World City
Monday 2 July 2007 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Philip Dodd assesses the arguments put forth in Professor Doreen Massey's new book, World City which casts a critical eye on the place that London has become. Massey is one of Britain's best known geographers and a winner of geography's 'Nobel' prize, and for her, London is a paradigm of 21st century globalisation, glorious in its ability to contain the world in one place but racked by the inequality and poverty that go with it. Philip also explores the screen-writing career of one of America's most acerbic contemporary dramatists, David Mamet.
Playlist
Doreen Massey
Philip Dodd assesses the arguments put forth in Professor Doreen Massey's new book, World City, which casts a critical eye on the place that London has become.
Massey is one of Britain's best known geographers and a winner of geography's 'Nobel' prize.
For her, London is a paradigm of 21st century globalisation, glorious in its ability to contain the world in one place but racked by inequality and poverty.
She describes how world cities come about and argues for a new understanding of our great cities and how we should become more responsible for them.
The Myth of 'The North'
One effect of the rise of London as a world city has been to encourage regional difference and inequality in the UK. But is the North intrinsically different from the South?
A new exhibition at the Lowry Centre in Salford explores the "myth of the North".
How real are the stereotypical images? And how has this myth been used? Philip Dodd, a Northerner come south, reports..
Bach's St Matthew Passion
Also on the programme; Rupert Christiansen reviews a new staging of Bach's St Matthew Passion, at Glyndebourne. Katie Mitchell is setting her operatic version of the Passion in the aftermath of a school massacre. Is this approach convincing, or merely controversial?
