All articles by Charlie Lawrence Jones
Charlie Lawrence Jones
Boris Johnson’s channel bridge would be a car crash in more ways than one
As Boris Johnson’s Churchillian dream of a road bridge across the Channel Tunnel emerged and then quickly disappeared, it got…
How spurious imperial science affected the layout of African cities
As the European powers spread across the world, systematically colonising it as they went, one of the deadliest enemies they…
So is the north of England really getting an enormous new forest?
The dendrophiles of northern England have something new to be excited about. The Northern Forest is a green megaproject which…
British cities are moving to reduce the impact of “studentification”
The tension between town and gown is as old as the existence of universities themselves. The appropriately named St Scholastica’s…
Gentrification can kill a community. But sometimes, they'll fight back in bizarre ways
In cities across the world, a familiar story is being told. There’s a working class neighbourhood with a certain ‘je…
Sadiq Khan promises half a million “mini-masts” to boost London’s mobile coverage
This is one for the smartphone junkies. Actually, that’s pretty much everyone – Ofcom proudly announced in 2015 that the…
Urbicide: the killing of a city is an attack on the human condition
Urbicide. Like all –cides, it is an evocative word. Tracing its roots back to Latin – ‘urbs’: city, cide: ‘killing’ – it defines…
These modern ghost towns show the danger of an undiversified economy
“Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?” asked The Specials in their classic 1981 hit. Released…
On Walter Benjamin, and the “Arcades Project”
In 1940 a small group of refugees were turned away at the French-Spanish border. Having fled the Nazi invasion of…
The River Lea: London’s forgotten defensive line
Stretching from the Thames in London’s Docklands up to Hertfordshire, the Lea Navigation cuts through the East End of the…