"London has thrived for centuries on cut-throat commerce, high finance and boisterous creativity. But it has been at its best when its passion for enterprise and inventiveness has been tempered by a degree of long-term planning and democratic control, when public virtue has been allowed to triumph over private vice." "New Labour, far from reining in the market-driven ethos of the Thatcher years, has embraced the idea of the city being run by and for big business. Its high-handed approach - witnessed in the shambolic mayoral elections and now in the deeply unpopular part-private financing of the Underground - assumes that Londoners are so happy shopping, eating and being entertained that they don't care about how their buses and trains, their schools and hospitals are financed and run. But they do, and they're well aware that peace offerings like the lavish Millennium buildings, sponsored by a national lottery and global corporations, are a poor substitute for a creaking infrastructure. Bread and circuses are not enough." "Jonathan Glancey, a Londoner passionate about his city, asks why this has happened and raises a call for action. His personal take on the city - which ranges from interviews with teachers, doctors and City workers, to critiques of recent buildings and memories of a London childhood - combines anecdote, analysis and opinion to draw a detailed picture of the state London's in at a time of fast-forward change."--BOOK JACKET.