Milton Keynes is one place.. and they built that on top of a farm... Erith (kent) is another planet,, they built that by destroying one of the best looking towns in the UK,, these posh socialists were just enemies of the working class
HI Jimmy. has a Milton keynes resident, myself. i can actually say. the city council, is not looking after the city effectively. has for night life, you do need to goto outside the city centre. there are live venues, and a LGBT club, which dates to way before the it's city status, so it is not entirely fair to say that it is cultureless, has a whole. has a person i have been resident in MK, for nearly 25 years, and before that, i visited my grandparents, from the early 80's. MK did also suffer during covid, and many of the business went bust, has a result. and well. if you had used the cycle lanes, instead of your car, you would have been treated, to a great deal of public parkland. and thank you for also pointing out, that the other " new towns." are even bigger shit holes.
you might already know this but it doesn't really look as much like an american grid system as it does a dutch/german one which are also coincidentally very well known for creating weird towns/ghettos like this
A little story about MK: at its centre is Midsummer Blvd, planned so that the sun sets along it at the summer solstice - very nice. At the top of the boulevard was a great, mighty oak to be framed by said sunset - even nicer. Then in the early 2000s the shopping mall was extended, and the oak tree incorporated in an open-air rotunda. The tree promptly died, so the centre-piece of the town is now a circular arrangement of shopping units surrounding an empty space where life used to be. This, to me, is peak MK.
Agreed. MK was the perfect plan, that very quickly turned to a commercial interest. Look at the new estates going up, they follow none of the plans for mk, houses are on top of major roads while now trees can be seen among a concrete mess. Disappointing to see because I loved growing up in Mk.
Yeah, it never occurred to the idiots who designed and built the extension that the water table would change and destroy the tree. I don't like that extension anyway - they should have kept the style of the original.
I believe that the sun "rises" along midsummer boulevard. I once went to see the sunset at the solstice, it was cloudy (this is England) but the sun was definitely not anywhere near MSB. So I will check before the end of June ... just need to get down there for 4am !
In this context, it would seem that "modern" just means devoid of elegance and beauty. Great way to keep the populace down-trodden, uninspired and apathetic. What are the chances that the aristocrats putting together these monstrosities lived in similarly bleak, dour, soul-destroying designs themselves?
The problem are people calling every new buildings modernism. Modernism ended with ww2. Milton Keynes was made after that. It's a rather brutalism than modernism.
Battersea Power Station is one of my favourites. It will never age. That's how you know the design is excellent. The trouble with a lot of modernism was it was done by those who did not know what they were doing.
As someone who grew up in Milton Keynes (moved there from Luton in 2000 as a 6 year old) and you’re spot on about most of the points here. HOWEVER I would say there are a couple more positive things from a local that I should mention: - Yes while the city centre lacks community, each neighbourhood (known locally here as “estates”) are like mini villages where everyone knows each other and it has a major community feel - because there’s so many parks and green spaces (and with cars being out of the way on main roads), it made playing out in the park super safe for kids which I enjoyed doing a lot when I was younger - Most people I went to school with were just like me, moved from London (or other nearby areas) for better housing and a higher quality of life and they broadly achieved that - The quality of houses in MK is pretty good and back in the early 2000s you could get a pretty spacious house for a reasonable price - while cars are required, the underpasses are connected to a cycling route (known as redways) and so the entire city is very bike-friendly (most people here have gotten around on bikes way before it was an eco-warrior trend) - The shopping centre is terrible but back in the early 2000s it was arguably one of the biggest attractions of the city and people from other cities would drive here for shopping (which seems bonkers now) - its location makes it so handy to travel to most places in the country (it’s 30 mins by train to central London, 20 mins to Luton airport and is a 1 - 1.5 hour drive to Birmingham, Leicester and Oxford) Overall, I would agree that it’s fairly soulless, but equally, it’s not so run-down that it feels dangerous or dodgy (unlikely nearby Luton, Bedford and Aylesbury) and I’m happy to have grown up there. Great video though mate, will be checking out a lot more of your content
Agreed, the estates and constituent towns surrounding the city centre are the 'real' MK. I also kind of like the system of underpasses for pedestrians, roads above for cars. Makes travelling by foot / bike / skateboard very fast
I’m from Milton Keynes and I really like it 🤣 it’s not soulless, it’s actually pretty busy most days, there’s a lot to do and I think it does have a community feel. Grew up skateboarding in the city and our community all knew each other, plus there’s great parks in the city.
@@cameronclare5084 Bedford is nice in summer going for walks along the river and there’s a few nice places to eat and drink by the river too. There’s more weirdos in Bedford though. The town centre is quite compact so you see it more. If I go out for the night and I can’t drive because I’m having drink then I go to Bedford as it’s only the next train stop. If I’m clothes shopping then MK. Luton I only go a couple of times a year it’s full of crackheads.
Not any more. The mall in America is thing of the past. Just paved ghost towns now. One of the few reutilizations uses of malls now is put local government offices in them. That way you have plenty of parking and all the departments are within a quick walk inside a large building from each other. And because they are empty the office space is cheap to lease for the city. Sad, bu true.
I’m in the US so I’ve lived in much more soulless places than that. It actually looks like a fairly upscale US infill development near a suburban highway with maybe a corporate park and a golf course nearby. Ten years ago, it would have had a mall too, but all our malls are dying - maybe it would have an Amazon warehouse instead.
I'm glad to hear that - I would be very interested to hear more about city planning, what projects have you been behind? I want to make more content on it
If people don't like Milton Keynes, don't come to America. The majority of cities have long ago removed walking streets and such for cars, and there are even many newer cities that have no downtown. There are some where one can't find the city hall or even the government buildings. Just roads and chain businesses. Luckily, my hometown and one other nearby have attempted to create a walkable, private business area, but then charge astronomical parking fees.
@spotlight2164 as a US resident, my frequent vacation destinations are walkable cities supported by transit-- vacationioning in car-centric cities feels like work.
They say America is the best (it is amazing) but it shouldn't be THIS hard for people to live at the most basic level. America is so Lost right now. It's so unaffordable. Our cities have become so bland, soulless, minimalistic & dysfunctional. I wish we could give people HOPE. Hope they can have a place to live. Hope for if you're motivated, have skills & are willing to be creative. Give those people opportunities. We know the great depression was difficult but do we realize we are living thru one of the most challenging moments in modern American history? At least during the great depression families could be adaptive, do manual work to get themselves by, or sometimes even build them a little shack to call home, a area to sleep. It was difficult times but at least there was a sense of community since so many people were going thru the exact same thing as everyone else around them. The hardship was openly talked about. Politics actually focused on the issues of the times. Poor people got to be creative and very adaptive in order to get by. Nowadays poor people have no options. If you're poor you are restricted from doing most things even if you are capable and willing to help with something. We need to give people in poverty options. Right now everything is so restricted and only available if you have $.. We can do so much better than this. We are letting so much potential go to waste.. We gotta start from a local perspective. Modern society needs to have a community again. If we can find ways to utilize individuals who are willing to help, then we can build team work and other options for those who are willing to lend a hand, be a part of something, help with something.. If we focus on finding ways to adapt and use ingenuity I know we can improve certain things. I hope things change. Seeing how things are nowadays makes me so grateful I was born in 1989.. Things used to be a lot different and I don't see why we can't incorporate the best aspects of the 90's, early 2000's. We shouldn't accept this bland, soulless, minimalistic, disconnected approach to most things nowadays.. There are better ways. Other ways.
A lot of this modernist thinking destroyed huge swaths of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. 40% of downtown Minneapolis was literally bulldozed to build highways, parking lots, and modern buildings. When you look at photos of the amazing buildings we used to have, you could cry. Same for our defunct Twin Cities Rapid Transit system. People have been gaslit to believe that America was “built around cars” and that “cars are freedom” and cities are “prisons”. Yet suburban American life is literally home, work, errands, home. There is nowhere spontaneous to just run into people anymore. To top it off, we are probably also to blame for inventing the first enclosed shopping mall - Southdale. Its architect, Victor Gruen, wanted to create a suburban city center. But the housing components were not built and he hated how commercial and sterile it became. The mall suffered after nearby Mall of America opened, which also drove a stake through the downtown retail districts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Really, it’s very sad seeing how hollowed out our cities have become, all in service of the automobile.
@@mysteryY2K they are, but I don't think that's gonna make a difference because I'm the end he cares more about making a good video than having to spend hours making a thumbnail
There's always someone with the "as a so and so" intro and it's so lame. Why not word it into your well thought out comment instead of starting off with it?
i was thinking that americans would not understand why we dont like miltion keyens europens and americans have very diffrent taste its as simple as that being able to walk with in 10 min of a corner shop a small super market and a chinses or fish and chip takeaway is very important to most ppl in this country thats the bare min
I live here, in Milton Keynes. I don't own a car and I buzz around everywhere on my bicycle and I have to say it has the best bicycle infrastructure anywhere in the country with its separated 'Redways'. I can get from any part of the city to any other part of the city without really sharing any space with a car at all. And guess what... the Redways are very busy with people walking and riding their bikes/scooters. You don't see anyone when you are driving around, that is true. But get out of your car and ride around a bit and you see a lot of people. Yes, the new buildings were built in a modernist style and some of them were made cheaply and have not lasted, but that's not the whole story. The Open University is a lovely campus with some interesting buildings as one example. If you want to see older buildings they are everywhere since the original villages that were built around are still there. Woughton, for example, is as lovely as anything in the Cotswolds. What you did not talk about is that MK is a very green city. All those shots of desolate building sites in the 1970s do not look like that now because all the thousands of trees that were planted have now matured. There is a green stripe up the middle of the city which is the river flood plain and there are lakes at either end which are very beautiful. I think the car has been a poison to this country and its true that MK tried to accommodate the car in the North American way, but look at other towns around the country. Small pavements in the town centre and cars jamming the town centre and absolutely everywhere out in the streets of terraced houses near the town centre. A lot of your points are good, but you should come back and ride around on a bike and make a different video about how you can easily live here without a car.
I like to visit MK occasionally for this reason - it's the only decent place to cycle in most of the country without having to go to the Netherlands. I have noticed that as you say, it also has a lot of green space.. And a dinosaur!
@@1984rus-qc4le maybe you can't, I lived in mk for years without a car. Cycled to work, cycled to the supermarket. Maybe those things are difficult if you've got a family, but I don't see how it's any different anywhere else?
We have a lot to learn from European cities. I've just been to Las Palmas and they have city blocks 8, 10 storeys high, densely populated supporting a thriving economy of shops and bars throughout. Our town planning is generally appalling
How is it an American suburb? They all live in socialist style concrete tower blocks. Nobody has a private home with a big back yard and a swimming pool. Also the grid system is not a feature of suburbia. US suburbs have twisting, concentric roads, often with single inlets that terminate into cul-de-sacs. Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of problems with American suburban spawl, but I don't think there is any way that you can call Milton Keynes a US style suburb. Don't misunderstand me, it is awful, but it is is own special kind of awful.
@@semarugaijin9451 What you describe is upper middle class and rich neighbourhoods. Just go on Google Maps and look at LA. 90% of it is subdivisions of endless bungalows all neatly lined up beside each other. With no breathing space inbetween them. When you fart the whole block will hear you. Some have backyards, and some have pools. But no one has space for both in this concrete ocean. It's like your "socialist tower blocks" but each apartment is its own building, which just takes up so much more space unnecessarily.
I live in MK and would use the colour green to describe it overall, not grey. It's best experienced on foot or bike, not car. The clever road system prevents pedestrians and vechiles meeting. This video focuses on the shopping centre, which I agree is ugly, but is only a small area of the city. It's all retailers in this section, not houses, and the communities of people can be found in the streets surround it. Most UK town/city centres feel like this now people shop online and work from home more, so these spaces need to be reinvented. It's a city, so cant be compared to small villages or market towns with a handful of independent shops. Although we have lots of these too. What most other city's don't have though is the amount of parks, trees, lakes, and rivers that MK has. For me you get the best of both worlds in MK between nature and modern conveniences. But appreciate it's not for everyone, so not trying defending it, just offering an alternative perspective for those who have never visited.
I agree, a visitor who arrives at the coach station and who's only experience is walking around the shabbiest parts of the city centre would get the impression of a grey dystopia, but a walk down Campbell park to Willen Lake or down South through the Ouzel Valley park would just be 100% green. And in Woolstone or Bradwell, you'll still find areas with thatched roofs and a country village feel.
So you’re saying countryside abs villages that were already there before Milton Keynes are the nicest part of Milton Keynes 😂 Just the villages are nice, that’s not Milton Keynes even if the postcode has changed
This channel is absolute gold, I love the genuine human element to informative documentaries about genuinely interesting topics that also delve into the history of the topic too, I don’t think I’ve ever found a channel that I’ve immediately clicked with more than this, big up my man Jimmy you’re an absolute legend mate
Another thing people dont mention about modernism is that's its cheaper to build. You don't need ornamentations and skilled craftsman, you can use cheaper materials that you can easily mass produced. Which is why a lot of old modern buildings seems to be falling apart due to them being built cheapily. Also another funny thing you don't need to have a building to be heavily ornamented to be beautiful, hell a lot of traditional building like old homes are pretty simple but feel much nicer and cozy. Its just that with modern buildings there more concerned on finishing it instead of putting the effort to make it look nice.
Honestly, as someone who grew up in Milton Keynes in the 90's, the center was much better kept. It was an utter monument to consumerism, but when the corporation still owned it, they kept their consumerist cathedral sparkly clean and even did try to introduce some smaller shops and businesses that weren't huge chains. The city as a whole (But especially the centre) just has the air of a place that was grown on steroids as an overflow to London. No time to let culture develop naturally, we need a place for Amazon to store stuff. Give it a hundred years for some of the estates to collapse and re-develop, and I think we'll start to see some English townlyness start to grow.
@m.p.7075 spot on. Or Nigeria. I lived in MK from 1978 to 2010 and the demographic is following the trend of London now, It used to be a really nice place in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. Decline started in the 2,000s. Just saw the video today of a group of 300, mainly ‘diverse’, teenagers causing mayhem in the MK shopping centre. Glad I moved away, but sad to see the way it’s going.
It wasn't just time for culture. As a designed city, MK's starting point was determined by planning commitees of old wealthy white men. They did make sure to include cultural sites, but they were the sites of old-wealthy-white-men culture. A church, an art gallery, a library, a cinema - with carefully chosen management to make sure they only showcased respectable art. A shopping center. Respectable, up-market bars. But it didn't have any seedy pubs, or night clubs. The music venue was only for established artists with no history of counter-cultural or anti-authoritarian themes. Lots and lots of shops, but only big respected companies got in - and they always closed early, because night life was seen as just another word for crime. No low-cost housing, because there was no place envisioned for the lower classes - planning restrictions on building height and land usage were in place to make sure that there wouldn't be any affordable housing, because no-one wanted to live next to the poors. Middle class and above only, please. Part of why Milton Keynes would go on to have a serious homelessness problem. Milton Keynes was always envisioned as the middle-class utopia - no rebellious dissatisfied youth or untrustworthy poor people, just respectable men sipping reassuringly expensive sherry while listening to classical music. Milton Keynes has changed since then - there is actually a decent night life scene these days - but that's something that happened later in defiance of the original plan.
