The best way to have a new idea is often to recuperate a discarded old one. In London, a home-grown solution is waiting to be rediscovered: the city should create a new generation of the commons. If we want to the city to be liveable for people on median incomes, we should see ourselves as commoners, inhabiting a shared, common space governed by careful, mutual self-management. The green spaces that make up London’s original commons should serve as the inspiration for this much larger idea of the common life that binds the city together. Green spaces matter for all sorts of environmental and ecological reasons. They matter socially and politically, because they can inspire us to think of the kinds of modern commons we could create in other walks of life.
London likes to claim that it is the world’s best city. What kinds of world-leading green spaces should modern London bequeath to the future? In the rush to grow, to accommodate the inflow of foreign investment and new workers, how can green space make the city more successful by allowing it to be more human, fairer, calmer and more at ease with its own diversity?
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