Think Global Act Local: Life and Legacy of Patrick Geddes - Softcover

Walter Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 191074509X ISBN 13: 9781910745090

Publisher: Luath Press Ltd., 2015

Synopsis

Town planning. Interest-led, open-minded education. Preservation of buildings with historical worth. Community gardens. All are so central to modern society that our age tends to claim these notions as its own. In fact they were first visualised by Sir Patrick Geddes, a largely forgotten Victorian Scot and one of the greatest forward thinkers in history. In turns a gardener, biologist, conservationist, social evolutionist, peace warrior, and town planner, he spent many years conserving and restoring Edinburgh's historic Royal Mile at a time when most decaying buildings were simply torn down. With these plans of renovation came the importance of education as the development of the Outlook Tower, his numerous summer schools and his College des Ecossais in Montpellier illustrate. It is in India where his name is most widely known. It was here that possibly the greatest example of Geddes' belief in people planning can be seen and which took the form of pedestrian zones, student accommodation for women, and urban diversification projects. When grandiose schemes of urban renewal were in vogue his conservative surgery offered a humane alternative. His influence spread around the world, through the people he met and stimulated, and has survived, after his death. In recent years he has become almost a patron saint of the sustainable development movement. Think Global, Act Local: The Life and Legacy of Patrick Geddes examines not only the life of this important man, but also the enduring relevance of his ideas and their place in our world, present and future.

About this title

Review

Should be in every secondary school in Scotland. --Scottish Parliament

There is a distinct sanguinity rising from these pages regarding the free-wheeling, multidisciplinary, transcontinental life of Geddes. --Scottish Review of Books

About the Author

WALTER STEPHEN. as Publications Convener and former Chairman of the Sir Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust, has been responsible for five books and several articles on Geddes. Arthur Geddes supervised his Geography dissertation at Edinburgh. In imitation of Geddes, he set up and ran for twenty years Castlehill Urban Studies Centre, the first successful Urban Studies Centre in Britain, in Cannonball House, the apex of the triangle whose other corners are the Outlook Tower and Ramsay Garden.

About this edition

• Publisher: Luath Press Ltd.
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 191074509X
• ISBN 13: 9781910745090
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 156
• Editor: Walter Stephen