The modern city is a sanitised area nowadays, with draconian restrictions on the places that you are allowed to go. Garrett is a place hacker, one of those urban explorers who try to reach the absolute limits of where they can go, be it underground or to the very top of the new skyscrapers that pierce the sky.

In this book he decries the places that he has reached in London, from the disused tube stations, the Royal Mail underground systems and the brick victorian sewers to the very top of the Shard before it was completed. A night walk across the Forth Rail bridge is another highlight. He describes the thrill of reaching somewhere that the authorities would rather that you didn't go to. He visits America and travels up some very high buildings from Detroit to LA.

As part of the London Consolidation Crew, one of the groups of urban explorers in London, they gained a reputation as being one of the groups who managed to get to a lot of the unexplored parts of the city. After a few brushes with the law they disbanded, and their position has been taken by other crews. With his current position as a researcher into heritage and the urban environment he is well placed to consider the cultural aspects of his exploration, and he talks about that the way he has been treated in the UK compared to the US.

All throughout the book are photos from the places that he has visited. There are pictures of decay in the eaten block building that he has been to, and some amazing photos from tunnels and the mothballed tube stations that he accessed. But the best photos by far are those taken from the top of these buildings that show the modern city at night with the lights from the traffic and buildings adding a surreal and ethereal quality as well as showing the views that so very few people see. Was well worth reading.


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Jumping precipitously between pretentiousness, genuine insight and exhilarating tales of infiltration and evasion, this book offers a comprehensive insight into the Urban Exploration scene. Packed with amazing photography (and well-reproduced), the text is frequently as entertaining, and only slightly too often indulges in postgraduate wiffle. Difficult to take seriously as a work of ethnography, but compelling if you're at all interested in the underpinnings of the city (or the City). ( )