The UK fuel tax protests of September 2000 generated considerable debate about fuel prices and taxation and put transport in the media spotlight. Away from the immediate events and debates surrounding the protests, the experience offered the opportunity for longer-term lessons on transport to be gained. The editors of this volume, Glenn Lyons and Kiron Chatterjee, saw the opportunity to get fresh insight into car dependence and conducted a large-scale travel behaviour survey to find out ho...

Poverty in Britain is at post-war highs and - even with economic growth -is set to increase yet further. Food bank queues are growing, levels of severe deprivation have been rising, and increasing numbers of children are left with their most basic needs unmet.Based on exclusive access to the largest ever survey of poverty in the UK, and its predecessor surveys in the 1980s and 1990s, Stewart Lansley and Joanna Mack track changes in deprivation and paint a devastating picture of the...

The aim of this book is to inspire a better politics: one that will enable future generations to be happier. Greater well-being and better health should be the goals, rather than wealth maximization. We need to value healthcare more than hedge funds, caring above careers, relationships more than real estate. The book is about what makes most of us happier, but it is also about the collective good. We cannot truly be happy if those around us are not happy. The evidence for a successful poli...

How can we ensure high-quality public services such as health care and education? Governments spend huge amounts of public money on public services such as health, education, and social care, and yet the services that are actually delivered are often low quality, inefficiently run, unresponsive to their users, and inequitable in their distribution. In this book, Julian Le Grand argues that the best solution is to offer choice to users and to encourage competition among providers. Le Grand ...

The editor and his contributors take an international perspective on the links between land use, development and transport and present the latest thinking, the theory and practice of these links. Authors from six countries - all experts in this area - have been commissioned to write chapters on the theoretical debates and more practical issues, via the use of detailed case studies.

Shaping Places explains how towns and cities can turn real estate development to their advantage to create the kind of places where people want to live, work, relax and invest. It contends that the production of quality places which enhance economic prosperity, social cohesion and environmental sustainability require a transformation of market outcomes. The core of the book explores why this is essential, and how it can be delivered, by linking a clear vision for the future with t...

Outcome in the management of public services refers to the impact of a particular public sector activity. This book provides a critical assessment of the way outcome is measured, exploring the need to balance objective and subjective forms of

In principle the advanced, market-driven world in which we now live is fuelled by knowledge, information and transparency, but in practice the processes that produce this world systematically corrupt and denigrate knowledge: this is the powerful and provocative argument advanced by Colin Crouch in his latest exploration of societies on the road to post-democracy.Crouch shows that executives in profit-maximizing corporations have incentives to ignore or distort knowledge, especially...

At a time when transport is high on the political agenda and government decision-making is being vigorously scrutinised, there is a need for an incisive and accessible analysis of the key policy issues. This book is a highly readable introduction to the transport debate from two experts in the field. The authors celebrate the advantages of a modern transport system, but argue that years of poorly conceived and executed transport policy have resulted in Britain’s transport system being far ...

London has enjoyed an extraordinary period of growth in the past generation, symbolized by the towers of Canary Wharf built on the skeleton of the old docks. Finance was at the heart of this, so how can London’s economy be reinvented after the financial crisis? Success will depend on several factors that must go together: growing service sectors in addition to finance; making it possible for the people who work in London to live there in pleasant and affordable surroundings; and investing ...

Are you thinking of studying at university in Britain? Do you feel confused about which course is best for you, which university to choose, and how to apply? Are you wondering about what kinds of challenges you will be faced with, how best to approach them and how to overcome them? If so, this guidebook is for you.Honest and accurate, this book acts as an international student introduction and cultural guide to UK Higher Education. It informs and guides students in their preparatio...

The much-praised Cultural Quarters returns in a revised edition, offering new case studies and new chapters on the economics of cultural quarters and the importance of historical buildings. This definitive text provides a conceptual context for cultural quarters through a detailed discussion of urban design and planning. Drawing on several case studies (from Bolton, Birmingham, Ireland and Vienna), Cultural Quarters positions the emergence of specific cultural areas withi...