Bringing a car-less revolution to our streets
A few weeks ago I made the case that change on our streets was afoot, a change that was even more exciting than driverless cars. With a bit of determination and some help from local councils we believe car ownership that we are beginning to see decline in some cities could be accelerated – and with the space freed up our streets could be repurposed into pocket parks. Instead of the car parks that our streets have become we could have mini parks with space for veg patches, orchards and places to sit or play.
This provoked a reaction from many of you - some negative (with concerns about the impact of economic growth) and some positive, including examples of places where people have done this, ideas of how to make it a reality and one offer to doing the digging to make it happen!
For me the most engrossing though controversial read on the subject comes from Do the Green Thing. It is written to provoke so only read it if you have a strong disposition! It argues that London’s cars are like America’s guns.
In other news, if you happen to be based in East London today there’s a great gig by the South American folk band, the Southern Cone Quintet. It’s only happening because Eleanor a music mogul and Streetbank member was using Streetbank to borrow a bike. It turned out the generous neighbour who helped her out was a band leader and writer. Later she heard them on Radio 3 and was so impressed she booked them for the sofa-filled home-crafted cinema of Sand Film Studios in Rotherhithe. You can get tickets here and they come with a free cup of tea or glass of elderflower made personally by Eleanor from local flowers. It’s this kind of serendipity that only occurs when we take the risk of meeting our neighbours!
Have a great week,
Sam and the Streetbank Team