Hebbert, Michael 1947-

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HEBBERT, Michael 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born May 21, 1947; married; children: two. Education: Oxford University, B.A., 1969; University of Reading, Ph.D., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Manchester, England. Office—University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Urban planner, educator, and author. Teaching posts at Building Research Station, Oxford Polytechnic, and London School of Economics. University of Manchester, Manchester, England, professor of town planning, 1994—. Has worked with the Regional Studies Association, Urban Design Group, International Planning History Society, Manchester Civic Society, and other urban planning organizations.

MEMBER:

Royal Town Planning Institute.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Urbanism fellowship, Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, 1998-2000; Built Environment Fellowship, 2000.

WRITINGS:

The Inner City Problem in Historical Context, Social Science Research Council (London, England), 1980.

(Editor, with Tony Travers) The London Government Handbook, Cassell (London, England), 1988.

(With Norihiro Nakai) How Tokyo Grows: Land Development and Planning on the Metropolitan Fringe, London School of Economics and Political Science (London, England), 1988.

(Editor, with Patricia L. Garside) British Regionalism, 1900-2000, Mansell (New York, NY), 1989.

(Editor, with Jens Christian Hansen) Unfamiliar Territory: The Reshaping of European Geography, Avebury (Aldershot, England), 1990.

(With Ann Dickins Edge) Dismantlers: The London Residuary Body, Greater London Group, London School of Economics (London, England), 1994.

London: More by Fortune Than Design ("World Cities" series), John Wiley (New York, NY), 1998.

Urbanism, John Wiley (New York, NY), 2004.

Also contributor to scholarly journals, including the London Journal and Town Planning Review. Progress in Planning, editor.

SIDELIGHTS:

A professor of town planning, Michael Hebbert has written books on the development of London, the growth of Tokyo, and the history of London's inner city, among others. Hebbert has also produced a number of articles on European regionalism, metropolitan governments, and different treatments of the street in urban design.

In 1998 Hebbert published London: More by Fortune Than Design, part of Wiley's "World Cities" series. According to Urban Studies reviewer Peter Wood, Hebbert's contribution to the series "is one of the best yet. It achieves what I assume the series set out to do, combining fluency of writing and enthusiasm for the subject with historical and contemporary scholarship and coherence of overall interpretation." Hebbert provides a description of the detailed, and famously difficult, test that London gives to would-be taxi drivers. He also chronicles the political, economic, and social factors that have produced the tangle of streets that continue to bedevil both tourists and locals and that provide headaches for latter-day urban planners. Still, as an Economist reviewer put it, "Hebbert is an optimist, revelling in London's ability to reinvent itself and find new sources of vitality." Indeed, he rejects the kind of grim urban planning that bulldozed working-class neighborhoods in the 1950s, preferring London's organic, "higgledy-piggeldy" growth patterns. In the same way, he salutes the adaptability of London's residents, even the poorest, to new economic challenges. For Hebbert, London's combination of design and muddle makes for a unique and vibrant city.