@vylbird I’m afraid you’re very wrong. Milton Keynes may have been an idea conceived by “wealthy white men” ( do you have a problem with people being white and male?), but it was designed by young, Lefty, architects and town planners. The Development Corporation was famous for being full of Left-leaning hippies. You must have heard that Midsummer Boulevard aligns perfectly with the sunrise on Mudsummer Solstice. Also, there was some very good, some quite avant-garde, public art created by world famous artists. Much of it has gone, but some remains. It actually took quite a few years to get a theatre and gallery, but there used to be very accessible and low priced theatre available at Stantonbury Canpus Theatre and The Jennie Lee (named for a Labour politician) had big names- I saw Billy Connolly there. Woughton Centre had a stage too - I saw John Cooper Clarke there. Is that ‘counter-culture’ enough? The Open University also put events on. There were community workshops where you could go to learn art and craft free of charge. It was open to anyone. They even had a garage where you could go to learn to fix your car (OK Garage). So, more like a hippy, Lefty kind of place than what you erroneously describe. I was there from the 1970s to 2010.
I used to work for one of the Chief designers of Redditch (and others) - she told me that the original plans were no where near as modernist - the design team (not the architects) were struck and overruled again and again by the over zealous Modernist Architects ideas of streamlining, simplicity of construction, and efficiency . The original design (For Redditch, at least) was no where near as centralized - large green areas, parks, allotments, and a whole raft of 'local' shops, that were all veto'ed by the Architects, the reason they gave was cost/profit (Read: corruption, and mind-blowing overpricing from the contractors (Closely related to and in some cases even owned by many of the head architects.)). They just lumped the houses into ever smaller plots, and centralized the shops. These ideas were populated throughout many other town over the next few decades, and what we have now (in most large towns and our cities) is still without significant ability to actually maintain a community (I'm not talking physical infrastructure) that the original team of designers dreamed up. Shame, as it could have been so much better, human nature I suppose!!
Yeah. I remember when I had the clean restaurant ductwork there on Midsummer Boulevard. Upon arrival, my honest reaction was: "This place is eerie as fuck, let's get the job done and get the fuck out of here"
I’ve lived in Milton Keynes for about 17 years now (moved at the age of 4, spent 4 years at uni) and honestly I love it. It’s not for everyone but growing up as a teenager without a lot of over sight it’s great. There’s lots of stuff to do as well as plenty of space to mess around with friends
Brilliant place to live, I love the redway network and easy access to wonderful countryside and parks woven into the city, albeit I do tend to avoid the centre.
That was one of the most annoying things about playing Sim City. You could never make your city look British or European. City Skylines is much better for that.
Except for the way every building looks the same. The grid system isn't what's most unappealing about it it's its bland uniformity. My home city is organized so neatly into a grid you can give directions as Cartesian coordinates but at least has a wide eclectic mix of architectural styles throughout rather than just wholly blocky modernist international style or brutalist boxes.
I am a born and bread Londoner. When I left it was with regret. Now, if you even offered me a £5m mansion in London, I would turn it down. This is because, we, in our street have something I never had anywhere in London… neighbours… I know everyone in my street and are chatting friends with most. This spreads to a next street too. We also look out for each other. When anyone is away, we all keep an eye on their place. We also do things like water their plants. From our front door, there is a score of lovely walks. Some of those walks take me to a village mentioned in the Domesday book, the sight of twelfth century windmill (the oldest of its type in the UK), an eleventh century church, 16th century manor house, a four-hundred year old tree, the sight of an old railway, the Grand Union Canal, farm buildings of various antiquity. On that walk I can breathe in air that is so clean because of the parks and woodlands surrounding. A ten minute drive takes us to a 11th century abbey, a town so very involved in the ECW, a coaching town that has the original Cock & Ball plus several other important places, the sight of the first diesel engine, the factory that used to build the greatest British car (Aston Martin), The best University in the world (OU), many Roman and Medieval sights… and of course: Bletchley Park, one of the most important places in the world… A little story about MK: For decades, concrete cows were a national joke. However, most did not understand their significance. They were a protest againt the city. Now here is the real joke. There are tours of MK, run for people all over the world. An American saw the cows and thought his city could do with some. Suddnley, every city in the world had to have a concrete cow. Just shows, if its British - its a joke - if its Yank - its a trend. I have had thrown at me that MK is designed for the car. My reply is "So, did you want it designed for the Horse and cart?" Actually, that is also a complete misunderstaning as MK has a brilliant network of 'Redways'. Nice wide paths that are for push bikes and walkers. As for 'Soleless', I lived in London for so long. Now, that is soleless... where people do not talk to each other except to snipe... where I feared stepping out the frontdoor... the smell, the dirt, the crowds etc. All in all, MK is wonderful.
I live in one of these ‘new towns’ called Redditch and man this vid really pointed out some similarities. The fact that its heart is LITERALLY a dismal shopping centre with 99% of the shops being part of a cooperate chain really does make you feel shit. Yes it’s convenient and provides jobs etc, but after you walk round it for 10 mins you get the feeling its been copied and pasted from somewhere else - there’s no excitement. When the most exciting thing in your town is a big tesco you really start to question why did we become like this? Profit over novelty.
you forget that in (Mother Russia) they have old soviet area's with good transport and then they got new areas with compleet lack of it. there litteraly housing blocks with barely anything connected to them. (Atleast Milton Keyness has that sorted) but how ever you look at anything it feels dystopian / boring / unsocial / soulless also serten areas in Russia are so called the future but they have no proper roads or services + there has been housing scams with apartments there for people who invested into a house and get a empty shell of concrete to call home with not even plumbing / electric or gas / or even a proper phone / internet line. Stil its intressting to see how the U.K made such a god awfull city i think the only way to make that city feel more proper is to destroy and replace some of the buildings with more british styled housing. Just to break up the layout of the city and breath a bit of life back into it. But yeah if you build to much of the same thing it becomes boring + you lose serten intressting things you have with older building styles. Stil a mix of things is probaly beter. How ever i do think each country has a place where you wonder what where they thinking when it got build.
Well for starters, the Soviets did not come up with brutalist architecture, Britain was the first country to build brutalist architecture in fact there is brutalist architecture in the west that has been erected about 10 years before the Soviets started erecting theirs and also “soviet’s architectural wet dream”? Well first off Your bashing an architecture style that wasn’t that big of a deal and second Brutalism was a western architectural style, its wasn’t even soviet in origin, it’s was actually western in origin. I don’t know why would Khrushchev adopt such a architecture style outside of just being a stop-gap measure, especially since the history of brutalism shows a different story, the architectural style was developed by a Swiss-French architect, designer and urban planner Le Corbusier who was fascist, antisemite and liberal. His city planning and architecture style was focused on individualism and private car-centric design the complete opposite of equality and collectivism. Especially since he was also anti-public transportation. His city designs have more in common with American city designs especially since American cities were mostly based on Le Corbusier designs.
MK resident of 34 years here (lived here all my life). I get what you're saying, but this city is still only about 50 years old, so it's still essentially an baby city. It's got the economic backing now with the Sandander HQ being here for example, and the Dons being fairly successful in producing some world class ballers, so I think we're going to see expansion, but I have hope that the city centre will also change over time, for the better. I think you're sorta right, sorta wrong about wanting classical architecture over modernist. In MK, there's a bunch of misses with this style, that's for sure, the point being the most sore example, but I've always thought midsummer place, the theatre and the art gallery are quite innovative and flow in an interesting way (not very well maintained, but that's another story). I really believe that the style does not maketh the vibe, it's the implementation and the approach to that style that does. So, the vibes are *very much* a work in progress, but given that it's not ALL disgusting (it really isn't) I think we can consolidate the better looks, and it will become better over time. Also, the nasty Xcape building? Might be because I've lived here forever, but I've always thought it looked kinda interesting. And besides, it was actually a big injection of culture into the centre, as it hosted the first ever indoor snow slope in the UK at the time of opening, so snow sports have had a place in this city for a couple of decades now. We also have one of the most challenging karting tracks in the UK, favoured by F1 driver superstars in their budding years, including lewis hamilton, not to mention close proximity to silverstone (granted, which is in northamptonshire). My belief is that the pockets of culture that we have, mostly in the village towns like stony stratford and newport pagnell, will propogate to the other parts of the city. Actually, this has already been happening, as culture-starved millenials and zoomers have been flocking to these areas. Most independent shops are here, you can go to an open mic and be blown away by the novelty and talent, not to mention most of the biggest touring indie/metal/alt bands play in these areas when they visit MK, and there's just generally a more intimate sense of community in the residential areas. Also, did you hear about our redways? Not that they're particularly good or anything, but we do technically have a non-road-vehicle infrastructure for bikes, e-scooters and whathaveyou. It's not bad in certain places, especially around the lakes and parks, but again, unmaintained! The crux of life in MK, is that yeah, most of the focus has been on outward expansion, not inward cultural growth, and I think this will be the case up until MK stops expanding outwards. As I said, it's a very young city still, and it's kinda mental to think that I'm part of the first generation in this city. Also, we're very proud of bletchley park and our history of hacking and computer science here in MK! Anyway, I've lived in this city for more than half the time the city has existed, and the main things that I've noticed changing is the development of farm land, that is still ongoing, and the constantly changing and re-developing city centre. It's kinda exciting to live in such a new town, but yeah, some parts of it are weird, I'll grant that, but I really think there's so much potential in this city, and I think that's why big-city commuters take a punt on it too. To close out this bloody essay, next time, COME BACK IN SUMMER. Literally, the best part of MK is when it's in full bloom. There's no other city that can boast the natural beauty that milton keynes has when you walk, bike or drive around. Go to the Tree Cathedral, Go to Campbell Park, Go to the Peace Pagoda, Go to Bletchley Park, Go to any of the Nature Reserves. There's a lot to love about MK, as long as you don't just focus on the consumerist parts ;)
No, ugly is ugly. Perfect square cubes do no exist in natural landscapes (Stonehenge is a mystery) These buildings are hideous, as are most quickly built, flat, paneled gentrification buildings nowadays. Our brains are literally unaccustomed to such bare uniformity. Glad the town is poppin for you tho
I am a Milton Keynes resident. I vehemently disagree with anyone who hates on Milton Keynes, because it has so much that other cities don’t have. First of all, you can barely even tell it’s a city by driving through it. The city is more than 25% green space and the linear parks and nature reserves provide space for people to walk and exercise and make people happier than in a crowded city such as London. Secondly, you won’t find a better local music and arts scene than Milton Keynes. There’s some extremely creative people who put on events that are almost hidden gems, and it really gives the place a sense of community and togetherness. Thirdly, Milton Keynes has an unmatched road system to any other city in the country. Nowhere else could you travel from one end to the other in under 20 minutes. It’s extremely fast to get around and rarely gets congested. Even at roadhouse congestion is avoidable due to the many different options provided by the grid system. Roundabouts at intersections provide a quick turn off compared to traffic lights or crossroads. It’s a much better place than people think
There's always someone with the "as a so and so" intro and it's so lame. Why not word it into your well thought out comment instead of starting off with it?
Loved this, literally have a module at uni called ‘Making of the modern city’ which covers all of the things you mentioned in this video and more. Your video sums it up nicely, keep it up bro
Here in Essex, there is a dismal post-WW2 town called Harold Hill. Honestly, driving through it makes me feel like I am in some parallel Doctor Who universe in which Hitler won the war. The new town hall looks like a spaceship drawing by a toddler.
Harold Hill found fame in the song 'This Is What We Find' on the Ian Dury album 'Do It Yourself' so for all its faults I think it can be given some credit! Dear old Harold came home to find another gentleman's kippers in the grill!! 😂
"Milton Keynes" sounds like the name of the man who calls you to tell you that your insurance claim has been denied, and in fact due to an accounting error your policy is several thousand in arrears.
Milton Keynes was actually always there as a small village. In the countryside around MK you come across the cute English road signs probably from the 1940s, you then realise it was just a small village once upon a time.
The thing with the "form follows function" argument is that, really, it should describe how you described what a real culture or soul of a town has - the fudge shop, the marketplace, the positioning of churches, the spreading density of housing, the pedestrian Vs car layout etc all follow a naturally evolving function of what that town either needs, or what has happened and worked. So because it evolved naturally, the town has a beautiful form because it is based around the function of that town. The modernist "all in one" cities - equally too American suburbs or soviet new industry cities - fail to have this form from function because ultimately it comes down to what one single lead architect or planning council deems the needs and wants and lifestyles of hundreds of thousands of people. And because this sort of architectural / town planning dictatorship fundamentally does not have a democratic structure to its design, it will ultimately fail to bring about a city with a soul in at least some extent. Great video, and a nice plod through the relevant social history of the project.
What you're saying, then, is that form DOES follow function, and new town developments fail in their design because the planners fail to understand function sufficiently so the form they made is not fit for purpose.
Anyone who lives in Milton Keynes had zero expectation this would be Mk from the title. It’s an awesome place to live you can get anywhere on a bike without crossing a major road. If there’s a hint of a traffic jam you just take a left and a right. There’s loads of stuff to do and everyone is reasonably friendly. With the exception of a few more worn out areas it’s a lovely modern place to be. Don’t be swayed too much by all this 1980’s archive footage. Check out the wharf / warbler, the la tour, willen benugo, xscape, snow dome, skydiving, ice skating, the mk bowl, football stadium etc all within a few mins drive. It’s an easy dig at MK because people think they know what it is, but I don’t think there’s a better place to live for normal people.
Lived there for 8 years as a kid. What people always said is that it's a horrible place to visit, but a lovely place to live, especially for families. I have to say looking back, I loved living there. All the parks and redways made meeting up with friends so easily, and being able to travel to school free of roads was great. It's honestly great for kids. Big up MK
Did ever feel isolated from your mates though? Growing up in mk I just found that due to the layout and size, everything was so far away. Only when I started driving did I start to love the social and cultural aspects mk offers. Don’t think it helped I live on the outskirts and none of my mates went to my school though 🤣
Walking through Milton Keynes "tent city" seeing dozens of tents in underpasses with homeless people heating canned beans with lighters, while wheeled robots roll on past them making deliveries to corporate offices, is probably the most dystopian thing I've seen. That city is so weird.
Interesting @@hw229social issues like what ? My dad used to live in the MK area but I've only ever seen it a few times. What's it like? describe those issues if you could please 👍im curious
On the modernism style architecture, I think the reality of why we went down this route is because we developed ways to build and manufacture things en mass, and therefore things needed to be as simple as possible to be able to build efficiently at scale, and of course this inevitably sacrifices the nuances that make things beautiful. If you think prior to the Industrial Revolution, things were built the old school manual way, and so each building was bespoke to the architect who would dedicate their hearts and souls into one building.
Beautiful buildings were being designed and built during and after the Industrial Revolution. I think it is more to do with the profound culture shift after WW2 where avant-garde artists and intellectuals gained influence.
