The Guardian: "Gentrification is a global problem. It's time we found a better solution"

Link to web site

"First come the artists, then the cranes. As the kamikaze pilots of urban renewal, wherever the creatives go, developers will follow, rents will rise, the artists will move on, and the pre-existing community will be kicked out with them.

"Such is the accepted narrative of gentrification, a term first coined more than 50 years ago by the German-born British sociologist Ruth Glass to describe changes she observed in north London – but it is a phenomenon that has been at the heart of how cities evolve for centuries.

"Gentrification is a slippery and divisive word, vilified by many for the displacement of the poor, the influx of speculative investors, the proliferation of chain stores, the destruction of neighbourhood authenticity; praised by others for the improvement in school standards and public safety, the fall in crime rates, and the arrival of bike lanes, street markets and better parks."

The Observer: "How driverless cars could change our whole future"

"Vast areas of land are covered in parked cars. When self-driving vehicles become commonplace, we might devote that dead space to something useful instead"

Link to web site

"John Zimmer thinks that fleets of self-driving cars will be commonplace in the relatively near future and that their availability will give us most of the advantages of private car ownership without the financial and environmental drawbacks. Although some people will always want the status and other satisfactions of owning a car, what most people want is affordable mobility without having to purchase, tax, insure, park and fuel a four-wheeled millstone.

"In the well-planned cities of continental Europe, that kind of mobility is provided by efficient and affordable public transport. But in more benighted places (like most British towns and cities), autonomous vehicles are an obvious alternative.

"... Mr Zimmer has a dog in this fight – he's co-founder of Lyft, a ride-sharing outfit that competes with Uber, so the usual caveats apply. Nevertheless, his essay is a thoughtful reflection on how the automobile transformed – and destroyed – our cities and towns."

Financial Times: "High rise projects struggle to win affection of UK public"

"The economic imperative to build housing higher in the capital divides opinion"

Link to web site

"Building upwards has been regarded as the answer to the UK's housing problems before, yet the high-rise estates of the 1950s and 1960s quickly turned into symbols of poor planning, inequality and urban blight. But even as Britain grapples with the legacy of those experiments, high-rise living is back in vogue — this time marketed towards a very different demographic.

"Once again, however, it is attracting criticism. Glass-encased towers are only for the rich, say their opponents; they largely lie empty — walk past them at night and they are mostly dark — because they are viewed as investments rather than places to live; and they clash with their surroundings and cast them in shadow. All this, critics declare, fails to deal with the needs of Londoners who do not enjoy large pay packets, drives up prices and forces people further out of the centre.

"Yet the boom continues, with scores more high-rise buildings planned. Is this merely greed, with developers thinking only of rich, and often foreign, buyers, or can high-rise living be part of the solution to the capital's housing crisis?"

Old Oak Common: In-flight movie

Financial Times: "Alstom claims tilting train can solve HS2’s speed conundrum"

Link to web site

"The builder of France’s TGV trains is hoping to persuade officials planning the UK’s high-speed HS2 line that it can resolve one of their biggest conundrums: that on some of the lines new trains may run more slowly than existing rolling stock.

"Alstom, one of the world’s biggest train makers, has been telling engineers it could offer a train capable of running very fast on the dedicated high-speed line that could also tilt on corners on existing routes.

"Without tilting capability any new train would likely be slower over some sections of the existing network, such as the route from Preston to Glasgow, where Alstom’s tilting Pendolinos currently operate. However, HS2's planners have long doubted that a train would be able to fulfil both functions.

"The discussions have been taking place at a time when HS2, a government-owned company, is considering a change to its rolling-stock strategy. It had looked set to place an initial order for trains capable of running only on the new high-speed line and for another group designed to run on both the new line and on the UK’s existing “classic” network.

"It now looks set to order only trains compatible with the existing network at first, before ordering high-speed-only trains when more of the high-speed network is open. Transport ministers will decide shortly which strategy to pursue."

The Guardian: "A world without work is coming – it could be utopia or it could be hell"

Link to web site

"Most of us have wondered what we might do if we didn’t need to work – if we woke up one morning to discover we had won the lottery, say. We entertain ourselves with visions of multiple homes, trips around the world or the players we would sign after buying Arsenal. For many of us, the most tantalising aspect of such visions is the freedom it would bring: to do what one wants, when one wants and how one wants.

"But imagine how that vision might change if such freedom were extended to everyone. Some day, probably not in our lifetimes but perhaps not long after, machines will be able to do most of the tasks that people can. At that point, a truly workless world should be possible. If everyone, not just the rich, had robots at their beck and call, then such powerful technology would free them from the need to submit to the realities of the market to put food on the table.

