A High and Hostile Utopia

Jill Craigie's controversial BBC documentary, Who ?re the vandals?, brought into focus many of the inherent shortcomings of so much of new mass houslng in the last twenty years. Miss Craigie pinpointed a number of doubts about housing policy which have lurked just beneath the surface in the minds of many of the architects and I. Planners working within its present framework. 'Build up, not out' was the war-cry of the 'advanced' thinkers as they did battle with the Garden City Philistines' in the years immediately preceding and following the last war. Land was rapidly becoming more scarce and it seemed a convincing if somewhat ?ver-simplified point of view. A great many highly ingenious and credible ideas ^ere put forward to justify housing a large proportion i ?f the population in homes in the sky. 'Build high and liberate the ground' was one such exhortation ^hich is an attractive theory but in practice has been, ^ith a few exceptions, nothing short of a complete take in'.