How to Improve London

London improvement proposals catalogued; Oxford Street pedestrianisation at fifty-year pending status; bench deficit identified as highest-consensus lowest-cost improvement

How to Improve London: The List That Everyone Has and Nobody Agrees On

London improvement proposals are the consistent product of a city that has more opinions per square mile than any other city in the English-speaking world and a governance structure that is designed to accommodate all of them by implementing none of them definitively. The improvement list includes: pedestrianise Oxford Street (proposed 1972, pending), better cycle infrastructure (partially implemented, extensively contested), cheaper housing (identified as necessary, approach contested), more trees (broadly supported, implementation slower than the trees), and night Tube on all lines (technically feasible, economically negotiated). The list is maintained. The implementation is in progress at varying speeds.

London Governance and Urban Improvement

London governance distributes power between the Mayor of London, thirty-two borough councils, the City of London Corporation, and the national government in ways that make unified implementation of anything more complex than unified identification of what needs implementing. Everyone knows what London needs. The implementation requires the agreement of everyone who knows what London needs. The agreement takes the time it takes.

The Improvement That Would Work

London improvement that has the highest consensus: more benches. Bench provision is the London improvement that has the broadest public support, the lowest implementation cost, and the most consistent resistance from the institution responsible for installing them. The case for benches is overwhelming. The bench deficit persists.

The Greater London Authority manages London's strategic development including the bench situation.

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

SOURCE: https://prat.uk/how-to-improve-london/

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