We'll see about that. There's a growing mass of quiet people who slowly started to keep their things longer, try to repair (either themselves or by someone) them again. There are movements around it - see Repair Café and Restart Party. But indeed, it could do with some push from the loud ones.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm afraid that shifts towards sustainability in developed parts of the world can only lead to less growth _in those parts of the world_. There will always be a buyer in a less developed country that will keep a less sustainable economy going. And the less-developed world is growing.
Efforts towards sustainability are neccessary for reasons too obvious to mention, but ongoing growth does seems inevitable.
We're doing our part here in Eastern Europe (the fewer children thing, I mean) and everyone speaks about it like the next apocalypse. This is such an article from yesterday's Financial Times [1]
Unfortunately in developing nations like India, a reverse trend has just begun growing exponentially[1] as the youth becomes victim to consumerism.
The older generation would use day to day items (pots, pans, glasses, radios, TV sets, vehicles, even clothes) for what would feel like an eternity, repair till they wanted a well deserved upgrade and even then would either sell or donate the same.
Now I hear young people boast about how they upgrade their iPhones every year (or their cars every 3 years) and don't even sell the previous one because there's no point in getting $300 for it :(
While not everyone can afford to do that, but it does make it aspirational (in the minds of those vulnerable to herd mentality) to be a wasteful consumer h*e, smh.
[1] This mass cultural and spending to saving ratio shift is in the best interest of the government, who wants our economy to grow—at any cost.
I'm half-heartedly rooting for an early semi-apocalypse. Early, because the later it comes the worse it will be. Might come off as misathropic, but if one thinks that we're doomed by uncontrollable inertia (which I'm not entirely convinced about, but it's a worthwhile scenario to explore), this is the best case scenario. In that vein: hurray for Brexit; Trump 2020; 2008-scale economic bubbles are improbable; go radical fascism; say no to solidarity; we don't have to rethink transportation; late postmodernism is going great!
Beware the draw of apocalypse fantasy for it speaks of humans own personal struggle to accept the outcome of their own death. It provides the warm thought that life after theirs has less merit and potential which renders their death a blessing as opposed to a curse. It is arguably the reason why the older you get the more it tempts.
the idea is that as you get old you start to seek validation that its "okay to die" because you haven't otherwise made peace with that part of your transaction of life. Part of that bleeds out as apocalypse fantasy. Its okay that I'm going to die because this world is no longer worth living in and I sympathise with the poor wretches that have to face the future that I do not.
Its a coping mechanism for dealing with death and you'll see many people as they age fall into it.
desperately attempting to understand why old people (taken as an average) shit on what's happening today. This complaint is as old as the sands. Kids are lazy, troublesome, wrong-headed, standards are slipping, the barbarians are at the gates.
Sure, there are likely many factors but I would argue a pretty strong one is that the opinion is just preparing the oldie for acceptance of death by turning it into something more palatable.
When people start killing each other in big crowded places?
I've been living near or in big cities for many years, communing is impossible, in some cities it is completely full on the road, on public transportation. People become more and more aggressive on the road because they lose their mind spending so much time just sitting there and waiting for other cars to move.
I think it is a shame that so few companies do full remote work, especially in IT. It could really change things.
Almost all of the buildings in a city like London would be associated with administrative occupations. People pushing paper or buttons. Do we really need to meet at an open plan office to complete our daily tasks? Can we please start getting going the real value "gig" economy in the form of remote work for 90% of these jobs in the cities. Imagine working for a company in London but living outside ring M25!
It will take a paradigm shift to make location irrelevant.
> Always more people, always more asphalt, always more buildings
London's population today (8.7 million) is only marginally more than it was in 1939 (8.6 million). For much of the 20th century the population decreased - there's no reason that can't happen again, especially if people migrate out of London for work.
I can kind-of see why some people think that more and more people coming to more and more jobs in bigger and bigger buildings is unsettling. But I think it is better than the opposite, which many inside London's prosperity bubble often seem to forget - remember the decay and poverty in some other parts of England, communities hollowed out by declining industry and lack of jobs, near derelict streets of houses up for sale at £1 each to try and attract people back, people turning to crime and drugs and yearning to return to some largely mythical past which the populist leaders have promised them.
it wont and why should it? We might as well mourn the loss of our farming roots whose loss makes Shakespearean dialog impenetrable. Or our loss of maritime roots, I don't know how to load a cannon in a storm or splice a main brace. Is the "progress" that took those elements from me as distrustful of that of concrete and buildings?