@@cerdic6586 ofc true, but I’m saying our capabilities to make entire cities in short amounts of time and for as little cost as possible become possible after the Industrial Revolution once we worked out how to manufacturer things for scale. So I’m saying the rise of mass manufacturing primarily influences modern design because it decreases time and cost significantly. You’re saying it’s the preference of the type of people in power, I disagree because people in power do actually have taste just like most ppl do, but they have an incentive to spend as little money as possible also, so they will accept designs even if they are dull.
@@justamanchimp Yes, I think the cost effectiveness of mass manufacturing is certainly a factor. And this is especially so for low budget housing. But the nihilistic aesthetic of modernism is also to be found in buildings of great civic and even religious significance, such as town halls, universities and churches. Do you think that their motivation behind these buildings is saving money? The exterior of my university lab building was virtually indistinguishable from a common block of apartments.
@@cerdic6586 idk, yeah you’re not wrong but I think in general, I’d say what you’re saying is probably an exception. I think supply chain advancements made the biggest difference to design by a long shot I learnt this through learning how cars are designed believe it or not. There’s a reason old style cars are almost sculpted. They are considered fine works of art, where as nower days they almost feel disposable. I think the truth is most modern cars are not works of art any more, there is no soul in the average road car because they are designed around how cheap and efficient they can be built, and add regulation stuff on top, car designers have no choice but to make ugly cars in 2024. I think this is basically the same for architecture.
@@justamanchimp Also the corresponding increase in labour value and decrease in value of construction materials like concrete, plastics and imported steel. I do see the occasional modern public building that is built from quarried stone and artistic masonry, but that is probably due to local quarries and philanthropic contributions. Regardless, 'modernism', as I argued, is also a culture of minimalism that has adapted to supply chains and economic priorities.
The problem with Architects (I am a retired Architect) is that we work in a fashion industry. The history of architecture is one style after another, classical, gothic, renaissance classical, baroque, gothik, Victorian gothic, civic classical, modernism, post modern, deconstruction; it’s an endless cycle of what’s new today. It should be noted that everyone of these periods have thrown up shite buildings but as time goes by the worse are pulled down, that’s going to happen with MK. A big flaw with Modernism is that it could be dumb down and done of the cheap, with just a veneer of an idea. If you look at university buildings, the Barbican and the National Theatre, these tend to be the, much derided brutalist style but they tend to look ok and even liked because more thought was paid to them and the complimentary landscaping was not scrapped to save money. Finally the big issue is the scale of development, most of the urban realm you showed, that worked, grew organically and evolved as small plots were developed and redeveloped. I grew up in Dagenham on the, at the time, world’s largest housing estate. The houses and streets were laid out on what the LCC called the ‘Georgian cottage’ plan. That said, the critics highlighted a blandness in the look of the houses, a lack of pubs and shops, compared to the East End where the majority of residence came from. I think the underlying issue, is that we like the shiny and new but are not willing to pay for quality. Ornamentation is not a crime if it has meaning and purpose but it does tend to cost more.
I was surprised to see MK is the dystopian city, but I get why. I lived and worked in MK for nearly 7 years coming from a countryside town. I loved it. Everything was there, ski slope, rock climbing, national bowl, loads of 24 hour gyms that aren't rammed during busy hours, night life, green space was easy to reach and many of the estates had nice walks close by, the grand union canal was alright to walk by, easy access to London, Luton airport, the nearby small towns and there's variety in the restaurants. The grid system meant you can get from one end to the other in about 15 minutes, road works had little impact on the traffic and all in all the roads were pretty well looked after, the redways are handy for cyclists or people on electric scooters and I can't say I ever felt unsafe in the public spaces. But like you said, it has no soul and there's not a lot going for it beyond the big businesses being all there is to offer, you won't know what most buildings are unless you know what you're looking for, county lines gangs are rife given it's a short train ride from London and some rough estates means if you're aged 16 - 24 you're pretty fucked and there's a lot of issues within various areas with post code gangs being common on the less well off estates. The cost of getting on the property ladder is insane with a few years ago a 1 bed end of terrace house on an estate where there were murders costing £200k+ leasehold and some apartments having absolutely mental rent before the mortgage when you can get a 3 bed new build for less elsewhere today. It's great (coming from somewhere that's full of charity shops and bookies), Londoners couldn't believe how much green space there was and how cheap it was by comparison. If you're on good money you can enjoy what it has to offer, but MK has priced out most of the people that are born and raised there.
Absolutely JUMPED out of my seat when i saw Harlow in the intro (1:39 2nd pic), did not expect to see my hometown in any piece of media. I do agree that the terminus house looks absolutely awful.
cos sadly for biased people like this dude, the crap he says just simply isnt true. he has to brutally cherrypick the worst parts of the city centre to make a point, which constitutes about 10% of the city
Looking at the death of traditional old town centres, and the relative success of out of town retail parks, along with Milton Keynes in relation to surrounding towns, and would say lots of areas of its layout make more sense now more than ever.
Superb video again old boy what what what. I used to be a drug dealer before it landed my arse in prison and although I am from the north I used to bring lots of the drugs I sold to London and then when I found out about it...Milton Keynes. It was an incredible place to sell drugs as you have a limitless amount of hungry customers and estates that feel as if they were purpose built for losing the cops or rival dealers on your tail. Got some very wild memories of nights, and days for that matter, in Milton Keynes. I'm no longer a drug dealer as the time reflecting on my life in prison taught me I want more for myself and the people around me but yeah, really enjoyed the video as always and you gave me lots of interesting names and concepts to research so thank you very much. I've been watching your channel for many years, you've come a long way Jimmi old chap, very pleasing seeing you progress to such a high level
I don’t they planned for the scale of grow that it’s seen. I live in mk, love it, but considering average house prices are topping £300,000, with stretched public resources and a move away from plans, with new development being just high rise flats and high end estates, they’ve deviated away from mk was meant to be and the outcome is an absolute mess
In 2007 I was an Art Deco fan and I championed Modernism. In 2024 I value Art Nouveau and ornamentation over bland block. How Art Nouveau architecture only really works on an individual bases this is how Modernist architecture is best constructed. Most celebrated Modernist buildings are isolated buildings, town and city wide modernisim is to austere. There's nothing to engage the human to its environment. Humans are not designed to be efficient, we're lazy, interactive, illogical dreamers that need stimulus. Modernism provides none of that.
The scary thing is all UK cities are slowly being turned into this. For a country that has so much history and beauty it's being destroyed regularly by soulless buildings and for profit. It's a shame we don't protect more of our history and buildings like other countries do
We do not value the public sphere as much.A town needs Libraries, parks, lakes art galleries, music venues. But these thing don't always make money, so need to be subsidised.
Love this vid, but one thing Jimmy doesn’t mention is the history that is still held with MK. Historic monuments, villages and areas are well kept and incorporated extremely well into/around the city. Milton Keynes village, Stony Stratford, Bletchley park etc have all been made a place to visit among a concrete jungle
As someone who has worked in MK for about 20 years, I think you're being a bit unfair to the place. I acknowledge that it doesn't have nice classical architecture but that kind of building hasn't been constructed for about a century, anywhere, so it's pretty unlikely that it would be used in a new town. Essentially, when I look at MK, I see a city built in a forest, or a forest built around a city. The city centre certainly is a massive commercial Lego construction but if you want little, independent, shops and cafes you just get in a car, go on a bus, ride a bike, or walk to the high streets of Stony Stratford (pretty) or Wolverton (pretty damned ugly despite being about a hundred years old) or Bletchley (also incredibly ugly but still has little independent shops in the Agora Centre), or you could go further afield to Olney, the Brickhills, or any of the other little towns dotted around the perimeter. I'm also not sure when you filmed the "there's no people here" bit because, other than in lock-down, the place is usually humming. The Centre:MK is usually rammed and there are generally people wandering around in any direction you care to look. The homeless issue, I would suggest, is a direct result of MK's success and prosperity. Most of the homeless in MK are not originally from MK, they came to MK because they perceive that being homeless in MK is better than being homeless in other places and there are better opportunities to get off the streets. To be fair, there are some bits of MK that are incredibly ugly but they are working on knocking a lot of those down (Serpentine Court, I'm looking at you). The monstrosities that were The Gables and Mellish Court are on the way out and whatever is built in their place will probably be better. It won't be neo-classical architecture but, unless someone finds a budget from somewhere, that style is gone forever.
There's always someone with the "as a so and so" intro and it's so lame. Why not word it into your well thought out comment instead of starting off with it?
I hate these kinds of towns. They turned my perfectly walk-able rural town in the U.S. into this gradually over my entire lifetime. They ripped all the forests out to build more houses that are just standing empty now, because there aren't enough jobs that pay well enough to justify the kinds of prices they want for those houses. Then they turned all the other surrounding townships into this too. It makes me feel like the corporate elite and privatized interests are just taking all the potential space that people could occupy for free and have a community within, to then basically charge us to be able to occupy. Everything that can be is turned into highways. We don't have sidewalks and it's too dangerous to walk to the library that is only a 10-minute walk from you now, because they put in an 8-lane highway between your neighborhood and the library and no cross walk, no sidewalks, no thought for people who may actually want to be able to walk around their towns, even just to get some fresh air and exercise.
I think everyone misses one very important point about MK. It has an entire network of walkways and cycleways (the redways as they are surfaced in red tarmac), almost completely separated from the road network unlike in the US. As these redways are separated from the roads, visitors in their cars completely miss them. Obviously the architecture of the buildings is a completely different matter.
I've lived in Milton Keynes my whole life, this was such a great watch! I walk a lot around the city centre and it never really dawned on me just how lonely it is, what you said has really resonated with me and will be something I think about next time I'm at the city (thankfully I moved to Stony Stratford this year, which I hope you got to see!) Thank you for spotlighting The Point, it's the only piece of iconic architecture left and because Milton Keynes Council are beyond corrupt, it would be around much longer despite it's legendary status as the UKs first multiplex cinema, as well as a great venue that wouldn't have looked out of place in your rave video. Believe it or not the city centre building received listed status, yet The Point was denied it on two attempts despite input from the BFI. I'd love to know the sources of the old footage you used too, great stuff!
Stony is beautiful, i love it there and newport & olney - its such a shame the centre doesn't take any notice of the lessons those villages teach us in city planning and just tried to do something completely different. If MK centre was a larger version of its surrounding towns it would be an incredible city.
Not an entirely fair assessment of Milton Keynes. I moved there in 1978 and left in 2010. The initial idea was that there would be no building taller than the highest tree and there would be lots of parkland separating housing estates. Yes, there were boxy buildings, but the shopping centre was beautiful to look at when first built. Not all modernism is ugly. Unfortunately, the clean lines and mirror glass exterior have been compromised by later additions that are ugly. Originally, the interior was light-filled, with lots of good public art. The flooring and benches were pale marble and there was attractive planting and a garden court with fountain. I agree that the early housing estates were experimental and often ugly. However, it actually seemed like a good place to live back then, with a decent quality of life. One of the things I remember was the cleanliness of everything. Since the Development Corporation closed and the council and private corporations took over, there was a noticeable decline in the maintenance of everything and it started looking shabby. Milton Keynes isn’t just the centre. There are well-established old towns like Stony Stratford, Newport Pagnell and Bletchley within it. If you want a 16thC pub, you’ll find several. If you want to walk in parkland, or by a lake, you can do that. There are ancient churches and pretty villages. It’s not as nice as it used to be, but from my own (anecdotal) point of view, a lot of the decline and ugliness now is down to a changing demographic that doesn’t make for a cohesive community and has brought in a lot of crime. One estate is run by Somali drug lords.
@oneofthesedays Not totally. The MKDC had more money to spend than the council and the private owners of the shopping building run it for profit. They got rid of the fountain and gardens in Queens Court and put lots of cabins selling food in there. They also remove the best of the art and have put in a load of third-rate poetry on boards. The whole place is not well-maintained and the lovely market now looks like something from a Third World country. It used to be great, with lots of good stalls and a Thursday antique market. It now looks like a sh!th0le. I have seen a lot of change and I think that if you bring in large numbers of people from poor countries that have a very different culture, you are going to see a decline. I said my comment was anecdotal, but I can only report what I see with my eyes and hear with my ears. Sweden is a good example of what happens if you import the Third World. Milton Keynes’ demographic has changed a lot and I saw crime rates rise a lot over the years and the estates looking more and more shabby. I used to live in Wolverton and it was not the indigenous population who used to dump piles of rubbish in the back lanes. Take a look at London and you will see where MK is heading. The crime rates in Barking and Dagenham are shockingly high and almost all the British ethnic Londoners have moved away.
Incidentally, there was a large Japanese population in MK in the 1980s, and even a Japanese school. They were an asset to the community because their culture was more similar to our own and they came to fill executive roles. I was sorry to see them leave when Japan had an economic downturn. There is a big difference between middle-class Japanese, and South East Asians/Africans from some of the poorest places in the world, many of whom have religious beliefs that are in direct opposition to our own ideas about liberty.
You have just written how bad MK is and recommended other places nearby such as Stony Stratford, Newport Pagnell and Bletchley which the planners hadn't managed to destroy There seems to be a little touch of unwelcome racism in your comment too. Is that typical of MK residents?
@daydays No, I didn’t “recommend” Stony Stratford, Newport Pagnell and Bletchley. I simply said that the city centre isn’t ALL of MK and that modernism isn’t the only type of architecture. Bletchley doesn’t have a lot to recommend it, although it wasn’t too bad 40 years ago. As for “unwelcome racism” I don’t give two hoots what you try to label me as. I am not a racist, but there are some cultures that are better than others and the U.K. has been importing huge numbers of people from countries that are very poor and have regressive views. It’s not racist to point out that this will have (and is having) a deleterious effect on our own culture. I previously said that the Japanese community in MK was an example of very good immigration with a positive impact on the local community.
I’m not even from the UK and I knew this was gonna be about Milton Keynes before it started. It is very much an American feeling town within England especially when you look at MK Dons stadium
Bang on with the architecture and shopping centre, but as an MK lad born and bred, the charm of it is in it's open spaces and greenery. The greenbelt and canal ways are beautifully connected and surprisingly abundant with wildlife. And if you ditch the car and cycle everywhere you can travel for miles without ever touching a road. The suburban sprawl may seem like a nightmare to some, but growing up there I always felt safe and would happily stay out for hours with friends and my folks wouldn't need to worry. It lacks the charm and close knit communities of small villages, and doesn't have the vibrant culture or history of a big city, but there is a kind of serenity to living there.....I can't really explain it 😅
I live in MK. Moved from London... I'm a major introvert but I am still SO BORED here. There aren't many "third spaces" for people to just hang out and enjoy the vibes, so it's near impossible to meet new people. Like you mentioned, living here improves slightly in the summer when you can spend time outside in the many parks, and it is a good place for families I guess, but MK has absolutely nothing going for it if you're a young single adult... I hope to not be here too long.
@@jakehowie442 yep, not by choice. I was priced out of London (without lowering my living standards substantially) and I have family here so it seemed logical. I think next time I'll just aim to spill out of the UK entirely lol
*shows a wide shot of a street in front of a bureau building in the middle of the day with a person walking in the background* "There are literally no people here!"
