From the grandiose histories of grand state building projects to the minutiae of street signs and corner pubs, from the rebuilding of capital cities to the provision of the humble public toilet

Clean Living in Difficult Circumstances argues for the city as a socialist project. Combining memoir, history, portraits of particular places and things, Hatherley argues for those who have tried to create and imagine a better modernity, both in terms of architecture, such as Zaha Hadid or Ian Nairn, in terms of the urban space, like Jane Jacobs or Marshall Berman, and the way we see the world more widely, like Mark Fisher or Adam Curtis.

Together, these outline a vision of the city as both as a place of political argument and dispute, and as a space of everyday experience, one that we shape as much as it shapes us.