In terms of London though up is good, its way too much of a sprawl and would benefit from greater density.
In 2012 I used to work around the Liverpool Street Station area. I quite liked it, especially the Lloyds building, but at the time there were already a lot of constructions going on.
I haven't been there for years until recently, and the change there is crushing. It became cramped, insanely large buildings everywhere, Lloyds barely visible and tiny with the Cheesegrater next to it. It was an eye opening experience how much can change in a relatively (building age wise) small time.
I worked there around the same time as you and I thought it felt pretty cramped by then already, but nowadays when I end up in that area I almost feel claustrophobic. The city skyline has really changed massively over the past decade..
I worked on Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate, Cannon Street in the early 2000s - all four buildings are gone - 60’s - 80’s structures. Crazy rate of churn.
I wasn't against evolve at all. The problem is the absurdly claustrophobic feeling that overcomes me with the current new developments. They are too big.
Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, Holloway - all places once warm and familiar to me are now cold, oppressive masses of dense, synthetic development. London's never really stood still - certainly not in the 20 years I've lived here or the near 40 years I've had experience of it - but the rates of development over the past decade and a bit are astonishing and somewhat saddening to me.
Come on, Kings Cross was a dump 15 years ago. It's much nicer now. There are lots of generic-looking glass buildings, sure. But they've also removed the horrible 60s/70s concrete structures covering Kings Cross station and restored St Pancras Station and the associated hotel. If you don't think that the area has improved overall, I'd have to say that there's no pleasing you!
oh come on, this is somewhat a nostalgia trip. I would assert that you're as equally annoyed that your definition of what it was is now inaccurate as you are about the changes.
For those without that prior frame of reference what is now will just be what it was and they'll add their own complaints next decade. And thus time marches on and we cannot change it.
Sure, KX is somewhat 'better' in some ways than it was a while back, and I'm not against development per se (I used to note your observation when I worked in Camden and realised each generation down there would rue the loss of whatever version of 'old Camden' it was they held dear) - what I'm concerned about is the sudden comprehensive change of an entire area. I'm generally suspicious of inorganic large developments as they tend to crowd out smaller businesses and encourage more chains of widespread consumer outlets, as they're the only ones who can afford to sign up 'off plan'.
Coal drops yard and the new St Martins are very pretty, and certainly striking and elegant but I do worry that they're quite synthetic and sterile and what impact that will have on the students.
Whether or not the future students of St Martins will be any better or more successful than the ones who studied at that cold building in Holborn, I don't know.
Whereas I'm still astonished when I try and couch my opinions on the internet in non-absolutist terms and they're invariably taken as blunt, literal weapons.
I even stated in my first response here that "London doesn't sit still" and that it's "a bit 'too much, too quick'" that concerns me. I wonder if we forgot certain lessons from 60s architectural adventures.
As for an answer to your question - Bagleys and The Cross spring to mind.
Not a very impressive response. Clubs often open in run-down or otherwise unattractive areas. They move when the area changes. I don't think we want to keep Kings Cross as a complete poohole just to keep a couple of clubs open. I say this as someone who used to live there. It might be fun for you to go to the run down part of town to go to a trendy club, but it's not so great for people who are in the area on a day-to-day basis.
I can see what you're saying in general, but to use Kings Cross as an example is borderline trolling. No-one misses the old Kings Cross.
Cities like Budapest, Prague, Vienna have quite strict regulations when it comes to buildings. Eg. Budapest still doesn't have anything taller, than 30 tiers.
Respecting and maintaining a certain look doesn't mean it'll become a museum, rather that it has a personality and everyone agreed to keep that personality.
London, at this point, is the other end of this spectrum: no personality, no regulations on look/height/etc based on values. (Sometimes I wonder about regulations at all, knowing the case of the melted Jaguar with the Walkie Talkie: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675 )
> Do you know why the cheese grater is the shape that it is?
I do not.
Personality is an interesting topic. I love Hackney or the area around Wapping; there's certainly a personality around Muswell Hill and Highgate; the Barbican is brilliant and unique, etc. But the Liverpool Street Station area? Nah.
Not that for example Budapest has a face everywhere: it has a decent amount of socialist blocks that you can find anywhere in the former Eastern Block, and a lot of generic housing areas, but the inner circle is quite heavily regulated, especially on the height of buildings.
