City-Death

1993 Booth, Stephen. City-Death. Oxford, Eng.: Green Anarchist Books. 207 pp. PSt

The first half of the book is set in a London effectively ruled by a supposedly secret security service. People are being pushed out of their already dilapidated housing to construct more office buildings and housing for the security service and the wealthy. The state has created a mythical rebel group that it uses to justify whatever actions it takes. The story follows one poorly educated low-level member of the security service who, in the second half of the novel, survives a helicopter crash near an anarchist community that developed from what was originally a single farm, and decides to stay. The community uses a form of participatory democracy with everyone, including children, taking part. People work cooperatively at what needs to be done but have their own homes and farms together with a community building and a cottage hospital where they teach the children the basics of health care. Under the circumstances, everyone is armed and willing and able to use them, with one chapter devoted to fighting off armed scavengers (187-198).The book ends with a chapter “The City Has to Die (199-207), that gives reasons for what is wrong with city life and better in the countryside.