Today I was cycling to a meeting and saw this. I can hear you ask “what meeting was that Neal?”. Well seeing that you asked so nicely I was cycling to a meeting with Greenpeace to discuss saving the planet. Can I get any more points for being PC? Anyway it caught my eye. Is this really a new public place with brand new shops? I went to the site of the developers Londo
n Derwent. Its a commercial entity looking to maximise its return for shareholders.
So how public can it be? Will it allow beggars and Big Issue sellers to ply their trade? Will it allow skateboarders to skate or old people just to rest? Can the family have a picnic there? I doubt it. I would guess it will be policed by private security guards to help maximise profit.
Someone who has written about this loss of public spaces brilliantly is Anna Minton in her new book Ground Control. I suggested you consume this one too. More and more of our cities are being colonized by private land owners and enclosed for profit. We are losing places to be free, to have things for free and be citizens and not just consumers. Oh and plans are afoot to save the planet. Don’t worry.
At least they wrote “With mature trees” in red, thus implying that they think they are a draw for consumers.
Surely this is very encouraging. Not only are they now going to the expense of putting in mature trees – a good thing – but it indicates that consumers actually value something which hitherto had been considered valueless.
I see this as a thawing of the turbo-consumer mindset. After all, you can’t expect a wholesale sea-change over night. Next stop will be the trees without the shops.
some shops already have too many branches Alexs
Like it!