Thirst for change is here

There were more than 1,100 people at the Hackney Empire last night to see the film The Human Scale by Andreas M. Dalsgaard about how cities can change for the better. It focusses to a great extent on the work of Jan Gehl who designed the original Copenhagen masterplan which has turned the Danish capital into the most liveable city in the world.

The attendance was as remarkable as the film. The fact that so many people are interested in a film about what can be seen as the dry subject of urban planning is very heartening.

The film was all about making cities more liveable and sustainable, which, of course, are key aspects of the WolmarforLondon campaign. There were examples from all around the world. At the root of much of the change is the need to tame the car. Perhaps the most telling example was a street in Moscow, Tverskaya (oddly where my father was born) where parking on the pavement seemed to be de rigueur. Indeed Gehl made a nice joke which suggested that Russians seemed to think that freedom from Communism was the freedom to park anywhere.

Anyway, amazingly, after a consultancy by Gehl, the street has now been transformed with trees and benches replacing the parked cars. Of course there is a very long way to go in Moscow which I visited in 2012 and I can safely say it is the most car-dominated city I have been to and that includes Los Angeles. However, the fact that even in such a

Gehl lamented the fact that so little had been done in London since he produced a 2004 report that Ken Livingstone endorsed and said would be carried out. Sadly it has not been, but hopefully there will be another chance in 2016…