As for regulations: regulations on what looks are allowed. The question mark for the walkie-talkie was because it's a collector mirror, and whoever designed it should have realized that it's dangerous.
I'm sorry that my response to you below isn't 'impressive' enough for you. Must try harder!
Again, you seem to be polarising the engagement here into absolute terms - of course I wouldn't for a second agree with keeping "Kings Cross as a complete poohole just to keep a couple of clubs open", but the loss of those clubs and that culture surrounding it are to my mind indicative of a change in the city that inevitable as it is, is pervasive, permanent and in some ways saddening.
I can't be right or wrong in this opinion, just different to your perspective and that's ok - neither of us need 'win' here.
You're always going to lose something when a city changes. I'm just baffled that your overriding reaction to the changes in Kings Cross is sadness.
I do actually think it's important to keep whining in check because it holds London back. The fact that people are even willing to pretend that they want the old Kings Cross back (lol) is indicative of how deeply ingrained the whining culture is.
Can you point out where I said I want the old king's cross back, please? You seem to continually choose to interpret things in the most polarised terms that fit whatever narrative it is you wish to read.
My stated concern here is in the density and pace of development - the change in what (I feel and believe) should be a more organically-grown locality, rather than some mass vision impressed upon the area.
"Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, Holloway - all places once warm and familiar to me are now cold, oppressive masses of dense, synthetic development."
That seems like a broadly negative reaction to the changes. If you think the changes have been for the worse, then it seems fair to presume that you'd rather they hadn't happened.
If you actually like the changes overall, then we are in agreement.
As for organic change - well, Kings Cross had decades of opportunity to deshitify organically, and it didn't. How long do you wanna wait?
I don't like the changes overall, no. That's where I'm coming from. It is a broadly negative appraisal of these developments which are, to my mind, artificial in the extreme.
But that doesn't mean I 'want the old kx back', it just means I wish it hadn't developed as so.
The front end development of KX itself and St. Pancras is absolutely gorgeous. So too coal drop yard and the area around CSM.
It's the density of high rise apartments around that is, to me, saddening.
- ed
and i mean 'saddening' in a perhaps melancholic whistful way - if it is inevitable and must be so, then so be it. doesn't mean i have to like it. and doesn't mean that my not liking it is in any way relevant.
Holloway has an astonishing - largely untold - 750 year (at least) history of transient development.
The name comes from horse-carts digging such deep ruts in the mud by 1300 it became known as the hollow way.
I love that Joe Meek wrote 'Telstar'[1] from a tiny flat in Holloway. It sounded like the future in 1962, and sounds like the past now. It's the same with the built environment.
Personally quite like, and can see the value/use of, the dense mixture of old and new architecture in such a central/busy location. And endlessly prefer London's route of having most of its skycrapers in the concentrated, central areas, leaving the rest of the city's skyline low and non-oppressive for the majority of the nicer residential post/area-codes. So much easier to escape the steel/concrete/glass sun blocking monoliths in London than in say New York
My problem is the lack of breathing space. I love the Barbican, but that was designed knowing that if you don't leave some green and space here and there, it'll crush you.
The newish ones - eg 22 Bishopsgate, The Scalpel, The Cheesegrater, The Walkie-Talkie - are BIG in every dimension. They dwarf the Heron, despite the fact that the Heron is taller.
To coincide with the UK launch of Streetview in 2009, I worked at Tate with Google to produce similar 'then and now' images, except featuring paintings from C18th and C19th compared with the SV images of 2008/9.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/mar/20/art-goo...
These were accessible directly from SV as well as on their own map and microsite.
Like many such promotional efforts, once its commercial usefulness was depleted Google silently removed access and they dropped the hosting domain by 2014.
That sent me down memory lane. Sort of. Went to check Berlin and the two addresses I've held since moving here 10 years ago and realized the photos haven't been updated since July 2008. :P
I lived in London in the 90s and early 2000s. I used to love walking whenever I could and walked the commute from Fulham to Westminster.
Some of my favourite places are unrecognisable now. I remember Shoreditch being slightly edgy and going to art shows there in pop-up galleries.
I spent quite a bit of time in a pub called the Bushranger in Shepherd's Bush. I knew the staff and regulars and could relax there. It was quite dark and had sawdust on the floor. I had heard that it had been turned into a wine bar called the Stinging Nettle and looking at Google Maps now it's a Costa Coffee.
