Owen Hatherley Quote
If a social and democratic city is going to be built again, it will most probably be built by those who have no investment in the past, no fond memory of it. That isn’t to say they’ll be building on nothing. There is something to conserve, Tony Judt was right about that much – the very fact a publicly owned Carpenters Estate existed at all was the reason why it sat empty, and the reason why the slogan of the young mothers who occupied it could be so clear and so practical: ‘These people need homes, these homes need people.’ Such words are unlikely to find their way into white letters on a red poster, with an emblem of the crown above them. If we’re ever going to escape from austerity, this clear statement of collective utility is the most likely way out.
If a social and democratic city is going to be built again, it will most probably be built by those who have no investment in the past, no fond memory of it. That isn’t to say they’ll be building on nothing. There is something to conserve, Tony Judt was right about that much – the very fact a publicly owned Carpenters Estate existed at all was the reason why it sat empty, and the reason why the slogan of the young mothers who occupied it could be so clear and so practical: ‘These people need homes, these homes need people.’ Such words are unlikely to find their way into white letters on a red poster, with an emblem of the crown above them. If we’re ever going to escape from austerity, this clear statement of collective utility is the most likely way out.
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