Widening horizons in post‐war reconstruction

Abstract

In Britain in 1945, the politics of peace steered reconstruction towards a static socio‐economic base from which stemmed many later planning and social problems. Britain had emerged from six years of war economically weakened but with a clear social vision, an effective administration and fully evolved plans for the transition from war to peace. The social vision including the ideal of full employment and the right to a local job and a local home. This placed the economy in a spatial stranglehold and denied it the flexibility needed to adapt to changing global conditions. Draws on the British experience to suggest that the understandable desire to replace in situ what has been destroyed is doomed to fail and can prejudice the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.