Town by Tesco™

Tesco has at least nine proposals in the works for these "supermarket-led mixed-use developments." One reason Tesco is moving into the home building business is that the combination of housing, schools and sports facilities makes it easier to convince officials to build superstores they may have previously refused.

Hans van der Heijden, a Dutch architect who also works in Britain, was interviewed by The Guardian about the Tesco Towns: "It is slightly absurd to make private enterprises responsible for things that are, in the end, public. The interesting comparison is with other private enterprises that created places such as the garden cities, but in those instances there was an element of charity at work related to some form of emancipation and public interest. That seems to be absent here. It's a money machine."