The Buchanan Report, Environment and the Problem of Traffic in 1960s Britain

Bibliographic Data

ID12239709
AuthorsSarah Gunn (0000-0002-8492-060X, University of Leicester, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume22
Issue4
Pages521-542
Publication date2011-01-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTwentieth Century British History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0955-2359 • E-ISSN: 1477-4674
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/tcbh/hwq063
PMID22400427
OpenAlexW1970027842
LanguageEN
Citations received25

Traffic congestion in Britain's towns and cities grew with the exponential rise of car ownership in the 1950s and 1960s. The Buchanan Report, Traffic in Towns (1963), was a pioneering response to this problem, advancing a series of radical solutions for how cities could be adapted to mass car ownership. This article examines the contemporary debate about traffic among planners and politicians in the 1960s and considers both short-term responses to the Buchanan Report and its longer term effects in cities such as Leeds and Leicester. The legacy of Buchanan was ambivalent: while many of its prescriptions favoured a new, environmentally sensitive approach to the historic fabric and urban living, the report's arguments for radical reconstruction pointed to the building of urban motorways. Paradoxically, the growth of environmental awareness in 1960s Britain was linked to the endeavour to modernize the nation's towns and cities and to create the conditions for a car-owning society

Economic history · Library science · Media studies · Sociology · Computer Science · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · Water Governance and Infrastructure · History

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