Jigsaw Cities

This new book explores Britain's intensely urban and increasingly global communities as interlocking pieces of a complex jigsaw, which are hard to see apart yet they are deeply unequal. How did our major cities become so divided? How do they respond to housing and neighbourhood decay? "Jigsaw City" examines these issues using Birmingham, Britain's second largest city and pioneer of the modern urban order, as our strongest model of the drive to create public solutions to private squalor is in three parts. Through looking at major British cities, using Birmingham as a case study, the authors explore: the origins of Britain's acute urban decline; the idea that "one size doesn't fit all"; the continuing urban flight that traps the poor and pays the rich to move out. The book will attract policymakers in cities and government; it will help students of social science, regeneration bodies, community organisations and environmental specialists. The style of the book with its live examples and hands-on experience is extremely accessible in spite of its strong historic background. Its unique 'insider' perspective on policy making and practical impacts offer a useful and unusual perspective.