Cities: January 2019 Archives
Crawley New Town: Economic history | British History Online
"Redifon Ltd., a subsidiary of the Rediffusion Organization and a manufacturer of flight simulators and advanced training devices, moved from Blackfriars, London, to Crawley in 1954 and occupied its present site in Gatwick Road in 1957. The main factory was extended from 90,000 sq. ft. in 1957 to 230,000 by 1985. A second works was established in 1974 and two more in 1975, with a total of 103,000 sq. ft. Employment increased from c. 450 in 1954 to c. 750 in 1959, c. 1,400 in 1963, and c. 1,800 in 1979, falling back to c. 1,300 in 1985. The firm's style changed to Rediffusion Simulation Ltd. in 1980. In 1985 besides the main works in Gatwick Road it or its associates had works in Crompton Way, Kelvin Way, Gatwick Road, and Manor Royal."
Rediffusion Simulation Ltd. briefly had a division in Broken Arrow, south of Albany Street between Aspen and 129th East Ave. RSL was sold to Hughes Aerospace in 1988, which was soon after acquired by General Motors, after which the simulation business was sold to Thomson-CSF (later Thales). In 2012, Thales sold the civilian fixed-wing simulation operations to L3; L3 and Thales both still have operations in the Manor Royal district of Crawley.
Crawley New Town: Growth of the new town | British History Online
In order to provide for increasing demand for homes in the southeast of England after World War II, without encouraging further sprawl outward from London, the British government designated semi-rural areas, close to transportation, for development as "new towns," adding greenfield neighborhoods to existing villages. One of the first was Crawley, an existing village halfway between London and Brighton.
"The master plan provided for 4,000 a. of the designated 5,920 a.; the rest was to be kept in reserve and as green belt land. (fn. 1) Much of the land was already covered by Crawley town, Ifield village, and outlying settlements. The new town would have a new centre and nine residential neighbourhoods, separated by radial roads. Industry was to be concentrated in the northeast. Four of the neighbourhoods were to be within a ring road, the western half of which already existed. Each neighbourhood would be socially balanced, with a wide range of house types, (fn. 2) and its own shopping centre, primary school, church or chapel, and social facilities, grouped near a central green. Although the recommended population of neighbourhoods in new towns was then 10,000, those planned for Crawley were much smaller. The proposed population varied from 4,300 to 7,800, but only one was to exceed 6,600 and that was to have two neighbourhood centres. Almost all houses would thus be less than ½ mile from a neighbourhood centre and within 1¼ miles of the town centre. The road pattern was designed to discourage through traffic in the neighbourhoods."
Why Ex-Churchgoers Flocked to Trump | The American Conservative
Veteran political reporter Tim Carney looks at the inverse correlation between Trump primary support and levels of church attendance and religious involvement.
"The best way to describe Trump's support in the Republican primaries--when he was running against the likes of Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich--would be: white evangelicals who do not go to church....
"In March [2016], as the GOP field was narrowing down to Trump and Cruz, one Pew Research Center survey found Trump trailing by 16 points among white evangelical voters who attended church weekly, but leading by 19 points among those who do not....
"While there are no great county-level measures of church attendance, and so we need to rely on ARDA's adherence numbers, the higher the religious adherence, the lower the Trump vote. The correlation is far stronger when you focus on the more rural counties. Exclude the 10 most populous counties in Iowa, and look at the 89 least populous. Among those, differences in median weekly wages explain about 2.4 percent of the variation in the Trump vote, while religious adherence explains about 10.5 percent of the variation. If we could track attendance, the correlation would probably be much stronger....
"Absent strong job prospects, fewer adults form families. When people have fewer weddings and christenings, and fewer kids to educate on right and wrong, they go to church less. Of course then, this becomes a vicious circle: in communities less anchored in church, there's less family formation. A place with fewer families is a place less attractive to employers--thus this social and moral collapse is both a consequence and a cause of economic collapse....
"If you are enmeshed in strong institutions--if you live in a close-knit neighborhood, are rooted in a small town like Orange City, belong to a strong congregation--you may notice how much higher the trust is. Kids leave their bikes on the front lawn. You don't fret if you show up without a ride home arranged, as someone there will take care of you. You don't keep a ledger of favors you do, because reciprocity is the norm, and you're confident you'll receive back about as much as you gave out.
"Social trust is an immensely valuable asset. Increasingly, it's a luxury good that is abundant only in elite neighborhoods and strong religious institutions. Low trust is a condition of the white working class. Charles Murray, in Coming Apart, reported that white-collar Americans were twice as likely as blue-collar Americans to say "people can generally be trusted."
