Michael Edwards

An email comes in from Dave Hill (Guardian blogger/journalist): I’ve just discovered your blog and your post about Mayor Johnson’s housing policies and their implications. I’d love to learn more about your work in this area and your conclusions.Regards,Dave Hill; Guardian.  http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dave_hill/ 

Since I just did a short talk on this yesterday at the launch for UEL’s book “London’s Turning: the making of Thames Gateway” I have converted it into text here as a kind of reply to Dave:   

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Very good two days of discussion in a workshop of the EU 6th Framework programme concerning innovations in social inclusion (or prevention of exclusion).  Very impressive group of people old and young working on this and very good range of methodologies and integration of theory and praxis. Particularly good discussions on the need for abstraction from local cases rather than generalisation; on why terms like social capital and human assets should not lightly be used; useful grouping of ‘existential fields’.  The material will be on their web site http://katarsis.ncl.ac.uk/index.html    Then there was an excellent field visit to northern suburbs of Athens organised by Dimitra Siatitsa who is also playing a key role in our October conference of INURA http://inura08.wordpress.com/

There is much discussion about this, including some wry jokes about how little Boris will need to change in Ken’s Plan (and even less in his actual practices). Peter Eversden and Mike Back at LFCAS have done digests of what the Mayor said in his campaign http://www.londonforum.org.uk/news/governance/whats_new_with_borisand another document which I’ll put up shortly.   Clearly there will be less social rented housing produced, more favours for small shops and suburban areas….

As housing crises spread across Europe I’m discovering that there are whole strands of activity and thinking which I was completely unaware of. Silvia Macchi at the University La Sapienza in Rome invited me to speak in a 2-day even at a squatted social centre in the eastern suburbs of Rome - a mix of young activists in various autonomist movements and intellectuals and politicians. Partly a campain meeting, partly self-education, partly celebration of this squat having lasted a year (though it is now facing the facist mayor’s promise to evict such social centres).This phrase ‘The Art of Rent’, which strikes me as weird,  Read the rest of this entry »

From: Stale Holgersen

Hi!

Last year I submitted a thesis on the urban development and planning

process at King’s Cross in London. And currently I work as a

city-planner in Norway.

Last fall I received an e-mail from a German publisher - VDM Verlag.

They had read my thesis on the Internet (www.kxrlg.org.uk <http://www.kxrlg.org.uk>), and

proposed to publish it as a book. This book is now a reality, and can

be purchased online. The book is called “Class Conflicts and Planning

- A Case Study of Contemporary Development at King’s Cross in London”.

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You did a lot of fine things in your 8 years, including

transforming transport from a downward spiral to an upward one,

good anti-war and foreign policy,

good on equalities, the living wage and so on.

But your Faustian pact with big business alienated a lot of your support, made many people grit their teeth while they voted for you, and has actually caused a lot of damage and intensified exploitation.

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Mark from This Land is Ours sent round the pnuk list a resume on why the government has rejected PGS. I replied and outlined a better alternative….. (NB if you want to comment send an email to m.edwards [at] ucl.ac.uk because I have switched off the comment facility in this blog to reduce spam.)

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On Thursday 20 Sept the government was reported as making yet another attempt to get private interests, especially those which stand to profit most, to contribute heavily to Crossrail - as a condition for government funding.

They published this letter from me next day and we’ll see whether it generates any flow of further stuff, either on crossrail or on what kind of growth London needs…

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Two major criticisms - of the Planning Commission and its powers to replace decisions based on local public inquiries; and of proposals to weaken public participation in planning, Serious failure to create a new emphasis on positice implementation based on collective long-term ownership of land value growth. See the detail below.

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Today in the High Court Mr Justice Sullivan decided against our judicvial review of Camden Council’s grant of planning permission for Argent’s scheme. Full details of the judgement will follow. In the mean time…. we have to find £10,000 and you can help with that at www.kxrlg.org.uk

Some further comments….

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