Informatively, lucidly and entertainingly written, the book takes you through the ups and downs of their history and demonstrates why we should all be concerned for the future of streets, in London and elsewhere. A mind-numbing hour later some bumptious child is gleefully piling hotels on Mayfair and everyone else is desperately trying to go bankrupt and get the wretched ritual over for another year. All in all, a good and interesting book that I will be keeping on my shelf in case I need to refer back to it. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. From the Roman and Celts marching along the ancient Old Kent Road, to the rattling newspaper presses of Fleet Street, the game of Monopoly has painted London’s story across cheerful coloured tiles.

Lots of quirky stuff and fantastic quotes plus also some hugely thought-provoking big picture stuff about how London has grown in the way that it has. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. No Free Parking' is an account of London's streets, but it is also a defence and a vindication of them, and of the rich civic life that they have fostered. This is a clever way of publicising the author's worthy and important crusade for London's heritage and against ill-thought planning authority proposals.The author’s love of London and its history are infectious - reading his evocative descriptions will send you (and your children) out exploring, looking up at the face of buildings and imagining what was once there. Boys Smith is one of Britain's leading public intellectuals on architecture and urbanism, championing a revival of street-based traditional urbanism against the 'traffic modernism' of the twentieth century. I love reading about London and this is an engaging and fresh way to do so (especially if like me you were brought up in the Old Kent Road).

To take London’s Monopoly streets as a starting point for an evocation of London urbanism is a witty conceit but it also provides a solid anchor for any constructive understanding of how we human beings live in our streets. During every Morrison family Christmas there comes a point when someone is sozzled enough to shout the dread words: “Come on, let’s get out the Monopoly. Well written and very enjoyable book on London's Monopoly streets with fun facts especially for someone that has been playing 'Monopoly' for decades. No Free Parking starts with a brief introduction to how the London Monopoly streets were most likely chosen, before tackling each street (and utilties and rail) one by one.He has lectured internationally, written for the Spectator, Evening Standard, Times, Sunday Times, Telegraph and Guardian, and been interviewed across TV and radio.

And because everyone else has forgotten how dreary the world’s most famous board game is, and is too stuffed with turkey and trimmings to do anything else, we meekly acquiesce. I did enjoy it, once I adjusted my expectations from 'interesting fun, fact book with history' to 'history book'. Nevertheless, I did find the book very readable and enjoyable and because there's only so many pages for each chapter, you don't get bogged down in too much information. Taking London's Monopoly Streets is a brilliantly conceived way into looking at the city's longest lasting feature - those very streets.

In a city of rags and riches, where folk hero Dick Whittington believed the streets were paved with gold, anything could happen – and everything has.