Alpha City

Alpha City is the heart-breaking, carefully-told, story of how London - its heart, mind and soul - was stolen from the people by the plutocrats and their minions. When, the book asks, will the greed of the super-rich end up strangling the city, whose body sustains them? Rowland Atkinson has delved deep to uncover the extent of the super-rich's grip on London. A masterpiece. -- Danny Dorling, author of Inequality and 1% London, Alpha City, tops the global power city index, but rankings aside what does this really mean? In this superb book Atkinson tells us - it means hyper-activity, hyper-consumption, and hyper-gentrification. The fall out is eviction and dispossession of the poor, even the middle classes, the city and its spaces territorialised by the super-wealthy, the collapse of any ethics of care. This is the shady, corrupt world of money destroying the city. And Atkinson tells the story so well through his vivid descriptions of London's neighbourhoods, streets, and buildings as captured, even stolen. This engaging and provocative book is a must read for Londoners, urbanists, and those interested in social, economic and political justice. -- Loretta Lees, Kings College, London In Alpha Cities, Rowland Atkinson lays bare how London has been geared up as the world's monument to inequality. It exposes the tactics of gilded elites alongside their legions of enablers and hangers on, and the ways in which they have turned an already tough city into a 21st century dystopia, where the ultra-rich glide through pristine, soulless environments while the infrastructure we all need decays around us. This fast-paced guide to the new gilded age is a timely warning of how much damage inequality can do. -- Douglas Murphy, author of Nincompoopolis A great book which provides vital insights into a strangely under researched group - the wealthiest people on the planet. -- Anna Minton, author of Big Capital Rowland Atkinson's excellent, lively and deeply researched book opens the lid on a can of dangerous worms. While Britain's policies to tempt the world's mobile hot money and its owners have blessed a small section of the population, Atkinson reveals how this has cursed far larger numbers of people, as the super rich have sucked away wealth, talent, investment, culture, government attention, and opportunities from the majority. As he puts it, "the rich kill the cities built to attract them." A welcome and urgently important corrective to the dominant British narrative that the super-rich benefit London and the wider nation. -- Nicholas Shaxson, author of Treasure Islands Turning large swathes of London over to the Super-Rich was meant to generate a sloshing pool of wealth that would 'trickle down' to the rest of us. In practice, the detailed, informed and devastating trawl through the global capital of the ruling class in Alpha City proves the only thing that has trickled down is contempt -- Owen Hatherley, author of The Ministry of Nostalgia Atkinson writes with beautiful elegance. Almost every page has a sentence I wish I'd written myself! But his fundamental argument is hard-hitting and could not be more relevant for our troubled times. His analysis of London's 'alphahoods' is a reminder, if we need it, of how unequal cities-not just London-have become. -- Glyn Robbins * City *

Rowland Atkinson is Research Chair in Inclusive Societies at the University of Sheffield. His research has focused on the spatial impacts of social inequalities, taking in work on gentrification and displacement, gated communities, public housing, social exclusion, fortress homes and, of course, the super-rich. Seeing the role of social science as bringing attention to social problems he has highlighted the need for social housing and more attention to be paid to the invisible casualties of complex urban processes. He is the author of Domestic Fortress (with Sarah Blandy) and Urban Criminology (with Gareth Millington).