GSV is an amazing resource for tracking street level changes like this. Does anyone know of free resources to view historic satellite imagery of a location? Seems GMaps only shows most recent they've licensed.
Last weekend, I thought I recognized a London exterior in a 10-year-old movie I was watching and added the filming location to IMDb after confirming with Street View. It's been 20 years since I worked there and the shot only lasted a few seconds, so I have no idea how I remembered it. Perhaps from taking the bus up Great Eastern St to City Road? Anyway, the photos on Street View looked pretty similar to the clip in the movie, though I could see other areas I frequented had changed quite a bit. It was fun to cruise around memory lane, and in the end, I spent way more time playing with Street View than I did watching the movie.
Street View is an amazing resource. Google, please don't cock it up. :)
61 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadWhilst the world population keeps growing and we keep moving forwards towards hire world average incomes we'll still be looking for growth.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm afraid that shifts towards sustainability in developed parts of the world can only lead to less growth _in those parts of the world_. There will always be a buyer in a less developed country that will keep a less sustainable economy going. And the less-developed world is growing.
Efforts towards sustainability are neccessary for reasons too obvious to mention, but ongoing growth does seems inevitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHMDrhBREXU
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-11ea-ac3c-f68c10993... (in here http://archive.ph/https://www.ft.com/content/c5d3e0ae-36eb-1... for those who don't have access)
The older generation would use day to day items (pots, pans, glasses, radios, TV sets, vehicles, even clothes) for what would feel like an eternity, repair till they wanted a well deserved upgrade and even then would either sell or donate the same.
Now I hear young people boast about how they upgrade their iPhones every year (or their cars every 3 years) and don't even sell the previous one because there's no point in getting $300 for it :(
While not everyone can afford to do that, but it does make it aspirational (in the minds of those vulnerable to herd mentality) to be a wasteful consumer h*e, smh.
[1] This mass cultural and spending to saving ratio shift is in the best interest of the government, who wants our economy to grow—at any cost.
Its a coping mechanism for dealing with death and you'll see many people as they age fall into it.
Sure, there are likely many factors but I would argue a pretty strong one is that the opinion is just preparing the oldie for acceptance of death by turning it into something more palatable.
I've been living near or in big cities for many years, communing is impossible, in some cities it is completely full on the road, on public transportation. People become more and more aggressive on the road because they lose their mind spending so much time just sitting there and waiting for other cars to move.
I think it is a shame that so few companies do full remote work, especially in IT. It could really change things.
It will take a paradigm shift to make location irrelevant.
London's population today (8.7 million) is only marginally more than it was in 1939 (8.6 million). For much of the 20th century the population decreased - there's no reason that can't happen again, especially if people migrate out of London for work.
In terms of London though up is good, its way too much of a sprawl and would benefit from greater density.
I haven't been there for years until recently, and the change there is crushing. It became cramped, insanely large buildings everywhere, Lloyds barely visible and tiny with the Cheesegrater next to it. It was an eye opening experience how much can change in a relatively (building age wise) small time.
EDIT: 2009 vs 2019 views of the LLoyd's building:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5140007,-0.0812995,3a,75y,...
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5139823,-0.0812983,3a,75y,...
All seems a bit 'too much, too quick'.
Come on, Kings Cross was a dump 15 years ago. It's much nicer now. There are lots of generic-looking glass buildings, sure. But they've also removed the horrible 60s/70s concrete structures covering Kings Cross station and restored St Pancras Station and the associated hotel. If you don't think that the area has improved overall, I'd have to say that there's no pleasing you!
For those without that prior frame of reference what is now will just be what it was and they'll add their own complaints next decade. And thus time marches on and we cannot change it.
Coal drops yard and the new St Martins are very pretty, and certainly striking and elegant but I do worry that they're quite synthetic and sterile and what impact that will have on the students.
Whether or not the future students of St Martins will be any better or more successful than the ones who studied at that cold building in Holborn, I don't know.
- ed typos
I really think you must not be familiar with Kings Cross at all to say this. I mean, can you name any specific business or building that you miss?
It astonishes me sometimes what a bunch of whiners us Londoners are when it comes to new developments. It's a city, not a museum.
