Which cities did 60s planners ruin the most?

Birmingham was utterly devastated and turned into a joke. Real vibrate areas like the Bullring were turned into a dystopian hell.

Nottingham at least retained its core, being bookended by the two malls rather than replaced by it. While Birmingham has recovered nowadays, it's no exaggeration the prolification of dirty concrete, subways and flyovers in the 90s. It has taken a similarly sized regeneration plan to remove all of what was done to the city in the 60s/70s.

Wolverhampton was near wholescale rebuilt in the 60s/70s but before then it had only really had a small town feel so what replaced the little winding shambles was actually an improvement. The concrete precincts have been turned into quite pleasant modern shopping malls and it gained a new High Street.

We won't speak of Coventry.

CRAWLEY.

The destruction of vast swathes of Georgian liverpool was fairly galling. Total loss of irreplaceable urban fabric... I mean, this is the city that wilfully tore down the Sailors Home for a car park in the 70s. This building was one the greatest in England; aesthetically it was easily a match for the midland hotel in Manchester...

Almost every city has their horror stories- in terms of total loss of fabric, and in terms of the social impact of it, it's hard to imagine that anywhere took a bigger hit than glasgow - but in terms of fundamental impact on the city centre and its layout brum seems to have been impacted especially badly. The tragic irony being, that's probably precisely because it was such an economic force during that era - glasgow, and other places, ran out of money for their spree of destruction sooner.

Charlie_ said:

glasgow, and other places, ran out of money for their spree of destruction sooner.

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I remember watching a BBC doc recently about the Bruce report. This would have been a horrifying outcome:

Those people were pure evil

Charlie_ said:

The tragic irony being, that's probably precisely because it was such an economic force during that era - glasgow, and other places, ran out of money for their spree of destruction sooner.

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The tragic irony here being that most of the planned destruction and rebuilding was halted by the outbreak of the Troubles. That irony further compounded by the fact the conflict led to the loss of some beautiful buildings in the city.

Some of the plans for Belfast were utterly horrific but unfortunately some horrors did occur and a few more bad decisions occurred in the 80's and 90's be we were sparred the very worst.


Thankfully these did not come to pass;

Belfast Urban Motorway



Belfast Markets



Shaftesbury Square

Got to be Birmingham or Coventry. Don't think Nottingham is a candidate- there were no large arterial/urban motorways built as in Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Glasgow, etc...

Charlie_ said:

Those people were pure evil

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I wouldn't call them evil but of course we should learn from past mistakes. You have to remember that some of these buildings would have been in a poor state and there wasn't the incentive to restore buildings back then; it was easier to simply demolish them and replace them with some fresh and forward-thinking modern concrete buildings - which too of course went on to become unpleasant and unfashionable. But then I think in the future we'll regret demolishing some of THOSE buildings too - and so the cycle continues!

MusicMan1 said:

My votes would go to either Peterborough, Northampton, Gloucester, Exeter or Nottingham, based on poor 60's/ 70's planning.

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I'd probably agree with your suggestions but also add Worcester aswell.

I wouldn't say Nottingham is a candidate either. There are some awful buildings and one woeful srett (Maid Marion Way) which date back to those times, but aside from that the city has actually maintained most of its core.

Surprised nobody has mentioned Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Especially the latter, as it's got a a major road crossing through the middle of the city and dividing it into two.

Exeter isn't deserving of being on the list either. Western Way and a couple of office blocks hardly ruins the city. By and large it's still fairly attractive.

Coventry and Birmingham.

Yeah Coventry and Birmingham

O Galego said:

I wouldn't say Nottingham is a candidate either. There are some awful buildings and one woeful srett (Maid Marion Way) which date back to those times, but aside from that the city has actually maintained most of its core.
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Seems right. We have two hideous shopping centres to the north and south of the city centre and Maid Marian cutting through the west but the core remains. Once you get into the city itself it's great.

Maid Marian Way is nothing compared to the likes of Suffolk Street Queensway in Birmingham, now those kinds of roads are barriers. Newcastle has a motorway running through the eastern edge of the city centre. There might be methods of crossing by bridge or perhaps underneath, but still.

Temple Way in Bristol is another hefty construction. These three are all more of a barrier than MMW.

Maid Marian Way isn't even THAT much of a barrier, not anymore anyway. The tall buildings add that 'big city feel', the street interactivity of the frontages are great and continue to thrive. The traffic calming and creation of a more tree lined boulevard in recent years has really helped. The road could do with being narrowed by a lane or 2, to then accommodate even wider pavements, but that's about it.

Liverpool is very lucky not to have obstructive urban motorways/ an extensive ring road around it. Leeds street is about as bad as it gets for the city- the strand and upper parliament street are comparably tame to some of the horrors we see in other UK cities.

Birmingham seems the most messed up city to me, anyway. As an outsider, it is a difficult city to learn to love IMO.