Harlow

Harlow is a town somebody drew on purpose, and it still looks like a homework project that got top marks in 1947 and was never handed back. Frederick Gibberd planned the green wedges, the neighbourhood pubs and Britain's first pedestrian precinct, then watched the motorway get built on the wrong side of town and called it the most monstrous thing that ever happened to him, which is about as close as town planning gets to heartbreak. Optical fibre was developed here, and the place still gets sneered at by people driving past on that same motorway. Harlow has heard every new-town joke, has more cycle path than most of the towns making them, and lets the buyers who did the sums move in while everyone else is still laughing.