@@fredbear3915 You must be fun at parties. There was _one_ person walking around in the city centre area. _One._ That is a very empty city centre. Hyperfocusing on the literal meaning of what he said while ignoring the point is Reddit as fuck.
@@rdrrrgo visit on a weekend It's insanely busy and the shops do extremely well Not a dead city, pretty much just typical shopping centre area Also he should have walked inside and showed the actual centre rather than showing what is just a bus road 😂 If he took a few steps inside he couldn't say that it was empty 😂 not many people just hang around the bus stops away from the shops and restaurants
@@rachele183 Yeah that's fair, why would you hang around there I guess Isn't that a problem though, there's nothing to do in the city but shop and no good places to hang around? Although there's loads of public parks so idk
Makes me appreciate living next door to Buxton and a short drive from places like Bakewell. Makes it hard to imagine living somewhere like this. Great video Jimmy
Great video! Nightlights for me are the little garden in the Bannatyne’s gym, the toy shop, the Costco, the IKEA and the redways and all the green spaces and nice flat ground to scoot on. I would like to explore it more 👍
I live in Bedford. The best thing I can say is that cycling infrastructure- the Redway system- is excellent. However no one really lives in MK. They all live in these artificially cultivated “ villages “ that surround the city centre. It’s sterile and cold. Shopping is decent I guess. And there’s an Ikea…
I actually visited Milton Keynes today and had very low expectations due to this video. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's actually very green. Lots of nice parks. Even on a nice sunny day like today they weren't crowded. It seems very cyclable and has lots of jogging routes. There seemed to be a lot going on.
I find it all the more fitting after watching this that Milton Keynes stole one of London's most beloved football teams and moved them 40 miles away. Corporatism without heart absolutely sums it up.
Confession time: you know, I always believed the name Milton Keyenes to have had been chosen in some sort of bizarre post-war homage to economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes (despite their diverging theories), completely ignorant of the name deriving from the ancient village Middleton Keynes.
you made the same mistake that my overseas visitors made when they came to visit despite that my wife came from the same region in the world( and myself in a sense). very often the answer is the simplest one...
Craigavon in Northern Ireland was another smaller version of Milton Keynes. It was supposed to merge two neighboring towns into a new city, but it never really caught on. It suffers from a lot of the same problems you describe here.
I really like the new direction your channel has gone, you do a great job of commenting on interesting aspects of society. I started watching your channel for the parkour content and it would be great if you could throw in the odd parkour episode still.
Live in Milton Keynes Real shame you didn’t mention the redway network, the most advanced cycle and walking network in Great Britain. Barely use my motor it’s so efficient. It’s a terrific city and I think there’s no place like it
As a truck driver I can wholeheartedly say that driving in Milton Keynes is the best place to drive in the uk due to its layout. Can’t say I’d like to live there though
I see a pattern with architects. They build the most atrocious, ugly buildings for us while living in the most beautiful and expensive villas surrounded by large gardens.
I've lived in MK for around 40 years now, I have a love/hate relationship with it these days. We moved up when I was a small child from London in the early 80s. At the time, it made a LOT of sense. My parents had a small flat in Lewisham. In MK my parents could afford a nice 3 bed house with a large garden backing onto a park and loads of green space. I can honestly say, I had a much nicer upbringing than my cousins we left behind in London. Back then, MK was new and exciting, putting the architecture aside, it felt like there was something new opening every other week. Cinema, ice skating rink, concerts at the bowl etc etc. I can honestly say I loved my childhood. I feel its peak was the late 90s to early 2000s. I was in my 20s, a great nightlife scene with some of the best independent bars and clubs in the UK. Quite often you'd chat to people in the queues and they would have traveled from all over the UK. But now, it is a rather sad dreary place. I work a few minutes walk from the shopping centre, but I hardly ever go into there. It is, as ou say, just all big soulless high street brands. Although, I think the other thing to take into account is online shopping like Amazon. Many shopping centres are a victim of this. That and Covid didn't help it. We are looking to move, I think ideally we'd go for a village just outside of MK with a nice local pub. But with the price ripple, many surrounding villages are just as expensive to buy a house. Having said that, I can walk my dog for miles in lovely green space and not encounter a car. So, pros and cons I guess really.
I have a lot of thoughts after watching this video: 1. Probably this is the only place in England where one can find 20 meters of straight road and right angle corners. 2. Coming from an ex socialist country, the style and the idea looks familiar, but in east europe this thing did work. Every "district" had their own community centres with shops and squares. Culture houses, cinemas, doctors, school, etc, all in walking distance. These east european ex socialist towns and buildings still exist and people still like them. 3. In England everything is uniformed anyway. The Victorian terraced houses in an endless raw, or the new parks with all the same looking buildings, already dystopian. The archaic road structure now fully packed by parking cars, further narrowing the originally very narrow roads. In England everything has to be narrow and depressingly tight. Roads that are called roads in england, barely classified as bicycle roads in europe. What is called entrance door in england is the size of a cat hatch in other countries. 4. Why they never allowed the people to build their own houses? In the rest of the world people often build their own houses. One buys an empty land, design a house for their own needs and build it themselves. Ive never seen that in england, there always must be a developer who build a whole lot and sell the houses. Therefore everything everywhere looks exactly the same. If you've seen one british town, you've seen all of them.
yeah there's a reason i left in the early 2010s. that said i miss our shithole sometimes, you know? it might be a shithole, but it was our shithole. nothing left for me there though, everyone in the family scattered except for my aunt.
@@mcFreaki In one of those old videos from the 60s it showed all the banks in one spot. There was a particular bank that caught my eye. Not only is that building no longer a bank but the bank itself no longer exists . Now the building is a betting shop . A poetic irony can be found somewhere in that. Honestly the only thing keeping the town alive and prices so high is being a London commuter town
Iam welwyn garden lad myself lol i defiently think welwyn is the best of the new towns that I've seen but its gone down hill in recent years go to Birmingham, stevenage and Luton for work every now and then and they are just so dirty that's my main problem full of litter especially Birmingham.
I live between Leeds and Wakefield and they are chalk and cheese. Recently Leeds has redeveloped it's old Wellington Street Station location into luxury offices, but I'm really proud to see that they kept one of the wagon lifts as a memorial to the station. The bottom of it has been turned into a mini-museum that's free to enter with videos and displays about the old station.
16:01 Bakewell local here ❤ common mistake: the town is not home to the Bakewell Tart. The Bakewell Tart is an American treat that has no origins in the town of Bakewell; what the town IS known for is Bakewell Pudding. Sounds similar but it’s very different: it more closely resembles a fruit tart with a jammy, gooey centre and pastry on the outside. Also my dad is from Buxton and sheeeesh that place is rough 🤣😅
@@ungenbunyon5548 Its very greasy. I prefer Bakewell Tart. Its really just a tourist thing now. I don't live too far from Bakewell(near Sheffield--that's another post modern architecture lesson with many videos) Bakewell is a nice little town but it's the only town in the actual Peak District National Park so it gets rammed with tourists.
@@ChillySnail-xu4eu Who are you kidding? Have you seen some of the outskirts. Yes. It's nice in the touristy bit in the middle near the crescent and opera house.
Beauty is aspirational; when we see something beautiful (art, architecture, mountains, wild rivers, etc.) we seek to be better in all we do, we seek to match that beauty in our works. The Postmodern brutalists hate humanity, and they seeked to make the beautiful ugly and said that is what we needed. And we see their influence today, and how it's probably gotten worse.
The postmodern brutalists loved humanity, as I imagine most artists do. But the aim of brutalism was to show exactly what the structure is made of and how it was made, with no frills. I understand the aims and I think they are admirable, to show that these buildings were made by people. But I think the primary issue is that brutalist architecture rarely does anything to make the place actually look decent. It's just drab and grey, with no colour.
I'm not an expert on this stuff; I do IT and ride bikes. I find Brutalism to be an affront because the end result is ugly (again, my opinion) and i think an artist/designer needs to be judged on the end result.@@atwcat9370
Brutalism isn't postmodern. If anything it's modernist, insofar as its looking forward and trying to make something radically new, by foregrounding the building materials, principally reinforced concrete. There are exemplary examples of brutalism done well. Barbican, for example. Postmodernism tends to reintroduce older forms of ornamentation to create a kind of playful bricolage between different styles. You see it in the fake brick walls on modern "luxury flats" (rabbit hutches for office drones). In my view, it's fundamentally crass, tacky, retrograde and dishonest. But people often scapegoat architecture, blaming it for a much deeper social decay. The problem with council housing is NOT the architectural design. It's the widespread poverty, drugs, crime, despair and hopelessness, combined with local councils failing to provide even the barest minimum to actually maintain the buildings.
I love MK. Yes the centre like every city centre, has seen better days. But for me the design is superb. The best thing about MK is the parks trust and redways circling the whole city. I don't live there, but I still venture over that way just to have a day out walking around and enjoying all the beautiful green space, parks and lakes. Which co. exist perfectly with housing, industrial and retail. Yes parts are very american influenced but its design and accessibility is superb. Anyone that just goes to the centre and nothing else is missing out.
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Hi you have inspired me for 3 years😂😂🎉🎉❤❤❤ Jimmy pls make more freerunning vids
Happy Easter Jimmy ♥ Hope you and your loved ones have a great weekend
Milton Keynes is one place.. and they built that on top of a farm... Erith (kent) is another planet,, they built that by destroying one of the best looking towns in the UK,, these posh socialists were just enemies of the working class
HI Jimmy. has a Milton keynes resident, myself. i can actually say. the city council, is not looking after the city effectively. has for night life, you do need to goto outside the city centre. there are live venues, and a LGBT club, which dates to way before the it's city status, so it is not entirely fair to say that it is cultureless, has a whole. has a person i have been resident in MK, for nearly 25 years, and before that, i visited my grandparents, from the early 80's. MK did also suffer during covid, and many of the business went bust, has a result. and well. if you had used the cycle lanes, instead of your car, you would have been treated, to a great deal of public parkland. and thank you for also pointing out, that the other " new towns." are even bigger shit holes.
you might already know this but it doesn't really look as much like an american grid system as it does a dutch/german one which are also coincidentally very well known for creating weird towns/ghettos like this
A little story about MK: at its centre is Midsummer Blvd, planned so that the sun sets along it at the summer solstice - very nice. At the top of the boulevard was a great, mighty oak to be framed by said sunset - even nicer. Then in the early 2000s the shopping mall was extended, and the oak tree incorporated in an open-air rotunda. The tree promptly died, so the centre-piece of the town is now a circular arrangement of shopping units surrounding an empty space where life used to be.
This, to me, is peak MK.
Agreed. MK was the perfect plan, that very quickly turned to a commercial interest. Look at the new estates going up, they follow none of the plans for mk, houses are on top of major roads while now trees can be seen among a concrete mess. Disappointing to see because I loved growing up in Mk.
I think MK is just a perfect case study in how not to do new towns. All that urban sprawl and what has been achieved?
Yeah, it never occurred to the idiots who designed and built the extension that the water table would change and destroy the tree. I don't like that extension anyway - they should have kept the style of the original.
The company that used to own and operate that rotunda, InTu, went bankrupt shortly before the pandemic.
I believe that the sun "rises" along midsummer boulevard. I once went to see the sunset at the solstice, it was cloudy (this is England) but the sun was definitely not anywhere near MSB. So I will check before the end of June ... just need to get down there for 4am !
I knew this would be Milton Keynes before I even clicked the video
Oh hi!
same
Spoiler alert 🤣
I thought it would be luton, I am American so I confuse the two but know British people love talking shit about those towns
Ditto! :D
"Milton Keynes is a cross between a Centerpark and a category two prison".... That killed me!
Very well done!
Phil Carr on socials btw. Has some funny videos travelling around the UK.
*Centreparcs
@@alinaqirizvi1441 Center Parc
* Center Parcs
I had a giggle 😂
The problem with modernism is that its only "modern" for about 20 minutes before it looks like dated shit lol
Even the term itself is mostly used to describe early 20th century modernism.
The word “modern” itself means “just now”. By definition is not meant to last, as “just now”, becomes “just then”.
In this context, it would seem that "modern" just means devoid of elegance and beauty. Great way to keep the populace down-trodden, uninspired and apathetic. What are the chances that the aristocrats putting together these monstrosities lived in similarly bleak, dour, soul-destroying designs themselves?
The problem are people calling every new buildings modernism. Modernism ended with ww2. Milton Keynes was made after that. It's a rather brutalism than modernism.
Battersea Power Station is one of my favourites. It will never age. That's how you know the design is excellent. The trouble with a lot of modernism was it was done by those who did not know what they were doing.
As someone who grew up in Milton Keynes (moved there from Luton in 2000 as a 6 year old) and you’re spot on about most of the points here. HOWEVER I would say there are a couple more positive things from a local that I should mention:
- Yes while the city centre lacks community, each neighbourhood (known locally here as “estates”) are like mini villages where everyone knows each other and it has a major community feel
- because there’s so many parks and green spaces (and with cars being out of the way on main roads), it made playing out in the park super safe for kids which I enjoyed doing a lot when I was younger
- Most people I went to school with were just like me, moved from London (or other nearby areas) for better housing and a higher quality of life and they broadly achieved that
- The quality of houses in MK is pretty good and back in the early 2000s you could get a pretty spacious house for a reasonable price
- while cars are required, the underpasses are connected to a cycling route (known as redways) and so the entire city is very bike-friendly (most people here have gotten around on bikes way before it was an eco-warrior trend)
- The shopping centre is terrible but back in the early 2000s it was arguably one of the biggest attractions of the city and people from other cities would drive here for shopping (which seems bonkers now)
- its location makes it so handy to travel to most places in the country (it’s 30 mins by train to central London, 20 mins to Luton airport and is a 1 - 1.5 hour drive to Birmingham, Leicester and Oxford)
Overall, I would agree that it’s fairly soulless, but equally, it’s not so run-down that it feels dangerous or dodgy (unlikely nearby Luton, Bedford and Aylesbury) and I’m happy to have grown up there.
Great video though mate, will be checking out a lot more of your content
Absolutely spot-on 👍
Totally agree, this guy hasn't made much effort to highlight the genuine positives.
Spot on comment
Agreed, the estates and constituent towns surrounding the city centre are the 'real' MK. I also kind of like the system of underpasses for pedestrians, roads above for cars. Makes travelling by foot / bike / skateboard very fast
The suburban centres are where the best is to be found, why not rebuild the city centre?
I’m from Milton Keynes and I really like it 🤣 it’s not soulless, it’s actually pretty busy most days, there’s a lot to do and I think it does have a community feel. Grew up skateboarding in the city and our community all knew each other, plus there’s great parks in the city.
I imagine it's great for skating.
Me too, I love it here
Yeah fr
Can’t even walk without feeling depressed and no public transport. Basically an American style city in the UK.
I live right in the middle of Bedford , Luton and Milton Keynes. I’ll pick MK every time.
Not saying much Bedfordshire has some crappy towns. Reason it’s not a home county
@@jakehowie442 That’s what I was getting at. Before that I was living in Cambridge and that’s was much nicer and better.
I'd say Bedford is the least rough of the three and doesn't look soulless.
