Jack Rose examines the social, economic and political forces which have shaped the towns and cities of the UK since the Industrial Revolution. The unrestricted and largely unplanned development which followed the Industrial Revolution created unacceptable living and working conditions for which a century of legislation failed to provide a remedy. In the last fifty years of economic, political and legal changes have all affected the shape and speed of development through rent control, taxation, planning directives and other mechanisms. The interplay of political changes and economic...