This book deals with the very important topic of urban space and in particular the incremental changes to it that have occurred, often unnoticed and even invisibly, over the last three decades. Anna Minton writes in the first person and with passion about issues such as mixed communities, the privatisation of public space and fear in the city. The book's themes emerge from detailed considerations of specific locations in England, which Minton has visited and investigated, including London's Docklands, the new retail quarter of Liverpool One, the super-affluent gated community at St George's Hill, Surrey, trailer parks for the homeless in Truro, and Derker, an Oldham neighbourhood destined for demolition. Many of these locations are featured in the book's well-chosen black and white illustrations. ‘Human interest’ in the form of descriptions and interviews with residents and workers (including a family of five Minton admits to having invented to illustrate her points about fear and distrust) provides the springboard for more intellectual argument about particular issues.

Ground Control successfully synthesises a large amount of material. Minton makes use of the insights of urban theorists such as Jacobs (Reference Jacobs1961), Lefebvre (Reference Lefebvre and Nicholson-Smith1991/1974), Smith (Reference Smith1996) and Graham and Marvin (Reference Graham and Simon2001). The book also extensively references policy and practice reports, research findings and scholarly analyses. Minton acknowledges ‘the large body of excellent academic work on the subject, which does not get anything like the attention it should’ (p. vii), and has interviewed many academics for the book. Minton's own sharp observations of the urban landscape weave together all these data with quotes from urban professionals, such as developers, council officers and property lawyers.

The book is divided into three parts: ‘The City’, ‘The Home’ and ‘Civil Society’. In the first part, the privatisation of urban space is traced back to the Thatcher government's creation of Urban Development Companies in 1980. Minton outlines how weakened planning controls have allowed the construction of large out-of-town shopping centres. She contends that these, along with city centre ‘malls without walls’ created by local authorities in partnership with private sector developers and the Business Improvement District concept imported from the US, are all ‘blatantly security-conscious environments . . . which are responsible for growing levels of fear’ (p. 14). Architectural sameness characterises both housing and commercial developments. Many feel excluded from this new ‘public realm’, and an array of measures including CCTV and ASBOs are used to displace the homeless, beggars, unlicensed buskers and even young people. The resulting ‘clean and safe’ environment may please (some sectors of) the public, but Minton points out that ‘this way of creating places has not been part of the political debate, with few people aware that cities are now run by a mix of private companies and individual private landlords’ (pp. 56–57).

Minton's critique in the book's second part, ‘The Home’, is equally trenchant. She concludes that key policies, such as the Right to Buy, stock transfer and the Housing Market Renewal Pathfinders programme, have blighted whole areas and their residents’ lives. A range of housing and its attendant problems are considered – from exclusionary affluent gated communities justified by over-hyped concerns for security and planning authorities’ adoption of Secured by Design guidelines, to very poor quality housing found in the private rented sector. Responsibility is laid at the door of government's failure to acknowledge ‘that housing is unable to operate as a pure market because it has to cater for those on low incomes’ (p. 119). ‘Civil Society’, the third part of the book, focuses on the contentious issues of fear of crime and the policies designed to reduce it. Minton's thesis here is not new: that sensationalist media coverage combined with a sense of insecurity exacerbated by precautionary features, such as surveillance gadgets and surrounding walls, have led to increasing fear. However, her argument is enlivened by vivid descriptions, for example of time spent with a youth worker in Salford, where young people lack activities and facilities. Minton convincingly censures New Labour's Respect agenda and its consequent ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards anti-social behaviour and other low-level disorder, through informed discussion of the complex reasons behind increased fear of spiralling crime, which remain unaddressed by government.

The book provides a compelling critique of many current policies and practices relating to urban space, but it is, perhaps inevitably, short on detailed positive recommendations for the future. Trends and policies from the US are blamed for the fact that in the UK the ‘public good’ has come to mean ‘what makes most money’ (p. 198). Minton suggests that we should seek to emulate the ‘genuinely open squares and public places of continental Europe, where it is more common for all generations, regardless of income and social class, to mix more freely’ (p. 176), contending that urban fear and mistrust stem from a lack of contact with others outside our immediate social circle. She also argues strongly that private security arrangements have undermined any sense of personal control and responsibility, leaving people fearful when faced with the unexpected. Minton advocates that both the transfer of property rights in urban space to private corporations and the ideology of owner-occupation in housing should be reconsidered before it is too late.

It is refreshing to read a book that deals accessibly with these urban issues, which are both vital and neglected, rather than another ‘academic’ book of the kind that is read only by a small number of the author's disciplinary peers. Ground Control would be an excellent introductory overview for undergraduate and postgraduate students on urban-related courses, and it also deserves a wide general readership.