@@cameronclare5084 Bedford is nice in summer going for walks along the river and there’s a few nice places to eat and drink by the river too. There’s more weirdos in Bedford though. The town centre is quite compact so you see it more. If I go out for the night and I can’t drive because I’m having drink then I go to Bedford as it’s only the next train stop. If I’m clothes shopping then MK. Luton I only go a couple of times a year it’s full of crackheads.
Slim pickings tbh mate
UK: "It's so awful and dystopian"
US: "mall sweet mall"
Not any more. The mall in America is thing of the past. Just paved ghost towns now. One of the few reutilizations uses of malls now is put local government offices in them. That way you have plenty of parking and all the departments are within a quick walk inside a large building from each other. And because they are empty the office space is cheap to lease for the city. Sad, bu true.
Both are indeed garbage
USSR: "Ahh, Khruschovka-style commieblocks. Just as bleak as our culture. Home."
Unless you’re from California. I hate warehouse towns lol
@@roadent217who mentioned the USSR you freak
I’m in the US so I’ve lived in much more soulless places than that. It actually looks like a fairly upscale US infill development near a suburban highway with maybe a corporate park and a golf course nearby. Ten years ago, it would have had a mall too, but all our malls are dying - maybe it would have an Amazon warehouse instead.
As a British town planner, Milton Keynes is often used as a prime example of how not to plan a city
I'm glad to hear that - I would be very interested to hear more about city planning, what projects have you been behind? I want to make more content on it
Yeah. What Jimmy boy just said, I second that !
I'm super curious in to how a city is planned out now and how Milton Keynes is planned out so badly...
Where, in the US, it’s a pretty good one 😂
And yet you still plan crocks of shit
I live in Northampton. The town centre is dying because people go shopping in MK. MK is completely fine
If people don't like Milton Keynes, don't come to America. The majority of cities have long ago removed walking streets and such for cars, and there are even many newer cities that have no downtown. There are some where one can't find the city hall or even the government buildings. Just roads and chain businesses. Luckily, my hometown and one other nearby have attempted to create a walkable, private business area, but then charge astronomical parking fees.
what... this is unthinkable as a german. walking is life
It is moving back in the US. Boston walked that shit back, so did downtown San Antonio (but it's mostly condensed to that one area).
@spotlight2164 as a US resident, my frequent vacation destinations are walkable cities supported by transit-- vacationioning in car-centric cities feels like work.
They say America is the best (it is amazing) but it shouldn't be THIS hard for people to live at the most basic level. America is so Lost right now. It's so unaffordable. Our cities have become so bland, soulless, minimalistic & dysfunctional. I wish we could give people HOPE. Hope they can have a place to live. Hope for if you're motivated, have skills & are willing to be creative. Give those people opportunities. We know the great depression was difficult but do we realize we are living thru one of the most challenging moments in modern American history? At least during the great depression families could be adaptive, do manual work to get themselves by, or sometimes even build them a little shack to call home, a area to sleep. It was difficult times but at least there was a sense of community since so many people were going thru the exact same thing as everyone else around them. The hardship was openly talked about. Politics actually focused on the issues of the times. Poor people got to be creative and very adaptive in order to get by. Nowadays poor people have no options. If you're poor you are restricted from doing most things even if you are capable and willing to help with something. We need to give people in poverty options. Right now everything is so restricted and only available if you have $.. We can do so much better than this. We are letting so much potential go to waste.. We gotta start from a local perspective. Modern society needs to have a community again. If we can find ways to utilize individuals who are willing to help, then we can build team work and other options for those who are willing to lend a hand, be a part of something, help with something.. If we focus on finding ways to adapt and use ingenuity I know we can improve certain things. I hope things change. Seeing how things are nowadays makes me so grateful I was born in 1989.. Things used to be a lot different and I don't see why we can't incorporate the best aspects of the 90's, early 2000's. We shouldn't accept this bland, soulless, minimalistic, disconnected approach to most things nowadays.. There are better ways. Other ways.
A lot of this modernist thinking destroyed huge swaths of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. 40% of downtown Minneapolis was literally bulldozed to build highways, parking lots, and modern buildings. When you look at photos of the amazing buildings we used to have, you could cry. Same for our defunct Twin Cities Rapid Transit system. People have been gaslit to believe that America was “built around cars” and that “cars are freedom” and cities are “prisons”. Yet suburban American life is literally home, work, errands, home. There is nowhere spontaneous to just run into people anymore.
To top it off, we are probably also to blame for inventing the first enclosed shopping mall - Southdale. Its architect, Victor Gruen, wanted to create a suburban city center. But the housing components were not built and he hated how commercial and sterile it became. The mall suffered after nearby Mall of America opened, which also drove a stake through the downtown retail districts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.
Really, it’s very sad seeing how hollowed out our cities have become, all in service of the automobile.
Love all the "Everyone British knew this would be Milton Keynes" - and yes, of course you do: It was the last time Britain tried building ANYTHING!
Well, aside from the Channel Tunnel, the Millennium Dome and HS2 - all of which have had their own share of controversy!
Very fair comment!
he did say at the beginning of the video "a stone's throw from London" so I initially thought of Stevenage and Hemel
@@PhilipWorthington oh HS2 my beloved, may you rest in piss
@@PhilipWorthington Did you really just mention HS2 as an achievement?
As a graphic design student, I didn't expect all the references to architecture history but they're greatly appreciated lmo
as a graphic design student can you tell Jimmy these AI thumbnails are butt ugly?
@@mysteryY2K they are, but I don't think that's gonna make a difference because I'm the end he cares more about making a good video than having to spend hours making a thumbnail
@@alexcantgar you can literally ask the AI to make the thumbnail NOT ugly, LMAO
As a somethingthing blah blah blah 😂 every comment section needs one.
There's always someone with the "as a so and so" intro and it's so lame. Why not word it into your well thought out comment instead of starting off with it?
I don't know if Jimmy has been to the US but this is the majority of suburbia in all of North America.
i was thinking that americans would not understand why we dont like miltion keyens europens and americans have very diffrent taste its as simple as that being able to walk with in 10 min of a corner shop a small super market and a chinses or fish and chip takeaway is very important to most ppl in this country thats the bare min
The 'lawn association' of American suburban planning really gives me the 'ick'.
Looks like some town in Indiana with roundabouts, but in England...
that's why I'm so glad not to be in the USA but in France
said the one who has never been to america and knows nothing of the suburbs
Even their football club is Americanised since it's a franchise itself 😭
"it's a sunny day" - it's a cloudy day anywhere but England
Exactly what I was going to comment
Basically the uk and Ireland(ni and the south have it the worst) it’s all due to location with almost constant clouds
Don’t let the video evidence get in the way of his narrative 👀
I live here, in Milton Keynes. I don't own a car and I buzz around everywhere on my bicycle and I have to say it has the best bicycle infrastructure anywhere in the country with its separated 'Redways'. I can get from any part of the city to any other part of the city without really sharing any space with a car at all. And guess what... the Redways are very busy with people walking and riding their bikes/scooters. You don't see anyone when you are driving around, that is true. But get out of your car and ride around a bit and you see a lot of people.
Yes, the new buildings were built in a modernist style and some of them were made cheaply and have not lasted, but that's not the whole story. The Open University is a lovely campus with some interesting buildings as one example. If you want to see older buildings they are everywhere since the original villages that were built around are still there. Woughton, for example, is as lovely as anything in the Cotswolds.
What you did not talk about is that MK is a very green city. All those shots of desolate building sites in the 1970s do not look like that now because all the thousands of trees that were planted have now matured. There is a green stripe up the middle of the city which is the river flood plain and there are lakes at either end which are very beautiful.
I think the car has been a poison to this country and its true that MK tried to accommodate the car in the North American way, but look at other towns around the country. Small pavements in the town centre and cars jamming the town centre and absolutely everywhere out in the streets of terraced houses near the town centre.
A lot of your points are good, but you should come back and ride around on a bike and make a different video about how you can easily live here without a car.
I like to visit MK occasionally for this reason - it's the only decent place to cycle in most of the country without having to go to the Netherlands. I have noticed that as you say, it also has a lot of green space.. And a dinosaur!
They really need to work on the signage for the redways though. It's so easy to get lost on them and end up miles from where you intended.
@@KellyS_77 yes. That is true. I have often lost my direction in the underpasses. I think some of the signposts have been turned around as well.
I also live in MK. You can't survive here without a car.
@@1984rus-qc4le maybe you can't, I lived in mk for years without a car. Cycled to work, cycled to the supermarket. Maybe those things are difficult if you've got a family, but I don't see how it's any different anywhere else?
We have a lot to learn from European cities. I've just been to Las Palmas and they have city blocks 8, 10 storeys high, densely populated supporting a thriving economy of shops and bars throughout. Our town planning is generally appalling
I love the fact that Britain made an American suburb and realized what Americans haven’t. It’s dystopian!
right, i was about to say the same... he is describing 99% of american suburbs
How is it an American suburb?
They all live in socialist style concrete tower blocks. Nobody has a private home with a big back yard and a swimming pool. Also the grid system is not a feature of suburbia. US suburbs have twisting, concentric roads, often with single inlets that terminate into cul-de-sacs.
Don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of problems with American suburban spawl, but I don't think there is any way that you can call Milton Keynes a US style suburb.
Don't misunderstand me, it is awful, but it is is own special kind of awful.
Haha looks and sounds a lot what seems normal to me in New Zealand.
@@semarugaijin9451 What you describe is upper middle class and rich neighbourhoods. Just go on Google Maps and look at LA. 90% of it is subdivisions of endless bungalows all neatly lined up beside each other. With no breathing space inbetween them. When you fart the whole block will hear you. Some have backyards, and some have pools. But no one has space for both in this concrete ocean. It's like your "socialist tower blocks" but each apartment is its own building, which just takes up so much more space unnecessarily.
@@semarugaijin9451 Milton Keynes is mostly houses with gardens.
I live in MK and would use the colour green to describe it overall, not grey. It's best experienced on foot or bike, not car. The clever road system prevents pedestrians and vechiles meeting. This video focuses on the shopping centre, which I agree is ugly, but is only a small area of the city. It's all retailers in this section, not houses, and the communities of people can be found in the streets surround it. Most UK town/city centres feel like this now people shop online and work from home more, so these spaces need to be reinvented. It's a city, so cant be compared to small villages or market towns with a handful of independent shops. Although we have lots of these too. What most other city's don't have though is the amount of parks, trees, lakes, and rivers that MK has. For me you get the best of both worlds in MK between nature and modern conveniences. But appreciate it's not for everyone, so not trying defending it, just offering an alternative perspective for those who have never visited.
I agree, a visitor who arrives at the coach station and who's only experience is walking around the shabbiest parts of the city centre would get the impression of a grey dystopia, but a walk down Campbell park to Willen Lake or down South through the Ouzel Valley park would just be 100% green.
And in Woolstone or Bradwell, you'll still find areas with thatched roofs and a country village feel.
@@G1NZOU Thats because they ARE country villages, and have been for centuries!
Ignore him he’s a child who knows nothing.
So you’re saying countryside abs villages that were already there before Milton Keynes are the nicest part of Milton Keynes 😂
Just the villages are nice, that’s not Milton Keynes even if the postcode has changed
This channel is absolute gold, I love the genuine human element to informative documentaries about genuinely interesting topics that also delve into the history of the topic too, I don’t think I’ve ever found a channel that I’ve immediately clicked with more than this, big up my man Jimmy you’re an absolute legend mate
Another thing people dont mention about modernism is that's its cheaper to build. You don't need ornamentations and skilled craftsman, you can use cheaper materials that you can easily mass produced. Which is why a lot of old modern buildings seems to be falling apart due to them being built cheapily.
Also another funny thing you don't need to have a building to be heavily ornamented to be beautiful, hell a lot of traditional building like old homes are pretty simple but feel much nicer and cozy. Its just that with modern buildings there more concerned on finishing it instead of putting the effort to make it look nice.
I wish we'd go back to the old Gothic or Renaissance architecture and community focused spaces and just make it have the modern conveniences.
Dude, I’m an architect and i loved your whole bit about modernism :))) agree with it too to a degree..
Honestly, as someone who grew up in Milton Keynes in the 90's, the center was much better kept. It was an utter monument to consumerism, but when the corporation still owned it, they kept their consumerist cathedral sparkly clean and even did try to introduce some smaller shops and businesses that weren't huge chains. The city as a whole (But especially the centre) just has the air of a place that was grown on steroids as an overflow to London. No time to let culture develop naturally, we need a place for Amazon to store stuff. Give it a hundred years for some of the estates to collapse and re-develop, and I think we'll start to see some English townlyness start to grow.
You'd need to travel to Mogadishu or Riyadh to see the "English townlyness" we can expect in 100 years time.
@m.p.7075 spot on. Or Nigeria.
I lived in MK from 1978 to 2010 and the demographic is following the trend of London now,
It used to be a really nice place in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. Decline started in the 2,000s. Just saw the video today of a group of 300, mainly ‘diverse’, teenagers causing mayhem in the MK shopping centre. Glad I moved away, but sad to see the way it’s going.
It sounds and looks a prison * consumerism
It wasn't just time for culture. As a designed city, MK's starting point was determined by planning commitees of old wealthy white men. They did make sure to include cultural sites, but they were the sites of old-wealthy-white-men culture. A church, an art gallery, a library, a cinema - with carefully chosen management to make sure they only showcased respectable art. A shopping center. Respectable, up-market bars. But it didn't have any seedy pubs, or night clubs. The music venue was only for established artists with no history of counter-cultural or anti-authoritarian themes. Lots and lots of shops, but only big respected companies got in - and they always closed early, because night life was seen as just another word for crime. No low-cost housing, because there was no place envisioned for the lower classes - planning restrictions on building height and land usage were in place to make sure that there wouldn't be any affordable housing, because no-one wanted to live next to the poors. Middle class and above only, please. Part of why Milton Keynes would go on to have a serious homelessness problem. Milton Keynes was always envisioned as the middle-class utopia - no rebellious dissatisfied youth or untrustworthy poor people, just respectable men sipping reassuringly expensive sherry while listening to classical music.
Milton Keynes has changed since then - there is actually a decent night life scene these days - but that's something that happened later in defiance of the original plan.
@vylbird I’m afraid you’re very wrong. Milton Keynes may have been an idea conceived by “wealthy white men” ( do you have a problem with people being white and male?), but it was designed by young, Lefty, architects and town planners. The Development Corporation was famous for being full of Left-leaning hippies. You must have heard that Midsummer Boulevard aligns perfectly with the sunrise on Mudsummer Solstice.
Also, there was some very good, some quite avant-garde, public art created by world famous artists. Much of it has gone, but some remains.
It actually took quite a few years to get a theatre and gallery, but there used to be very accessible and low priced theatre available at Stantonbury Canpus Theatre and The Jennie Lee (named for a Labour politician) had big names- I saw Billy Connolly there. Woughton Centre had a stage too - I saw John Cooper Clarke there. Is that ‘counter-culture’ enough? The Open University also put events on.
There were community workshops where you could go to learn art and craft free of charge. It was open to anyone. They even had a garage where you could go to learn to fix your car (OK Garage).