"Of course, we then have to figure out what to do not only with ourselves but with one another. Just as a lottery cheque does not free the winner from the shackles of the human condition, all-purpose machine intelligence will not magically allow us all to get along. And what is especially tricky about a world without work is that we must begin building the social institutions to survive it long before the technological obsolescence of human workers actually arrives."

1-2 Oct: Art West: Open Studio Weekend 1-6pm

Old Oak Park: Consultation glossy

2016-09 17344 OOP SummaryLeaflet FINAL by scribdstorage on Scribd

Proposed boundary changes: Old Oak joins Brent Central, renames as Willesden

PR people work Sundays: "HS2 Chairman, David Higgins' statement regarding HS2 CEO, Simon Kirby, leaving to join Rolls Royce"

"Chief Operating Officer, the chairman of HS2, David Higgins, said:

"I am delighted for both Simon and Rolls Royce that he has been appointed to this position. Whilst naturally we will miss his experience and leadership, I also recognise that he is joining a truly great, global company in an industry in which he has previously worked.

In his two and half years with the company, Simon has used his vast experience to recruit and shape a world class team which over the coming years and decades will turn HS2 into a reality that will be of lasting benefit to this country.
That team will continue that process as we start and complete the process of finding Simon's successor.

I am also delighted to be able to announce today the appointment of Mel Ewel, formerly Chief Executive of Amey, as a Non Executive Director. His great experience in the construction industry speaks for itself, as does the huge respect in which he is held. As such he will be a great asset to the Board's deliberations as we move to the point of construction.

Simon Kirby said:

"HS2 is not just a highly ambitious project, but also one which will leave a lasting legacy for Britain. It has been, therefore, a huge honour to have been its Chief Executive and to have been involved in creating a leadership team made up of the best talents from this country and elsewhere. I have absolute confidence in their ability to deliver the project and, in doing so, to help transform the way we do things in this country."

The Guardian: "Paris divided: two-mile highway by Seine goes car-free for six months"

Link to web site

"... The drone from traffic on the parallel Quai des Celestins, higher up the river bank, suggests traffic there is moving along at a respectable pace – confounding those doomsayers who suggested the controversial scheme to pedestrianise two miles of city centre highway would bring neighbouring roads to a standstill.

"While this section of the Seine closes every summer to host the Paris Plages – in which temporary artificial beaches are created along the right bank of the river – this time the expressway has not been reopened.

"Instead Paris's prefect of police – the state representative – this week approved the closure of the riverside route for a six-month trial. Socialist-run city hall says it intends to keep the highway closed to vehicles for good."

[Reposted from June 2013] If they can design in light-rail at Old Oak Common, they can design in light-rail at Brent Cross...

Evening
Standard

Link to Plans for Brent Cross.

Construction Enquirer: "Galliford Try kicks-off London regen zone with £175m project"

"Galliford Try is understood to have secured the first major scheme at London’s vast Old Oak Common regeneration zone."

Link to web site

"Development partners Genesis Housing Association and Queens Park Rangers Football Club plan to build 605 new homes on part of the vast new regeneration site in a development to be known as Oaklands.

"London's Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation approved the £175m mixed-use scheme last month.

"Galliford Try's Partnership arm is expected to start work at the beginning of 2017. Several existing buildings will be demolished to make way for three major blocks rising in height from around 10 to 26 floors."

Evening Standard: "White City: how Soho House, the BBC and the London creatives are helping W12 get its mojo back"

"Westfield is expanding, the BBC building is being transformed, and Soho House is moving in — W12 is staking its claim as London’s latest hotspot. Nick Curtis on why the future looks best out west"

Link to web site

"From the top of BBC TV Centre's East Tower in White City — the building where Blue Peter and Play School were made — you can see the future of London. The buildings below, once a monocultural fortress for Auntie Beeb, will soon become a mini-metropolis of 950 apartments, a new club and 50-room hotel from Soho House (complete with rooftop pool), as well as three refurbished TV studios and offices for BBC Worldwide and 300,000 [sic] other 'creatives'.

Further north are the modern offices of BBC Digital, and beyond them Old Oak Common, itself set to become a mini-city once Crossrail arrives. The world's largest 'co-living' space, The Collective, opened there in May, offering 551 minimal, serviced living spaces around shared communal areas as an alternative to traditional rental models.

