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  • 2 - The ‘urban renaissance’ and the mob: rethinking civic improvement over the long eighteenth century

  • Edited by David Feldman, Birkbeck College, University of London, Jon Lawrence, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Structures and Transformations in Modern British History
    Published online:
    04 February 2011
    Print publication:
    20 January 2011, pp 54-73

  • Summary

    Few concepts in urban history have been so influential in recent years as that of the urban renaissance. The urban renaissance thesis is not wrong: the physical appearance and cultural life of towns were enhanced during the eighteenth century, and the concept of improvement continues to inform the understanding of the eighteenth-century town, and indeed of the eighteenth century more widely. The history of the eighteenth-century market-place clearly demonstrates the emergence of a divergence between plebeians and elites concerning the legitimate uses of public spaces. Urban improvement certainly involved the harmonious enhancement of civic life, but it also triggered conflicts over the proper uses and rightful owners of public spaces. Clearly, it is only by considering the actions of the mob that a proper appreciation of the nature and extent of the urban renaissance will ever be gained.