So, more like a hippy, Lefty kind of place than what you erroneously describe. I was there from the 1970s to 2010.
I used to work for one of the Chief designers of Redditch (and others) - she told me that the original plans were no where near as modernist - the design team (not the architects) were struck and overruled again and again by the over zealous Modernist Architects ideas of streamlining, simplicity of construction, and efficiency . The original design (For Redditch, at least) was no where near as centralized - large green areas, parks, allotments, and a whole raft of 'local' shops, that were all veto'ed by the Architects, the reason they gave was cost/profit (Read: corruption, and mind-blowing overpricing from the contractors (Closely related to and in some cases even owned by many of the head architects.)). They just lumped the houses into ever smaller plots, and centralized the shops.
These ideas were populated throughout many other town over the next few decades, and what we have now (in most large towns and our cities) is still without significant ability to actually maintain a community (I'm not talking physical infrastructure) that the original team of designers dreamed up.
Shame, as it could have been so much better, human nature I suppose!!
Good post thanks for the back information but not human nature only certain ones that are greed based and or sell outs.
Yeah. I remember when I had the clean restaurant ductwork there on Midsummer Boulevard. Upon arrival, my honest reaction was: "This place is eerie as fuck, let's get the job done and get the fuck out of here"
I’ve lived in Milton Keynes for about 17 years now (moved at the age of 4, spent 4 years at uni) and honestly I love it. It’s not for everyone but growing up as a teenager without a lot of over sight it’s great. There’s lots of stuff to do as well as plenty of space to mess around with friends
It may not be for everyone, but I love it. Easy to get around and lots of beautiful countryside only 10 minutes away. Lots of parks and green space.
I lived there for about six years and I agree, it's not that bad.
It's better than most places.
Brilliant place to live, I love the redway network and easy access to wonderful countryside and parks woven into the city, albeit I do tend to avoid the centre.
I love my city, so much to do in mk and so much nature areas everywhere
Funny enough Milton Keynes would probably be considered a pretty normal, if not well-designed city in North America
Just speaks to how godawful American city planning is.
its grid system was directly modelled on American cities
That was one of the most annoying things about playing Sim City. You could never make your city look British or European. City Skylines is much better for that.
It's too walkable for America
Except for the way every building looks the same. The grid system isn't what's most unappealing about it it's its bland uniformity. My home city is organized so neatly into a grid you can give directions as Cartesian coordinates but at least has a wide eclectic mix of architectural styles throughout rather than just wholly blocky modernist international style or brutalist boxes.
I am a born and bread Londoner. When I left it was with regret. Now, if you even offered me a £5m mansion in London, I would turn it down. This is because, we, in our street have something I never had anywhere in London… neighbours… I know everyone in my street and are chatting friends with most. This spreads to a next street too. We also look out for each other. When anyone is away, we all keep an eye on their place. We also do things like water their plants.
From our front door, there is a score of lovely walks. Some of those walks take me to a village mentioned in the Domesday book, the sight of twelfth century windmill (the oldest of its type in the UK), an eleventh century church, 16th century manor house, a four-hundred year old tree, the sight of an old railway, the Grand Union Canal, farm buildings of various antiquity. On that walk I can breathe in air that is so clean because of the parks and woodlands surrounding.
A ten minute drive takes us to a 11th century abbey, a town so very involved in the ECW, a coaching town that has the original Cock & Ball plus several other important places, the sight of the first diesel engine, the factory that used to build the greatest British car (Aston Martin), The best University in the world (OU), many Roman and Medieval sights… and of course: Bletchley Park, one of the most important places in the world…
A little story about MK: For decades, concrete cows were a national joke. However, most did not understand their significance. They were a protest againt the city. Now here is the real joke. There are tours of MK, run for people all over the world. An American saw the cows and thought his city could do with some. Suddnley, every city in the world had to have a concrete cow. Just shows, if its British - its a joke - if its Yank - its a trend.
I have had thrown at me that MK is designed for the car. My reply is "So, did you want it designed for the Horse and cart?" Actually, that is also a complete misunderstaning as MK has a brilliant network of 'Redways'. Nice wide paths that are for push bikes and walkers.
As for 'Soleless', I lived in London for so long. Now, that is soleless... where people do not talk to each other except to snipe... where I feared stepping out the frontdoor... the smell, the dirt, the crowds etc.
All in all, MK is wonderful.
I live in one of these ‘new towns’ called Redditch and man this vid really pointed out some similarities. The fact that its heart is LITERALLY a dismal shopping centre with 99% of the shops being part of a cooperate chain really does make you feel shit. Yes it’s convenient and provides jobs etc, but after you walk round it for 10 mins you get the feeling its been copied and pasted from somewhere else - there’s no excitement. When the most exciting thing in your town is a big tesco you really start to question why did we become like this? Profit over novelty.
if you follow the crowd that ism all you'll see but it doesn't cost to take your own path and explore and find the Jem's many are missing out on
Listen, you'll take your pre-selected optimal choice and you'll like it, bud.
Every city is dystopian. Our entire reality is dystopian. You just think it’s normal because you live in it.
russian?
@ American. Midwestern too. South Dakota, one of the last decent places.
I'm both homesick and offended.
😂😂😂😂
Imagine trying to create utopia and ending up building a soviet's architectural wet dream
you forget that in (Mother Russia) they have old soviet area's with good transport and then they got new areas with compleet lack of it. there litteraly housing blocks with barely anything connected to them. (Atleast Milton Keyness has that sorted) but how ever you look at anything it feels dystopian / boring / unsocial / soulless also serten areas in Russia are so called the future but they have no proper roads or services + there has been housing scams with apartments there for people who invested into a house and get a empty shell of concrete to call home with not even plumbing / electric or gas / or even a proper phone / internet line. Stil its intressting to see how the U.K made such a god awfull city i think the only way to make that city feel more proper is to destroy and replace some of the buildings with more british styled housing. Just to break up the layout of the city and breath a bit of life back into it. But yeah if you build to much of the same thing it becomes boring + you lose serten intressting things you have with older building styles. Stil a mix of things is probaly beter. How ever i do think each country has a place where you wonder what where they thinking when it got build.
Well for starters, the Soviets did not come up with brutalist architecture, Britain was the first country to build brutalist architecture in fact there is brutalist architecture in the west that has been erected about 10 years before the Soviets started erecting theirs and also “soviet’s architectural wet dream”? Well first off Your bashing an architecture style that wasn’t that big of a deal and second Brutalism was a western architectural style, its wasn’t even soviet in origin, it’s was actually western in origin.
I don’t know why would Khrushchev adopt such a architecture style outside of just being a stop-gap measure, especially since the history of brutalism shows a different story, the architectural style was developed by a Swiss-French architect, designer and urban planner Le Corbusier who was fascist, antisemite and liberal. His city planning and architecture style was focused on individualism and private car-centric design the complete opposite of equality and collectivism. Especially since he was also anti-public transportation. His city designs have more in common with American city designs especially since American cities were mostly based on Le Corbusier designs.
I knew there would be at least 1 or 2 tldr tanky paragraph in the replies. they cant handle even mild criticism
Looks more like Everytown, USA, to me. To Europeans this looks dystopian and ugly, but to Americans, that's just your average suburb.
@@quillclockThrowing crap is not criticism, especially when you’re clueless about the subject. The fact that you can’t handle two paragraphs is sad.
MK resident of 34 years here (lived here all my life).
I get what you're saying, but this city is still only about 50 years old, so it's still essentially an baby city. It's got the economic backing now with the Sandander HQ being here for example, and the Dons being fairly successful in producing some world class ballers, so I think we're going to see expansion, but I have hope that the city centre will also change over time, for the better.
I think you're sorta right, sorta wrong about wanting classical architecture over modernist. In MK, there's a bunch of misses with this style, that's for sure, the point being the most sore example, but I've always thought midsummer place, the theatre and the art gallery are quite innovative and flow in an interesting way (not very well maintained, but that's another story). I really believe that the style does not maketh the vibe, it's the implementation and the approach to that style that does. So, the vibes are *very much* a work in progress, but given that it's not ALL disgusting (it really isn't) I think we can consolidate the better looks, and it will become better over time.
Also, the nasty Xcape building? Might be because I've lived here forever, but I've always thought it looked kinda interesting. And besides, it was actually a big injection of culture into the centre, as it hosted the first ever indoor snow slope in the UK at the time of opening, so snow sports have had a place in this city for a couple of decades now.
We also have one of the most challenging karting tracks in the UK, favoured by F1 driver superstars in their budding years, including lewis hamilton, not to mention close proximity to silverstone (granted, which is in northamptonshire).
My belief is that the pockets of culture that we have, mostly in the village towns like stony stratford and newport pagnell, will propogate to the other parts of the city.
Actually, this has already been happening, as culture-starved millenials and zoomers have been flocking to these areas. Most independent shops are here, you can go to an open mic and be blown away by the novelty and talent, not to mention most of the biggest touring indie/metal/alt bands play in these areas when they visit MK, and there's just generally a more intimate sense of community in the residential areas.
Also, did you hear about our redways? Not that they're particularly good or anything, but we do technically have a non-road-vehicle infrastructure for bikes, e-scooters and whathaveyou. It's not bad in certain places, especially around the lakes and parks, but again, unmaintained!
The crux of life in MK, is that yeah, most of the focus has been on outward expansion, not inward cultural growth, and I think this will be the case up until MK stops expanding outwards. As I said, it's a very young city still, and it's kinda mental to think that I'm part of the first generation in this city.
Also, we're very proud of bletchley park and our history of hacking and computer science here in MK!
Anyway, I've lived in this city for more than half the time the city has existed, and the main things that I've noticed changing is the development of farm land, that is still ongoing, and the constantly changing and re-developing city centre.
It's kinda exciting to live in such a new town, but yeah, some parts of it are weird, I'll grant that, but I really think there's so much potential in this city, and I think that's why big-city commuters take a punt on it too.
To close out this bloody essay, next time, COME BACK IN SUMMER.
Literally, the best part of MK is when it's in full bloom. There's no other city that can boast the natural beauty that milton keynes has when you walk, bike or drive around.
Go to the Tree Cathedral, Go to Campbell Park, Go to the Peace Pagoda, Go to Bletchley Park, Go to any of the Nature Reserves.
There's a lot to love about MK, as long as you don't just focus on the consumerist parts ;)
Amen 👏🏻
I lived on the lakes estate for 5 years, I completely agree Campbell park in summer is beautiful
No, ugly is ugly. Perfect square cubes do no exist in natural landscapes (Stonehenge is a mystery) These buildings are hideous, as are most quickly built, flat, paneled gentrification buildings nowadays. Our brains are literally unaccustomed to such bare uniformity. Glad the town is poppin for you tho
@@AmandaabnamA the buildings i was saying are okay were the less blocky ones 😊
I love in Hemel Hempstead - love Milton Keynes. Especially the Sci Fi museum and Pixel Bunker! ,
I am a Milton Keynes resident. I vehemently disagree with anyone who hates on Milton Keynes, because it has so much that other cities don’t have. First of all, you can barely even tell it’s a city by driving through it. The city is more than 25% green space and the linear parks and nature reserves provide space for people to walk and exercise and make people happier than in a crowded city such as London. Secondly, you won’t find a better local music and arts scene than Milton Keynes. There’s some extremely creative people who put on events that are almost hidden gems, and it really gives the place a sense of community and togetherness. Thirdly, Milton Keynes has an unmatched road system to any other city in the country. Nowhere else could you travel from one end to the other in under 20 minutes. It’s extremely fast to get around and rarely gets congested. Even at roadhouse congestion is avoidable due to the many different options provided by the grid system. Roundabouts at intersections provide a quick turn off compared to traffic lights or crossroads. It’s a much better place than people think
As a foreigner, I've always thought there are 2 countries in England, London and not-London 😮
As a Brit, I can confirm that we view Central London as a completely different country.
There's always someone with the "as a so and so" intro and it's so lame. Why not word it into your well thought out comment instead of starting off with it?
@@rafaliciousbmxPerhaps they just want to share a point rather than dazzle you with their linguistic prowess.
@@rafaliciousbmxBecause it gives context. It's probably only annoying because you see it on comments so much, but it is a common turn of phrase.
@@SMlFFY85 I need to be dazzled!!! 🤩✨
Loved this, literally have a module at uni called ‘Making of the modern city’ which covers all of the things you mentioned in this video and more. Your video sums it up nicely, keep it up bro
I was at MK this weekend, my first visit . I was completely mesmerised, it’s so weird but I liked it !
Here in Essex, there is a dismal post-WW2 town called Harold Hill. Honestly, driving through it makes me feel like I am in some parallel Doctor Who universe in which Hitler won the war. The new town hall looks like a spaceship drawing by a toddler.
Hitler wouldn't create buildings like that, he was a lover of beautiful architecture.
Harold Hill found fame in the song 'This Is What We Find' on the Ian Dury album 'Do It Yourself' so for all its faults I think it can be given some credit!
Dear old Harold came home to find another gentleman's kippers in the grill!! 😂
@@grahambarber2766 LOL, I think I smell a euphemism 🤔, must be the kippers 😁!
yep, harold hill is one place i don't like visiting, no soul and everything is so far from each other
"Milton Keynes" sounds like the name of the man who calls you to tell you that your insurance claim has been denied, and in fact due to an accounting error your policy is several thousand in arrears.
lol!
Milton sterilising fluid too. 😊
Milton Keynes was actually always there as a small village. In the countryside around MK you come across the cute English road signs probably from the 1940s, you then realise it was just a small village once upon a time.
Crying!
Have you seen my red stapler
Just discovered your channel mate... it's really good, well done!
2 uploads in 2 days??? You are really spoiling us this week.
Happy Easter, and Thanks ☺, always a pleasure to watch.
The thing with the "form follows function" argument is that, really, it should describe how you described what a real culture or soul of a town has - the fudge shop, the marketplace, the positioning of churches, the spreading density of housing, the pedestrian Vs car layout etc all follow a naturally evolving function of what that town either needs, or what has happened and worked. So because it evolved naturally, the town has a beautiful form because it is based around the function of that town. The modernist "all in one" cities - equally too American suburbs or soviet new industry cities - fail to have this form from function because ultimately it comes down to what one single lead architect or planning council deems the needs and wants and lifestyles of hundreds of thousands of people. And because this sort of architectural / town planning dictatorship fundamentally does not have a democratic structure to its design, it will ultimately fail to bring about a city with a soul in at least some extent.
Great video, and a nice plod through the relevant social history of the project.
What you're saying, then, is that form DOES follow function, and new town developments fail in their design because the planners fail to understand function sufficiently so the form they made is not fit for purpose.
Anyone who lives in Milton Keynes had zero expectation this would be Mk from the title. It’s an awesome place to live you can get anywhere on a bike without crossing a major road. If there’s a hint of a traffic jam you just take a left and a right. There’s loads of stuff to do and everyone is reasonably friendly. With the exception of a few more worn out areas it’s a lovely modern place to be. Don’t be swayed too much by all this 1980’s archive footage. Check out the wharf / warbler, the la tour, willen benugo, xscape, snow dome, skydiving, ice skating, the mk bowl, football stadium etc all within a few mins drive. It’s an easy dig at MK because people think they know what it is, but I don’t think there’s a better place to live for normal people.
