On London Latest: Devolution, libraries and Lime bike disorder
These things are related. Plus low pay, regional growth and a crime fiction review
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Bleak weather and being laid low by a flu jab hardly helped my mood, but a walk to a local Post Office yesterday confirmed for me a growing and depressing feeling that too many of London's streets are in decline.
That is partly about their physical condition and partly about the ways that they are used. And the state of our streets seems to illuminate a wider and related range of problems in need of urgent and effective attention.
Too many shops are unused or have a gloomy, careworn look - even my local branch of Boots is disfigured by graffiti. The forlorn figures asking for spare change seem increasingly familiar, making me wonder if they are receiving any help. Dockless bikes add to the growth of antisocial cycling behaviour.
In other parts of London there are other manifestations of the same sense of blight: water pipe bursts, drain blockages and advertising megaliths blocking pavements, to mention a few items on a photographic list a friend sent to me after a walk round his very different neighbourhood.
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