On the other side of Wood Lane, the mind-bogglingly vast, 25-acre, £3 billion new campus where Imperial College plans to 'invent the future through science and engineering and medicine' — as Professor David Gann, Vice President (Innovation) puts it — stretches north beyond the A40. To the east, the new phase of Westfield shopping centre — already one of the top five tourist destinations in London, with 28 million visitors a year — is under construction, and a site occupied by M&S warehouses is to become 1,480 new homes by developer St James."

[That's enough gushing. Ed.]

The Observer: "The death of neoliberalism and the crisis in western politics"

"In the early 1980s the author was one of the first to herald the emerging dominance of neoliberalism in the west. Here he argues that this doctrine is now faltering. But what happens next?"

Link to web site

"The western financial crisis of 2007-8 was the worst since 1931, yet its immediate repercussions were surprisingly modest. The crisis challenged the foundation stones of the long-dominant neoliberal ideology but it seemed to emerge largely unscathed. The banks were bailed out; hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes; and the price of their behaviour was duly paid by the taxpayer.

"Subsequent economic policy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, has relied overwhelmingly on monetary policy, especially quantitative easing. It has failed. The western economy has stagnated and is now approaching its lost decade, with no end in sight.

"After almost nine years, we are finally beginning to reap the political whirlwind of the financial crisis. But how did neoliberalism manage to survive virtually unscathed for so long? Although it failed the test of the real world, bequeathing the worst economic disaster for seven decades, politically and intellectually it remained the only show in town. Parties of the right, centre and left ... all bought into its philosophy."

The Guardian: "A new New York? Manhattan's oldest neighbourhood goes car-free, kind of …"

"Cars restricted to 5mph over 60 blocks of Financial District at weekend, as transport department runs Shared Streets event inspired by Bogotá and Paris"

Link to web site

"A shadow is cast long upon New York by the ghost of Robert Moses, the titan 'master builder' of 20th century whose almost unrivalled power to chart his vision of urban renewal fostered the car-dominant and public transport-starved metropolis that is, for better or worse, one of Gotham’s most enduring legacies.

"But pedestrianism among advocates and urban planners in the new, young century has been on the ascent in global cities far and wide, with many pushing for more restrictions on cars in the interests of bipeds and cyclists.

"That was part of thinking behind the Shared Streets initiative, a five-hour long event over the weekend. It saw the city demarcate some 60 blocks of Manhattan's oldest neighbourhood as part of an urban geographical experiment meant to alter the often-fractious dynamic between motorists and pedestrians that is the unwritten law of the concrete jungle."

Evening Standard: "First look inside Crossrail train ahead of launch"

Link to web site

"These are the first images of a new Elizabeth line train ahead of the launch of the £14 billion Crossrail project next May.

"It is the first in a fleet of 66 air-conditioned trains, which will operate on the Elizabeth line, linking Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood in south-east London to Heathrow and Reading, via Canary Wharf and Oxford Street.

"Transport for London commissioner Mike Brown was today driving the train on Bombardier Transportation's test track in Derby. He said the trains, to be introduced in stages, were 'a showcase for British design and manufacture'.

"The new ‘Class 345’ trains will enter service when the first section of the line, which will be known as Crossrail, opens next May between Liverpool Street and Shenfield in Essex. It is believed the final interiors may differ in design to the first look seen today."

Bombardier: Building Crossrail trains in Derby

GetWestLondon: "QPR dealt new ground blow as landowner says: 'We will never agree to a stadium'"

Link to web site

"Queens Park Rangers has been accused of misleading its fans with inaccurate statements over the future building of a new stadium.

"Cargiant, which owns land that the Championship side want to build its new ground on, has published a letter criticising the actions of the club. It says it wants to put the record straight over the proposals so supporters are aware of the actual situation.

"The decision taken this month to publish a letter, which was written in March to fans by Cargiant managing director Tony Mendes and Geoff Springer from development partner London & Regional Properties (L&R), was taken after QPR was given the go-ahead to build 605 new homes on the nearby Oaklands site with Genesis Housing Trust."

CNN: "London housing crisis extends to the water"

Link to web site

"When it comes to the unwanted title of world's most expensive city for housing, London vies with Monaco and Hong Kong.

"The average house price in the English capital is now nearly £600,000 ($787,000), and a study from the charity Shelter found just 43 properties affordable to people on an average income. Several of these properties were houseboats.

"Life on London's 100-mile network of canals, or 42-mile stretch of the River Thames, has become a popular option for beleaguered citizens, and such homes can cost as little as £20,000 ($26,500). But as more people swap apartments for houseboats, the popular, romantic vision is giving way to a harsh reality."