I even stated in my first response here that "London doesn't sit still" and that it's "a bit 'too much, too quick'" that concerns me. I wonder if we forgot certain lessons from 60s architectural adventures.
As for an answer to your question - Bagleys and The Cross spring to mind.
Not a very impressive response. Clubs often open in run-down or otherwise unattractive areas. They move when the area changes. I don't think we want to keep Kings Cross as a complete poohole just to keep a couple of clubs open. I say this as someone who used to live there. It might be fun for you to go to the run down part of town to go to a trendy club, but it's not so great for people who are in the area on a day-to-day basis.
I can see what you're saying in general, but to use Kings Cross as an example is borderline trolling. No-one misses the old Kings Cross.
Cities like Budapest, Prague, Vienna have quite strict regulations when it comes to buildings. Eg. Budapest still doesn't have anything taller, than 30 tiers.
Respecting and maintaining a certain look doesn't mean it'll become a museum, rather that it has a personality and everyone agreed to keep that personality.
London, at this point, is the other end of this spectrum: no personality, no regulations on look/height/etc based on values. (Sometimes I wonder about regulations at all, knowing the case of the melted Jaguar with the Walkie Talkie: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675 )
Do you know why the cheese grater is the shape that it is?
I do not.
Personality is an interesting topic. I love Hackney or the area around Wapping; there's certainly a personality around Muswell Hill and Highgate; the Barbican is brilliant and unique, etc. But the Liverpool Street Station area? Nah.
Not that for example Budapest has a face everywhere: it has a decent amount of socialist blocks that you can find anywhere in the former Eastern Block, and a lot of generic housing areas, but the inner circle is quite heavily regulated, especially on the height of buildings.
As for regulations: regulations on what looks are allowed. The question mark for the walkie-talkie was because it's a collector mirror, and whoever designed it should have realized that it's dangerous.
https://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/the-122-leadenhall-cheesegr...
Again, you seem to be polarising the engagement here into absolute terms - of course I wouldn't for a second agree with keeping "Kings Cross as a complete poohole just to keep a couple of clubs open", but the loss of those clubs and that culture surrounding it are to my mind indicative of a change in the city that inevitable as it is, is pervasive, permanent and in some ways saddening.
I can't be right or wrong in this opinion, just different to your perspective and that's ok - neither of us need 'win' here.
I do actually think it's important to keep whining in check because it holds London back. The fact that people are even willing to pretend that they want the old Kings Cross back (lol) is indicative of how deeply ingrained the whining culture is.
My stated concern here is in the density and pace of development - the change in what (I feel and believe) should be a more organically-grown locality, rather than some mass vision impressed upon the area.
That seems like a broadly negative reaction to the changes. If you think the changes have been for the worse, then it seems fair to presume that you'd rather they hadn't happened.
If you actually like the changes overall, then we are in agreement.
As for organic change - well, Kings Cross had decades of opportunity to deshitify organically, and it didn't. How long do you wanna wait?
But that doesn't mean I 'want the old kx back', it just means I wish it hadn't developed as so.
The front end development of KX itself and St. Pancras is absolutely gorgeous. So too coal drop yard and the area around CSM.
It's the density of high rise apartments around that is, to me, saddening.
- ed
and i mean 'saddening' in a perhaps melancholic whistful way - if it is inevitable and must be so, then so be it. doesn't mean i have to like it. and doesn't mean that my not liking it is in any way relevant.
The name comes from horse-carts digging such deep ruts in the mud by 1300 it became known as the hollow way.
I love that Joe Meek wrote 'Telstar'[1] from a tiny flat in Holloway. It sounded like the future in 1962, and sounds like the past now. It's the same with the built environment.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B7ypA1fSwU
The newish ones - eg 22 Bishopsgate, The Scalpel, The Cheesegrater, The Walkie-Talkie - are BIG in every dimension. They dwarf the Heron, despite the fact that the Heron is taller.
I've never been to NY though.
Some of my favourite places are unrecognisable now. I remember Shoreditch being slightly edgy and going to art shows there in pop-up galleries.
I spent quite a bit of time in a pub called the Bushranger in Shepherd's Bush. I knew the staff and regulars and could relax there. It was quite dark and had sawdust on the floor. I had heard that it had been turned into a wine bar called the Stinging Nettle and looking at Google Maps now it's a Costa Coffee.
Street View is an amazing resource. Google, please don't cock it up. :)