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"Greenbelt land should be built on, but only in certain areas where the transport conditions are good. Meanwhile the footprint of buildings should be confined within a distance to the metro stations with relatively high density. In that case, the greenfield land will be preserved and the total spatial cost will reduce."
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'In the early 21st century, the train of progress is again pulling out of the station – and this will probably be the last train ever to leave the station called Homo sapiens. Those who miss this train will never get a second chance. In order to get a seat on it, you need to understand 21st century technology, and in particular the powers of biotechnology and computer algorithms.'"He continues:
'These powers are far more potent than steam and the telegraph, and they will not be used mainly for the production of food, textiles, vehicles and weapons. The main products of the 21st century will be bodies, brains and minds, and the gap between those who know how to engineer bodies and brains and those who do not will be wider than the gap between Dickens's Britain and the Madhi's Sudan. Indeed, it will be bigger than the gap between Sapiens and Neanderthals. In the 21st century, those who ride the train of progress will acquire divine abilities of creation and destruction, while those left behind will face extinction.'"This looks like determinism on steroids. What saves it from ridicule is that Harari sets the scientific and technological story within an historically informed analysis of how liberal democracy evolved. And he provides a plausible account of how the defining features of the liberal democratic order might indeed be upended by the astonishing knowledge and tools that we have produced in the last half-century.
1) It's small and intimate and can be comfortably covered on foot,
2) It's unique, and has an identifiable centre with its own atmosphere and sense of place,
3) It's designed for social interaction with plenty of public and green space, and places for community events,
4) It's locally driven and locally responsive, and residents are involved in decisions,
5) It's functional; well served by public transport and with good access to core services like a doctor's surgery, food shops and schools, and
6) It's mixed – the community has a mix of ages, backgrounds and tenures; there are long-standing residents as well as new arrivals."
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What is the blockchain? If you don't know, you should; if you do, chances are you still need some clarification on how it actually works.
Don Tapscott is here to help, demystifying this world-changing, trust-building technology which, he says, represents nothing less than the second generation of the internet and holds the potential to transform money, business, government and society.
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"Is the fulcrum of power re-balancing between London developers, politicians and residents? Possibly. Boris is banished to the Foreign Office. Sadiq is impressively self-assured in City Hall. Edward Lister haunts the HCA. James Murray shouts ‘affordable housing’ from the rooftops. And several landmark schemes (including Bishopsgate Goodsyard and the Paddington Pole) have been pulled in the face of public revolt and political self-doubt.
"So is it a question of 'all change please' or of 'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose'? Developers' websites and publicity boards certainly want you to believe that all is new and lovely. Like well-fed monks leaving the refectory, most are bloated with protestations of 'community consultation' and 'public engagement.’
"There are some welcome changes but it's nearly all hot air. The current British planning and development system is a very odd one historically and comparatively. It very imperfectly mediates between what people like and what gets built. The recent transmogrification of the Paddington Pole into the Paddington Box is a fascinating example. Forced into a rethink by overwhelming public opposition Irvine Sellar has come up with a better scheme. It cares more about Praed Street, connects East better and removes the threat of a Bayswater Shard glowering over West London. The developer has even run some carefully structured (though brief) consultation sessions.
"To read the blurb the Paddington Box would appear to be the natural consequences of such engagement. Nothing could be less true. In reality, the over-supply of London's luxury housing market has driven the change of use to commercial and the box is then a natural, greedy, attempt to maximise the space in a given site. It is nothing more than a huge glass box, spreadsheet architecture at its worst."
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"Strong leadership is urgently required by council planners to inspire public sector development as post-Brexit uncertainty continues to paralyse private developers, a new report warns.
"Compounding the message are the findings of a new poll showing that three-quarters of planners believe cumulative changes to the planning system have seriously eroded their ability to deliver quality developments.
"The report, published by the Royal Town Planning Institute, says budget cuts and changes in planning policy over the last 30 years have undermined the powers of public sector planners to perform strategic leadership.
"The RTPI, which represents 23,000 professional planners, says the situation is most acute in England where the changes have created a complicated and uncertain system that has undermined the potential for new developments to be well-planned and connected to transport infrastructure, alongside a reduced number of affordable properties to rent or buy."
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"They are 'doing more damage to London,' said the former chancellor Lord Lawson in the House of Lords, 'than almost anything since the Blitz.' In the same spirit of absurdist hyperbole, they might be said to be the most transformative public works since Joseph Bazalgette built London's sewers and river embankments.
"They are not, but they do have the potential to change the spirit and character of the capital and of other cities that follow the same path, as well as making its transport cleaner, healthier, safer, more efficient and better able to deal with growing pressure of numbers. They might even prove that the city’s former mayor Boris Johnson was capable of doing something right.
“ 'They' are the cycle superhighways, the most conspicuous of several measures promoted under Johnson. They add up to an unprecedented plan, which is to make the sprawling, awkward, inconsistent city of London bike-friendly. The places most often cited for the exemplariness of their cycling provision – Amsterdam, Copenhagen, more recently Manhattan – were already more ordered, compact and coherent in their layout. In London, the street pattern changes moment by moment, straight to winding, leafy to truck-thronged, wide to narrow."
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| Mirror Photos: "Cruiser weight boxer George Walker doing a head stand at the weigh-in November 1957" (as you do). Link to Daily Mail |
"... Only months after the split, it was revealed he was in a relationship with Sarah, Marchioness of Milford Haven. A judo fanatic, Sarah — whose marriage to Prince Philip’s cousin the Marquess of Milford Haven ended in the Nineties — came from a very different background.
"Her father was George Walker, a former prize-fighter, gangster’s minder and Billingsgate fish market porter who was jailed for two years for his part in a warehouse robbery. On his release, he immersed himself in the property trade, and eventually floated the firm he founded, Brent Walker, on the Stock Exchange.
"Such was his success that he created Brent Cross in North London. Walker lived as a tax exile in Switzerland and died in 2011."
