OPEN THINKING

I mean wow. I would guess we can measure its boldness by the amount of concern it generates. If the public are placid, then either people aren't paying attention or there's been a shift in the public's consciousness. I engage ‘below the line' very little so I probably don't have 1/10 of the idea of how much opposition is being expressed... When you speak to people on the street in Walthamstow today, you hear a variety of opinions. One woman I met selling cakes with her daughters (in a newly reclaimed piece of street converted into a pocket park which she referred to as her "piazza") said, "Um, well, I think most people would tell you they don't like it." I can guess why she might have that impression. The opposition was vocal and there remains an undercurrent of grumpiness. Only this week the borough council was accused in a local forum of racism and classism for converting a piece of road space to a bus lane. (I'm minded of Enrique Peñalosa's quip that "A developed country is not a..