demolition policy in the north of England which echoes the slum clearances of the 1950s and 60s. This is called 'housing market renewal'. It has ripped through communities, leaving hundreds of thousands Victorian terraces empty and boarded up. Meanwhile, the acute shortage of housing gets worse. Social housing is barely available and ghettoes of poverty in the private rented sector are springing up in every town and city, often just a stone's throw from gated enclaves.

The result is soaring fear of crime, which bears no relationship to actual crime figures. Counter intuitively, it is today's emphasis on too much security which is one of the main causes of fear. Yet rather than address the real causes of fear, which are security and segregation, the government falls back on American policies towards crime which are making the situation worse. The anti-social behaviour and 'Respect' agendas, which are based on American thinking, were introduced to combat growing fear of crime but this approach is part of the problem rather than the solution.

Creating cities based on rising property prices, speculation and debt is neither economically viable or socially desirable. 'Ground Control' argues that increasing control over the environment removes personal and collective responsibility, undermining trust between people. This model is broken but there is another way of doing things which relies on a more cooperative, continental approach, built on a mixed economy which emphasises public life and shared space, strengthening civil society in the process.