Up in the Air: A History of High Rise Britain | Holly Smith

Post-war British history captured through its most contentious symbol: the high-rise block-from an award-winning historian

Up in the Airtells the story of Britain's multi-storey council housing from its beginnings to the present day. Across the decades, the high-rise has symbolised the welfare state for better or worse. Here, Holly Smith takes the residents' perspective, capturing the
human side of high-rise Britain. Interrogating the complex inheritance of mid-century urban reconstruction, Smith shows how these buildings became a crucible in which the welfare state was shaped and reimagined.

She examines the scattering of a local community during the construction of Park Hill in Sheffield in the 1950s. The outrage that followed the Ronan Point tower block collapse of 1968. The formation of a pioneering tenants' co-operative in the 1970s to revive a crumbling estate during the closure of the London docks. The advocacy of a National Tower Blocks Network agitating for high-rise safety in the 1980s and '90s. The excitement of early digital culture in a Liverpudlian pensioners' high-rise internet television show in the 2000s.

And the fierce battle to defend estates from demolition in the 2010s.
Up in the Airis a rich history of political struggle within Britain's most misunderstood buildings. It traces an unfinished battle for housing justice, offering essential lessons for the future of public housing.

Size: 219 x 149mm (hardback with dust jacket)

Pages: 304 (b/w illustrations throughout)

Publisher: Verso