The Transformation
of urban Britain since 1945
(CALL FOR PAPERS CLOSED)

Leicester, UK
DEADLINE | 01.02.2013
Centre for Urban History
University of Leicester 

CONFERENCE THEME
During the second half of the twentieth century the towns and cities of Britain were transformed more extensively than at any period since the industrial revolution. Millions of people were moved from the centre of cities to new urban settlements; whole manufacturing industries and their associated communities and cultures were swept away in a matter of decades; and the steady influx of peoples from the old empire and Europe created new community formations and ultimately a multicultural Britain which was also overwhelmingly urban. Britain’s towns and cities today are barely recognisable from the drab and damaged places that emerged from the Second World War.



THE AIM
The purpose of this conference is to bring together not only different types of historian – social, cultural, economic, urban, planning – around this subject but also others who have a direct interest in it: conservationists, policymakers, journalists and others. One of the purposes of the conference is to create a network of scholars and practitioners on post-war urban Britain.

PLENARY SPEAKERS
• John Gold | Oxford Brookes 
• Frank Mort | Manchester
• Guy Ortolano | New York University
• Selina Todd | St Hildas, Oxford

CALL FOR PAPERS
Following you could find the themes of papers and panel invited by the conference:
• The history of new terminologies of urban description: ‘city centre’, ‘inner city’, ‘greenfield/brownfield’, etc.
• Histories of industrial decline (or renewal) and their impact on urban communities and landscapes.
• The relationship between global political and economic processes and urban Britain; 
• Urban governance in the period, including local-central relations, the role of private developers, municipal 
corruption, etc.;
• Consumerism, including the history of the shopping precinct and mall, the corner store, the sex trade,
etc.
• Urban infrastructures: motorways, electrification, cybertechnologies
• Urban protest movements: anti-roads, squatting, conservation, etc.
• Identity politics: urban space and the creation of ‘new’ social and sexual identities.

FOR MORE INFORMATIONS AND CONTACTS 
Conference Website
Proposals for papers or panels of three speakers plus chair/discussant should be sent to
• Simon Gunn
EMAIL | sg201@le.ac.uk
• Rebecca Madgin
EMAIL | rmm13@le.ac.uk