Ian Wray is Visiting Professor in Civic Design and Heseltine Institute Fellow at the University of Liverpool. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Vice Chair of World Heritage UK. He was Chief Planner, Northwest Development Agency, 2000–2010. He has written for the Architects Journal and Management Today and is the author of Great British Plans: Who Made Them and How They Worked.
No Little Plans is a very readable book. Its stories reveal human strengths and weaknesses in delivering big plans. For serious readers, the book contains a lot of insightful and sometimes prescient references. Wray makes clear the need for new missions and goals to inspire government action. This message is aimed at the U.S. but is also pertinent to other Western countries including the UK. I believe that this is a message worth sharing. John Walls, Journal of Urban Affairs, January 2020