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more prosaically - this:
ok, selborne walk is not great as it is however recent developments such as the Solum partnership that saw a rather ugly travelodge spring up by the station have failed to provide significant improvements to public spaces.
what about some meaningful tree planting? what about some proper landscaping? all we've got so far is a bloody wind tunnel outside the station.
waiting to see if this one is any better.
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Ah, so this is meant to be plonked on top of Walthamstow Town Square Gardens, demolishing some of the existing mall and adding new build to it?
While I don't necessarily object to mixed-use development, I think tower blocks exercise a negative influence on the ambience of public spaces.
You can see how pdfs like that don't tell the whole story--I find it difficult to get a handle on what the elements are supposed to be from it. It doesn't tell any of the history, e.g. what land deals there were.
It appears as if the land hasn't been sold yet? I find it deeply problematic if planning applications for public land go in and are later followed by a land sale. Is that the case here?
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It's not at all clear - apparently they haven't even made a planning application yet. It seems that the strategy is to publicise the plans first and then negotiate with the council.
The proposals talk about 2000 new homes; TfL better be thinking about how to increase capacity at walthamstow central. They have already removed the barriers at the top of the escalators but ultimately will need to create a new exit - perhaps at the london end of the platforms which could emerge somewhere in the vicinity of the proposed development.
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It's not at all clear - apparently they haven't even made a planning application yet. It seems that the strategy is to publicise the plans first and then negotiate with the council.
That's what I thought, but I was wondering whether there had already been an understanding with the council that they would be willing to sell the land. This happens sometimes and is currently 'legitimised' by London's ridiculous housebuilding targets.
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I do agree that it all needs to be carefully considered but large private development does seem to be able to deliver things that small-scale development would find impossible - for example all the lovely car-free space at King's Cross.
As for tower blocks - if the choice if between super high density neighbourhoods (which you can walk or bike around) or losing more green space to expand the depressing suburbs then I'm all for tower blocks.
The more good homes, jobs, shops and attractions there are inside the circle line the more people will feel like living here rather than commuting in and blocking up the roads.
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Here's a good little report by the Guardian, seemingly prompted by London Plan action on this problem:
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I do agree that it all needs to be carefully considered but large private development does seem to be able to deliver things that small-scale development would find impossible - for example all the lovely car-free space at King's Cross.
Sorry, missed your post for some reason. Yes, obviously private finance has always been a bit of a development accelerator.
In starting this thread, I should probably have made a clearer distinction between the privatisation of existing public space and the 'pseudo-public' spaces like MORE London, in which large parcels of land are 'opened up', but with strings attached. As the Guardian article highlights, different 'rules' (there may not actually be any rules, just the landowner's whims) apply in places like Granary Square in King's Cross.
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The most interesting aspect of this to me is that the private landowners who mimic public space want all of the benefits that come from public access (e.g., footfall for the shops) but none of the responsibilities (e.g., dealing with problems, they try to nip them in the bud before they happen, allowing people certain kinds of enjoyment of such spaces, e.g. cycling in them, which is prohibited in many such places). Some interesting voices here:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/25/orwellian-readers-respond-pseudo-public-space
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Not public spaces as such but public buildings, which are sort of public spaces. Scandal after scandal here. As with the 2010 Government's rampage through one unjust policy after another, or as with Trump, the more they pile up the less they stand out and the more difficult it becomes to process them judicially.
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Facial recognition in King's Cross prompts call for new laws https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49333352
Developers who own public spaces can implement whatever surveillance they wish in these public spaces with no oversight by anyone. I’m guessing they will simply use this technology to enforce arbitrary banning orders issued by themselves with no explanation or appeals process. All fairly harmless, but there are several US states who have banned facial recognition because of how ineffective it is at providing reliable results for all ethnicities and genders.
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I'd be more worried about the info Google hold on you from your search history, and Tesco/Amazon (et al) from your purchases
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It’s not a whataboutism competition about what to be more worried about. Having facial ID in the hands of landlords and developers with no oversight over what lists they use and how individuals are added and removed from them could easily lead to people being denied access to these public spaces because the AI has incorrectly flagged them as someone they are not and updated the image profile to include the new images. So someone drops litter in Kings Cross, gets tagged in a database, someone who looks a bit like them tries to go shopping in Leeds and is turned away from the shopping centre as they have been identified as someone who has previously violated the developers terms of use for part of its property portfolio. They have no idea why they are being turned away, write to the developer to complain and their real life identity is now tagged to the previous image along with the updated images from the shopping centre, they stay on the list because they haven’t been able to prove they didn’t drop litter in London and there is an inadequate appeals process. All quite a likely scenario, add in that BAME faces are more likely to be false positive identifiers and you have a system which discriminates by design.
Sure we should be worried about what information we willingly hand over to large data collectors like google and Tesco but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about this. -
Having facial ID in the hands of landlords and developers with no oversight over what lists they use and how individuals are added and removed
That's what the GDPR regulations and regulators are for
All quite a likely scenario
I think your definition of likely is debatable
Sure we should be worried about what information we willingly hand over to large data collectors like google and Tesco but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about this
I don't disagree, albeit non-consented FRT data is protected under the GDPR regulations with the in-built feedback mechanisms, whereas data you've handed over to other "big data" agencies is largely theirs to use as they see fit
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Also massive risk of stuff like this happening:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/14/major-breach-found-in-biometrics-system-used-by-banks-uk-police-and-defence-firms
And as the article says, you can update a password, you can't change your fingerprints or your face. -
So an entity with a legitimate need to process data (validated by the GDPR regulator), which notifies and receives consent from individuals that the data can be collected, is complying with GDPR. If not, then it is not, and is liable for prosecution (both as a corporate but also to individual officers/stakeholders)
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Privatising / privatisation of public spaces
Posted by
@Oliver Schick
Privatisation of London's public spaces is, of course, nothing new. We've had numerous developments featuring thoroughfares that, while accessible to the public, are actually privately owned. In former centuries, this included fairly innocent developments like shopping arcades, as well as less innocent ones like gated estates (still going strong and being newly created hundreds of years later) then expanded during the 20th century to American-style shopping malls, and around the turn of the century and in the 21st century has increasingly meant developments on land assembled from smaller plots that property companies purchased over long timescales, in some cases decades, and turned into developments like MORE London.
It is actually not in the interest of private property companies to then close such developments completely to the public by creating impermeable blocks; commercial activity is generated by accessibility to active commercial frontages. An area like Soho is a good example of this. Hence, thoroughfares that maximise availability of frontages are typically created in such developments. These feature their own 'rules', which usually differ from those in publicly-owned spaces. For instance, cycling is prohibited across MORE London.
More recently we've had the outrageous 'Garden Bridge' proposals and evident malfeasance by persons in authority and/or public office connected with it. This thread, however, was prompted by this:
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/christian-candys-plans-to-turn-road-outside-his-200m-mansion-into-a-garden-are-blocked-a3340896.html