Though 80 per cent of the English population are said to live in suburbs, according to the Urban White Paper debates about the future of cities have focused on their central and inner areas, as if suburbs either never change or are beyond redemption. Even the new State of the English Cities report (Parkinson et al., 2006) is presented without analysis of what is happening to the smaller towns and suburbs that cluster around the core cities like stars in a constellation. The London Plan (2004) recognizes the past importance of suburban sources of employment, but confidently plans on the basis of most of the growth taking place in the central area or the old industrial East End as if it were surrounded by walls rather than motorways. Despite talk of polycentric city regions, most planners and politicians seem stuck in a kind of pre-Galileo model of how cities work. They think of cities as revolving around their historic centres, and so long as these centres can provide bread and games or act as dynamos for their regions, all should be right with the world.
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