Followers of Travel Between The Pages already know that I am an enormous Londonphile (if that’s even a word). Way back in the olden days of the 20th century I had the opportunity to spend some quality time getting to know the city and even wrote a little guide for budget travel there. But lately it seems that everyone is slagging off London due to the congestion, crime, pollution, soaring costs, etc., etc.. I recently ran across a website promoting something called The Greater London Project which aims to address the city’s potential.
This new project by Sam Bowman and Joe Hill, hopes to solicit and explore ideas on how to improve one of the world’s greatest urban centers. As the project creators say, “You could go to a different gallery, play, concert, restaurant, park, or museum every day for the rest of your life here without ever getting bored. It is home to some of the most important and exciting companies in the world, which sit alongside some of the oldest and most august ones. It is constantly becoming home to new smart and interesting people, and new businesses, ideas, and scientific breakthroughs are created here every day. ” But there’s opportunity to make it greater. if you love London too, check it out here.
Here are some of their thoughts on the next chapter for this ancient city:
- A growing city with dense, beautiful, affordable, abundant housing of all kinds and tenures. More people should be able to live in London – we should be excited by a future with twenty million Londoners.
- Built to human scale, so people can walk, cycle and get public transport to where they need to be.
- For people to live, not just work, with a thriving pub and dining culture which spreads out onto pedestrianised the streets in summer.
- Be the safest capital city in the Western world, where people aren’t afraid of crime, no matter where they are or the time of day, with the police working efficiently to catch serious and petty criminals.
- A clean, beautiful, verdant and shared space, with parks and squares which everyone can enjoy in peace and quiet, and new buildings that are intended to be beautiful.
- A city that embraces new technologies like drone delivery and self-driving cars. London should lead the world in experimentation and adoption of technologies like these, rather than following the pack.
- A historic city, where we celebrate the past and live up to its amazing heritage, without treating the whole city like a museum that can never change.
- An open city for people of all different backgrounds, and at all different stages of life, from all around Britain and the world.
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