Urban Crisis, Urban Hope resurrects the concept of the city and its neighbourhoods as a crucible for new ideas and a site of innovative action when cities in the UK are struggling with an unfolding crisis, exacerbated by a policy vacuum and lack of strategic vision about how to resolve a series of growing divisions, social problems and injustices. It celebrates what is being achieved against the odds. But it also recognises the desperate need for support, resources and complementary visions at urban and national scales, and sets out an agenda to meet this need.

The collection of essays brings together leading thinkers and doers from across the spectrum of policy and practice to present both critical analysis and an agenda for action. It seeks to reinvigorate a sense of the city as a space where more progressive and fairer futures can be imagined, planned and realised. It aims to challenge stultifying discourses of incremental bureaucratic devolution that frame and delimit current urban debates. It alerts policymakers and the public to the unfolding crisis that has been allowed to develop in our cities and rehumanises the debate on urban futures to focus on citizenship and wellbeing in an age of precarity.

Julian Dobson is a writer and researcher with a focus on creating fair, liveable and environmentally just places.

Rowland Atkinson is an urban sociologist with interests in social inequalities and city life, based at the University of Sheffield

Anthem Environment and Sustainability Initiative

Acknowledgements; Foreword by Leo Hollis; Chapter 1: Asking for trouble, Julian Dobson and Rowland Atkinson; Chapter 2: The hungry city, Madeleine Power and Niall Cooper; Chapter 3: The unhomed city, Emma Bimpson, Richard Goulding and Glyn Robbins; Chapter 4: The anxious city, Rhiannon Corcoran and Graham Marshall; Chapter 5: The violent city, Elizabeth Cook, Anthony Ellis, Luke Billingham and Keir Irwin-Rogers; Chapter 6: The sick city, Bethany Thompson and Pam Warhurst; Chapter 7: The withering city, Ian Mell and Natalie Bennett; Chapter 8: The dispossessed city, Loretta Lees, Kate Swade and Mark Walton; Chapter 9: The unravelling city, Annette Hastings and Julian Dobson; Chapter 10: The unaccountable city, Simin Davoudi and Jess Steele; Chapter 11: Conclusion: the challenge of change, Rowland Atkinson and Julian Dobson; Chapter 12: A manifesto for urban policy; List of contributors; Index.