Glad you said that, I love the red ways. Mk is a great city and I just don’t get the negativity towards it
100% agree. I’ve lived here more than a decade and love the place.
Unfortunately, I do live here and I only clicked on the video because I knew it would be
Is it acc not a shithole? I always heard it was just the worst place in Britain. Never even considered that it might not be a dump
@@archieeverett4926 nah, outside the shopping centre, it’s very green. Lots of parks and lakes etc.
Lived there for 8 years as a kid.
What people always said is that it's a horrible place to visit, but a lovely place to live, especially for families.
I have to say looking back, I loved living there. All the parks and redways made meeting up with friends so easily, and being able to travel to school free of roads was great. It's honestly great for kids.
Big up MK
No defo not you obviously haven’t travelled much around uk
Did ever feel isolated from your mates though? Growing up in mk I just found that due to the layout and size, everything was so far away. Only when I started driving did I start to love the social and cultural aspects mk offers. Don’t think it helped I live on the outskirts and none of my mates went to my school though 🤣
@@hw229 I was big into riding my bike so it wasnt an issue for me but I see what you mean
It looks like a ghost town, but people still live there. That is the most creepy liminal space I have seen
I moved here 3 years from London and I love it.
Walking through Milton Keynes "tent city" seeing dozens of tents in underpasses with homeless people heating canned beans with lighters, while wheeled robots roll on past them making deliveries to corporate offices, is probably the most dystopian thing I've seen. That city is so weird.
Milton Keynes has effectively eradicated homelessness in the last 4 years.
basically anywhere in America is like that. minus the wheeled robots
it just grew too fast , too inorganically
There are some major social issues in mk that really need to be addressed, don’t think that’s unique to MK, but it seems to be magnified here
Interesting @@hw229social issues like what ?
My dad used to live in the MK area but I've only ever seen it a few times. What's it like? describe those issues if you could please 👍im curious
On the modernism style architecture, I think the reality of why we went down this route is because we developed ways to build and manufacture things en mass, and therefore things needed to be as simple as possible to be able to build efficiently at scale, and of course this inevitably sacrifices the nuances that make things beautiful. If you think prior to the Industrial Revolution, things were built the old school manual way, and so each building was bespoke to the architect who would dedicate their hearts and souls into one building.
Beautiful buildings were being designed and built during and after the Industrial Revolution. I think it is more to do with the profound culture shift after WW2 where avant-garde artists and intellectuals gained influence.
@@cerdic6586 ofc true, but I’m saying our capabilities to make entire cities in short amounts of time and for as little cost as possible become possible after the Industrial Revolution once we worked out how to manufacturer things for scale.
So I’m saying the rise of mass manufacturing primarily influences modern design because it decreases time and cost significantly. You’re saying it’s the preference of the type of people in power, I disagree because people in power do actually have taste just like most ppl do, but they have an incentive to spend as little money as possible also, so they will accept designs even if they are dull.
@@justamanchimp Yes, I think the cost effectiveness of mass manufacturing is certainly a factor. And this is especially so for low budget housing. But the nihilistic aesthetic of modernism is also to be found in buildings of great civic and even religious significance, such as town halls, universities and churches. Do you think that their motivation behind these buildings is saving money? The exterior of my university lab building was virtually indistinguishable from a common block of apartments.
@@cerdic6586 idk, yeah you’re not wrong but I think in general, I’d say what you’re saying is probably an exception. I think supply chain advancements made the biggest difference to design by a long shot
I learnt this through learning how cars are designed believe it or not. There’s a reason old style cars are almost sculpted. They are considered fine works of art, where as nower days they almost feel disposable. I think the truth is most modern cars are not works of art any more, there is no soul in the average road car because they are designed around how cheap and efficient they can be built, and add regulation stuff on top, car designers have no choice but to make ugly cars in 2024. I think this is basically the same for architecture.
@@justamanchimp Also the corresponding increase in labour value and decrease in value of construction materials like concrete, plastics and imported steel. I do see the occasional modern public building that is built from quarried stone and artistic masonry, but that is probably due to local quarries and philanthropic contributions. Regardless, 'modernism', as I argued, is also a culture of minimalism that has adapted to supply chains and economic priorities.
As an introvert Milton Keynes sounds like paradise
The problem with Architects (I am a retired Architect) is that we work in a fashion industry. The history of architecture is one style after another, classical, gothic, renaissance classical, baroque, gothik, Victorian gothic, civic classical, modernism, post modern, deconstruction; it’s an endless cycle of what’s new today. It should be noted that everyone of these periods have thrown up shite buildings but as time goes by the worse are pulled down, that’s going to happen with MK. A big flaw with Modernism is that it could be dumb down and done of the cheap, with just a veneer of an idea. If you look at university buildings, the Barbican and the National Theatre, these tend to be the, much derided brutalist style but they tend to look ok and even liked because more thought was paid to them and the complimentary landscaping was not scrapped to save money. Finally the big issue is the scale of development, most of the urban realm you showed, that worked, grew organically and evolved as small plots were developed and redeveloped. I grew up in Dagenham on the, at the time, world’s largest housing estate. The houses and streets were laid out on what the LCC called the ‘Georgian cottage’ plan. That said, the critics highlighted a blandness in the look of the houses, a lack of pubs and shops, compared to the East End where the majority of residence came from. I think the underlying issue, is that we like the shiny and new but are not willing to pay for quality. Ornamentation is not a crime if it has meaning and purpose but it does tend to cost more.
I was surprised to see MK is the dystopian city, but I get why. I lived and worked in MK for nearly 7 years coming from a countryside town. I loved it. Everything was there, ski slope, rock climbing, national bowl, loads of 24 hour gyms that aren't rammed during busy hours, night life, green space was easy to reach and many of the estates had nice walks close by, the grand union canal was alright to walk by, easy access to London, Luton airport, the nearby small towns and there's variety in the restaurants. The grid system meant you can get from one end to the other in about 15 minutes, road works had little impact on the traffic and all in all the roads were pretty well looked after, the redways are handy for cyclists or people on electric scooters and I can't say I ever felt unsafe in the public spaces.
But like you said, it has no soul and there's not a lot going for it beyond the big businesses being all there is to offer, you won't know what most buildings are unless you know what you're looking for, county lines gangs are rife given it's a short train ride from London and some rough estates means if you're aged 16 - 24 you're pretty fucked and there's a lot of issues within various areas with post code gangs being common on the less well off estates. The cost of getting on the property ladder is insane with a few years ago a 1 bed end of terrace house on an estate where there were murders costing £200k+ leasehold and some apartments having absolutely mental rent before the mortgage when you can get a 3 bed new build for less elsewhere today.
It's great (coming from somewhere that's full of charity shops and bookies), Londoners couldn't believe how much green space there was and how cheap it was by comparison. If you're on good money you can enjoy what it has to offer, but MK has priced out most of the people that are born and raised there.
There should be more to life than cycling and electric scooters especially if its raining
It's not a bad town at all as it happens. I have been there many times and it's absolutely fine. Everywhere in the UK has rubbish areas.
Oh god Milton Keynes is a 15 minute city ....
You, sir, are great. Keep it up!
i've been binge watching your videos for the past few days since finding your channel. love every second of them
Welcome!!
Absolutely JUMPED out of my seat when i saw Harlow in the intro (1:39 2nd pic), did not expect to see my hometown in any piece of media. I do agree that the terminus house looks absolutely awful.
Ayyy a fellow Harlowite 👋
Milton Keynes always ranks near the top of ‘best places to live’ so they must be doing something right!
cos sadly for biased people like this dude, the crap he says just simply isnt true. he has to brutally cherrypick the worst parts of the city centre to make a point, which constitutes about 10% of the city
Looking at the death of traditional old town centres, and the relative success of out of town retail parks, along with Milton Keynes in relation to surrounding towns, and would say lots of areas of its layout make more sense now more than ever.
Superb video again old boy what what what.
I used to be a drug dealer before it landed my arse in prison and although I am from the north I used to bring lots of the drugs I sold to London and then when I found out about it...Milton Keynes. It was an incredible place to sell drugs as you have a limitless amount of hungry customers and estates that feel as if they were purpose built for losing the cops or rival dealers on your tail. Got some very wild memories of nights, and days for that matter, in Milton Keynes.
I'm no longer a drug dealer as the time reflecting on my life in prison taught me I want more for myself and the people around me but yeah, really enjoyed the video as always and you gave me lots of interesting names and concepts to research so thank you very much.
I've been watching your channel for many years, you've come a long way Jimmi old chap, very pleasing seeing you progress to such a high level
Got any contacts still?
I think the driving force was price, simplicity, efficiency, speed of build. Results are horrific
I don’t they planned for the scale of grow that it’s seen. I live in mk, love it, but considering average house prices are topping £300,000, with stretched public resources and a move away from plans, with new development being just high rise flats and high end estates, they’ve deviated away from mk was meant to be and the outcome is an absolute mess
In 2007 I was an Art Deco fan and I championed Modernism. In 2024 I value Art Nouveau and ornamentation over bland block. How Art Nouveau architecture only really works on an individual bases this is how Modernist architecture is best constructed. Most celebrated Modernist buildings are isolated buildings, town and city wide modernisim is to austere. There's nothing to engage the human to its environment. Humans are not designed to be efficient, we're lazy, interactive, illogical dreamers that need stimulus. Modernism provides none of that.
Art Deco is often quite beautiful too though, the basic forms are elegant, and it's not completely devoid of ornamentation.
@@andybrice2711 it gives a feeling of monumentality like no other style
The scary thing is all UK cities are slowly being turned into this. For a country that has so much history and beauty it's being destroyed regularly by soulless buildings and for profit.
It's a shame we don't protect more of our history and buildings like other countries do
what are you talking about - we protect loads of historic buildings in this country
@@jaimiepotts Didn't say we don't but many that should be protected are being lost
They build new housing estates using the same design principles. Malpas and Bettws north of Newport in South Wales.
We do not value the public sphere as much.A town needs Libraries, parks, lakes art galleries, music venues. But these thing don't always make money, so need to be subsidised.
Love this vid, but one thing Jimmy doesn’t mention is the history that is still held with MK. Historic monuments, villages and areas are well kept and incorporated extremely well into/around the city. Milton Keynes village, Stony Stratford, Bletchley park etc have all been made a place to visit among a concrete jungle
Seen that toys r us and got nostalgia. My grandfather Charles Lazarus started that up as a baby store in Washington.
As someone who has worked in MK for about 20 years, I think you're being a bit unfair to the place. I acknowledge that it doesn't have nice classical architecture but that kind of building hasn't been constructed for about a century, anywhere, so it's pretty unlikely that it would be used in a new town. Essentially, when I look at MK, I see a city built in a forest, or a forest built around a city. The city centre certainly is a massive commercial Lego construction but if you want little, independent, shops and cafes you just get in a car, go on a bus, ride a bike, or walk to the high streets of Stony Stratford (pretty) or Wolverton (pretty damned ugly despite being about a hundred years old) or Bletchley (also incredibly ugly but still has little independent shops in the Agora Centre), or you could go further afield to Olney, the Brickhills, or any of the other little towns dotted around the perimeter.
I'm also not sure when you filmed the "there's no people here" bit because, other than in lock-down, the place is usually humming. The Centre:MK is usually rammed and there are generally people wandering around in any direction you care to look.
The homeless issue, I would suggest, is a direct result of MK's success and prosperity. Most of the homeless in MK are not originally from MK, they came to MK because they perceive that being homeless in MK is better than being homeless in other places and there are better opportunities to get off the streets.
To be fair, there are some bits of MK that are incredibly ugly but they are working on knocking a lot of those down (Serpentine Court, I'm looking at you). The monstrosities that were The Gables and Mellish Court are on the way out and whatever is built in their place will probably be better. It won't be neo-classical architecture but, unless someone finds a budget from somewhere, that style is gone forever.
There's always someone with the "as a so and so" intro and it's so lame. Why not word it into your well thought out comment instead of starting off with it?
@@rafaliciousbmx Shut up you melt
@@rafaliciousbmx Well, if that's the worst you can say about my comment, I'm doing OK.
Spot on.
I hate these kinds of towns. They turned my perfectly walk-able rural town in the U.S. into this gradually over my entire lifetime. They ripped all the forests out to build more houses that are just standing empty now, because there aren't enough jobs that pay well enough to justify the kinds of prices they want for those houses. Then they turned all the other surrounding townships into this too. It makes me feel like the corporate elite and privatized interests are just taking all the potential space that people could occupy for free and have a community within, to then basically charge us to be able to occupy. Everything that can be is turned into highways. We don't have sidewalks and it's too dangerous to walk to the library that is only a 10-minute walk from you now, because they put in an 8-lane highway between your neighborhood and the library and no cross walk, no sidewalks, no thought for people who may actually want to be able to walk around their towns, even just to get some fresh air and exercise.
I think everyone misses one very important point about MK. It has an entire network of walkways and cycleways (the redways as they are surfaced in red tarmac), almost completely separated from the road network unlike in the US. As these redways are separated from the roads, visitors in their cars completely miss them. Obviously the architecture of the buildings is a completely different matter.
"it's ugly, it's ugly as f**k!" Love the blunt honesty 😂
Bro, I found your videos with the British guy trope and I have to say, great content! Is crazy the consistency and quality of your videos tbh.
I've lived in Milton Keynes my whole life, this was such a great watch! I walk a lot around the city centre and it never really dawned on me just how lonely it is, what you said has really resonated with me and will be something I think about next time I'm at the city (thankfully I moved to Stony Stratford this year, which I hope you got to see!) Thank you for spotlighting The Point, it's the only piece of iconic architecture left and because Milton Keynes Council are beyond corrupt, it would be around much longer despite it's legendary status as the UKs first multiplex cinema, as well as a great venue that wouldn't have looked out of place in your rave video. Believe it or not the city centre building received listed status, yet The Point was denied it on two attempts despite input from the BFI. I'd love to know the sources of the old footage you used too, great stuff!
Stony is beautiful, i love it there and newport & olney - its such a shame the centre doesn't take any notice of the lessons those villages teach us in city planning and just tried to do something completely different. If MK centre was a larger version of its surrounding towns it would be an incredible city.
went to the point a very long time ago to watch the rocky horror show..
i though they were palnning on knocking it down?
So you still live in MK it’s a 30 square miles block - with a clearly defined boundary that includes Stony Stratford.
Just discovered your channel and love the videos Jimmy! Great info, incredible style. Totally unique.
Not an entirely fair assessment of Milton Keynes. I moved there in 1978 and left in 2010.
The initial idea was that there would be no building taller than the highest tree and there would be lots of parkland separating housing estates. Yes, there were boxy buildings, but the shopping centre was beautiful to look at when first built. Not all modernism is ugly. Unfortunately, the clean lines and mirror glass exterior have been compromised by later additions that are ugly. Originally, the interior was light-filled, with lots of good public art. The flooring and benches were pale marble and there was attractive planting and a garden court with fountain.
I agree that the early housing estates were experimental and often ugly. However, it actually seemed like a good place to live back then, with a decent quality of life. One of the things I remember was the cleanliness of everything.
