Anna Minton

I spent a decade in journalism, which involved some fascinating experiences such as covering the Northern Ireland peace process during the 1990s. But I found being a hack increasingly frustrating both as a result of partisan editorial lines and because of the intense pressure on time and resources which undermined proper investigations. I began to write more in depth reports for think tanks and policy organisations, a series of which formed the basis for Ground Control, which was published in 2009. Between 2011-2014 I was the Royal Commission’s Fellow in the Built Environment and in 2013 I joined the University of East London (UEL) as Reader in Architecture, where I am Programme Leader of the MRes programme, ‘Reading the Neoliberal City’.

The books I have written include Big Capital: Who is London for?, published by Penguin in 2017, two weeks before the Grenfell Fire; and Ground Control, Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City, published by Penguin in 2012.

I co-edited Regeneration Songs: Sounds of Investment and Loss from East London (published by Repeater, in 2018), with Alberto Duman, Dan Hancox and Malcolm James

Other publications include a chapter entitled Whose city is it anyway? The cleaning out of city spaces in Doorways: Women, Homelessness, Trauma and Resistance. (House Sparrow Press, 2019) and further papers on homelessness, the housing crisis, gentrification, insecurity and local democracy.

I am a regular contributor to The Guardian, and a frequent broadcaster and conference speaker. I am a member of the editorial collective of the journal CITY and I am Chair of Trustees of Lambeth & Southwark MIND.