Since the Development Corporation closed and the council and private corporations took over, there was a noticeable decline in the maintenance of everything and it started looking shabby.
Milton Keynes isn’t just the centre. There are well-established old towns like Stony Stratford, Newport Pagnell and Bletchley within it. If you want a 16thC pub, you’ll find several. If you want to walk in parkland, or by a lake, you can do that. There are ancient churches and pretty villages.
It’s not as nice as it used to be, but from my own (anecdotal) point of view, a lot of the decline and ugliness now is down to a changing demographic that doesn’t make for a cohesive community and has brought in a lot of crime. One estate is run by Somali drug lords.
So are you blaming the decline on newer “immigrants”?
@oneofthesedays Not totally. The MKDC had more money to spend than the council and the private owners of the shopping building run it for profit. They got rid of the fountain and gardens in Queens Court and put lots of cabins selling food in there. They also remove the best of the art and have put in a load of third-rate poetry on boards. The whole place is not well-maintained and the lovely market now looks like something from a Third World country. It used to be great, with lots of good stalls and a Thursday antique market. It now looks like a sh!th0le.
I have seen a lot of change and I think that if you bring in large numbers of people from poor countries that have a very different culture, you are going to see a decline. I said my comment was anecdotal, but I can only report what I see with my eyes and hear with my ears. Sweden is a good example of what happens if you import the Third World. Milton Keynes’ demographic has changed a lot and I saw crime rates rise a lot over the years and the estates looking more and more shabby.
I used to live in Wolverton and it was not the indigenous population who used to dump piles of rubbish in the back lanes. Take a look at London and you will see where MK is heading. The crime rates in Barking and Dagenham are shockingly high and almost all the British ethnic Londoners have moved away.
Incidentally, there was a large Japanese population in MK in the 1980s, and even a Japanese school. They were an asset to the community because their culture was more similar to our own and they came to fill executive roles. I was sorry to see them leave when Japan had an economic downturn.
There is a big difference between middle-class Japanese, and South East Asians/Africans from some of the poorest places in the world, many of whom have religious beliefs that are in direct opposition to our own ideas about liberty.
You have just written how bad MK is and recommended other places nearby such as Stony Stratford, Newport Pagnell and Bletchley which the planners hadn't managed to destroy
There seems to be a little touch of unwelcome racism in your comment too. Is that typical of MK residents?
@daydays No, I didn’t “recommend” Stony Stratford, Newport Pagnell and Bletchley. I simply said that the city centre isn’t ALL of MK and that modernism isn’t the only type of architecture. Bletchley doesn’t have a lot to recommend it, although it wasn’t too bad 40 years ago.
As for “unwelcome racism” I don’t give two hoots what you try to label me as. I am not a racist, but there are some cultures that are better than others and the U.K. has been importing huge numbers of people from countries that are very poor and have regressive views. It’s not racist to point out that this will have (and is having) a deleterious effect on our own culture.
I previously said that the Japanese community in MK was an example of very good immigration with a positive impact on the local community.
I’m not even from the UK and I knew this was gonna be about Milton Keynes before it started. It is very much an American feeling town within England especially when you look at MK Dons stadium
Bang on with the architecture and shopping centre, but as an MK lad born and bred, the charm of it is in it's open spaces and greenery. The greenbelt and canal ways are beautifully connected and surprisingly abundant with wildlife. And if you ditch the car and cycle everywhere you can travel for miles without ever touching a road. The suburban sprawl may seem like a nightmare to some, but growing up there I always felt safe and would happily stay out for hours with friends and my folks wouldn't need to worry. It lacks the charm and close knit communities of small villages, and doesn't have the vibrant culture or history of a big city, but there is a kind of serenity to living there.....I can't really explain it 😅
I live in MK. Moved from London... I'm a major introvert but I am still SO BORED here. There aren't many "third spaces" for people to just hang out and enjoy the vibes, so it's near impossible to meet new people.
Like you mentioned, living here improves slightly in the summer when you can spend time outside in the many parks, and it is a good place for families I guess, but MK has absolutely nothing going for it if you're a young single adult... I hope to not be here too long.
mk was designed for families as an overspill from london
I agree. It's a good place for families because of safety, parks, etc, but for people in their 20s, it is hard to make friends and find things to do!
You’re the overspill
@@jakehowie442 yep, not by choice. I was priced out of London (without lowering my living standards substantially) and I have family here so it seemed logical. I think next time I'll just aim to spill out of the UK entirely lol
*shows a wide shot of a street in front of a bureau building in the middle of the day with a person walking in the background* "There are literally no people here!"
Yeah I know... nuance and accuracy are not strongpoints here.
@@fredbear3915 You must be fun at parties. There was _one_ person walking around in the city centre area. _One._ That is a very empty city centre. Hyperfocusing on the literal meaning of what he said while ignoring the point is Reddit as fuck.
@@rdrrrgo visit on a weekend
It's insanely busy and the shops do extremely well
Not a dead city, pretty much just typical shopping centre area
Also he should have walked inside and showed the actual centre rather than showing what is just a bus road 😂
If he took a few steps inside he couldn't say that it was empty
😂 not many people just hang around the bus stops away from the shops and restaurants
@@rdrrr what he did was akin to going down an alleyway on a high street and saying "wow noone is here?" 😂
@@rachele183 Yeah that's fair, why would you hang around there I guess
Isn't that a problem though, there's nothing to do in the city but shop and no good places to hang around? Although there's loads of public parks so idk
I love that this is filled with Open University videos since their main base of operations is in Milton Keynes
Jimmy - How Britain Made a Dystopian City
Me - London...?
agree, once a beautiful city destroyed over decades until its more of an overpriced hovel
Moved out from London to MK
Honestly best choice Ive ever done
Makes me appreciate living next door to Buxton and a short drive from places like Bakewell. Makes it hard to imagine living somewhere like this. Great video Jimmy
Great video! Nightlights for me are the little garden in the Bannatyne’s gym, the toy shop, the Costco, the IKEA and the redways and all the green spaces and nice flat ground to scoot on. I would like to explore it more 👍
hey, its cool that you pick up such a topic, I'd love to see more of your takes on urbanism, car centricism and the likes in the future! :)
feel like i opened a can of worms, suspect more content on it!
I live in Bedford. The best thing I can say is that cycling infrastructure- the Redway system- is excellent. However no one really lives in MK. They all live in these artificially cultivated “ villages “ that surround the city centre. It’s sterile and cold. Shopping is decent I guess. And there’s an Ikea…
I actually visited Milton Keynes today and had very low expectations due to this video. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's actually very green. Lots of nice parks. Even on a nice sunny day like today they weren't crowded. It seems very cyclable and has lots of jogging routes. There seemed to be a lot going on.
I find it all the more fitting after watching this that Milton Keynes stole one of London's most beloved football teams and moved them 40 miles away. Corporatism without heart absolutely sums it up.
Confession time: you know, I always believed the name Milton Keyenes to have had been chosen in some sort of bizarre post-war homage to economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes (despite their diverging theories), completely ignorant of the name deriving from the ancient village Middleton Keynes.
you made the same mistake that my overseas visitors made when they came to visit despite that my wife came from the same region in the world( and myself in a sense).
very often the answer is the simplest one...
Its not Middleton Keynes.... its either "Milton Keynes" or "Middleton" and both are acceptable today. But not mixed together.
Craigavon in Northern Ireland was another smaller version of Milton Keynes. It was supposed to merge two neighboring towns into a new city, but it never really caught on. It suffers from a lot of the same problems you describe here.
I really like the new direction your channel has gone, you do a great job of commenting on interesting aspects of society. I started watching your channel for the parkour content and it would be great if you could throw in the odd parkour episode still.
Live in Milton Keynes
Real shame you didn’t mention the redway network, the most advanced cycle and walking network in Great Britain. Barely use my motor it’s so efficient.
It’s a terrific city and I think there’s no place like it
As a truck driver I can wholeheartedly say that driving in Milton Keynes is the best place to drive in the uk due to its layout. Can’t say I’d like to live there though
I see a pattern with architects. They build the most atrocious, ugly buildings for us while living in the most beautiful and expensive villas surrounded by large gardens.
England didn't get a McDs drive thru until 1986, not the 70s
I've lived in MK for around 40 years now, I have a love/hate relationship with it these days.
We moved up when I was a small child from London in the early 80s. At the time, it made a LOT of sense. My parents had a small flat in Lewisham. In MK my parents could afford a nice 3 bed house with a large garden backing onto a park and loads of green space. I can honestly say, I had a much nicer upbringing than my cousins we left behind in London. Back then, MK was new and exciting, putting the architecture aside, it felt like there was something new opening every other week. Cinema, ice skating rink, concerts at the bowl etc etc. I can honestly say I loved my childhood.
I feel its peak was the late 90s to early 2000s. I was in my 20s, a great nightlife scene with some of the best independent bars and clubs in the UK. Quite often you'd chat to people in the queues and they would have traveled from all over the UK.
But now, it is a rather sad dreary place. I work a few minutes walk from the shopping centre, but I hardly ever go into there. It is, as ou say, just all big soulless high street brands.
Although, I think the other thing to take into account is online shopping like Amazon. Many shopping centres are a victim of this. That and Covid didn't help it.
We are looking to move, I think ideally we'd go for a village just outside of MK with a nice local pub. But with the price ripple, many surrounding villages are just as expensive to buy a house.
Having said that, I can walk my dog for miles in lovely green space and not encounter a car. So, pros and cons I guess really.
I have a lot of thoughts after watching this video:
1. Probably this is the only place in England where one can find 20 meters of straight road and right angle corners.
2. Coming from an ex socialist country, the style and the idea looks familiar, but in east europe this thing did work. Every "district" had their own community centres with shops and squares. Culture houses, cinemas, doctors, school, etc, all in walking distance. These east european ex socialist towns and buildings still exist and people still like them.
3. In England everything is uniformed anyway. The Victorian terraced houses in an endless raw, or the new parks with all the same looking buildings, already dystopian. The archaic road structure now fully packed by parking cars, further narrowing the originally very narrow roads. In England everything has to be narrow and depressingly tight. Roads that are called roads in england, barely classified as bicycle roads in europe. What is called entrance door in england is the size of a cat hatch in other countries.
4. Why they never allowed the people to build their own houses? In the rest of the world people often build their own houses. One buys an empty land, design a house for their own needs and build it themselves. Ive never seen that in england, there always must be a developer who build a whole lot and sell the houses. Therefore everything everywhere looks exactly the same. If you've seen one british town, you've seen all of them.
As a proud Hemel boy . Thank you for letting the world know about our shithole and the suffering we endure /
As depressing as the likes of Hemel and Stevenage are, they can rest easier knowing it's not Luton.
yeah there's a reason i left in the early 2010s.
that said i miss our shithole sometimes, you know? it might be a shithole, but it was our shithole. nothing left for me there though, everyone in the family scattered except for my aunt.
@@mcFreaki In one of those old videos from the 60s it showed all the banks in one spot. There was a particular bank that caught my eye. Not only is that building no longer a bank but the bank itself no longer exists . Now the building is a betting shop . A poetic irony can be found somewhere in that. Honestly the only thing keeping the town alive and prices so high is being a London commuter town
@@N1tr0u5 Lol, Luton is a different realm, Like Croydon, they don't belong
Iam welwyn garden lad myself lol i defiently think welwyn is the best of the new towns that I've seen but its gone down hill in recent years go to Birmingham, stevenage and Luton for work every now and then and they are just so dirty that's my main problem full of litter especially Birmingham.
I live between Leeds and Wakefield and they are chalk and cheese. Recently Leeds has redeveloped it's old Wellington Street Station location into luxury offices, but I'm really proud to see that they kept one of the wagon lifts as a memorial to the station. The bottom of it has been turned into a mini-museum that's free to enter with videos and displays about the old station.
16:01
Bakewell local here ❤ common mistake: the town is not home to the Bakewell Tart.
The Bakewell Tart is an American treat that has no origins in the town of Bakewell; what the town IS known for is Bakewell Pudding. Sounds similar but it’s very different: it more closely resembles a fruit tart with a jammy, gooey centre and pastry on the outside.
Also my dad is from Buxton and sheeeesh that place is rough 🤣😅
Bakewell pudding sounds yum
Nah Buxton's well posh, the Bath of north Midlands
Buxton is rough? In what world!
@@ungenbunyon5548 Its very greasy. I prefer Bakewell Tart. Its really just a tourist thing now. I don't live too far from Bakewell(near Sheffield--that's another post modern architecture lesson with many videos) Bakewell is a nice little town but it's the only town in the actual Peak District National Park so it gets rammed with tourists.
@@ChillySnail-xu4eu Who are you kidding? Have you seen some of the outskirts. Yes. It's nice in the touristy bit in the middle near the crescent and opera house.
21:00 that’s me performing!
That’s so cool, the randomness of life
Buxton, Bakewell, Matlock Bath, Castleton 😁🙏
Beauty is aspirational; when we see something beautiful (art, architecture, mountains, wild rivers, etc.) we seek to be better in all we do, we seek to match that beauty in our works. The Postmodern brutalists hate humanity, and they seeked to make the beautiful ugly and said that is what we needed. And we see their influence today, and how it's probably gotten worse.
The postmodern brutalists loved humanity, as I imagine most artists do. But the aim of brutalism was to show exactly what the structure is made of and how it was made, with no frills. I understand the aims and I think they are admirable, to show that these buildings were made by people. But I think the primary issue is that brutalist architecture rarely does anything to make the place actually look decent. It's just drab and grey, with no colour.
I'm not an expert on this stuff; I do IT and ride bikes. I find Brutalism to be an affront because the end result is ugly (again, my opinion) and i think an artist/designer needs to be judged on the end result.@@atwcat9370
Brutalism isn't postmodern. If anything it's modernist, insofar as its looking forward and trying to make something radically new, by foregrounding the building materials, principally reinforced concrete. There are exemplary examples of brutalism done well. Barbican, for example.
Postmodernism tends to reintroduce older forms of ornamentation to create a kind of playful bricolage between different styles. You see it in the fake brick walls on modern "luxury flats" (rabbit hutches for office drones). In my view, it's fundamentally crass, tacky, retrograde and dishonest.
But people often scapegoat architecture, blaming it for a much deeper social decay. The problem with council housing is NOT the architectural design. It's the widespread poverty, drugs, crime, despair and hopelessness, combined with local councils failing to provide even the barest minimum to actually maintain the buildings.
@@atwcat9370 Clifton Cathedral is very concrete and brutalist and looks great on the skyline of Bristol.
brutalism is not post modernist, you have no idea what you are talking about
I love MK. Yes the centre like every city centre, has seen better days. But for me the design is superb. The best thing about MK is the parks trust and redways circling the whole city. I don't live there, but I still venture over that way just to have a day out walking around and enjoying all the beautiful green space, parks and lakes. Which co. exist perfectly with housing, industrial and retail. Yes parts are very american influenced but its design and accessibility is superb.
Anyone that just goes to the centre and nothing else is missing out.
And if you like Milton Keynes, you’ll LOVE Oklahoma City & Albuquerque!