Having been to London a number of times, I am always surpised by the inverse relationship between my initial anticipation and excitement and the aftermath of such a journey. I hardly ever return from London with photographs; this trip: not once did I open my camera bag. It is not that I think it an ugly city. To me the beauty of it is in its unfolding local scale where high streets provide the arteries between neighbourhoods that seem to provide endless textures and shades of brown and green. Somehow I cannot capture its energy through a lens.
I came to London to engage in a workshop on training urban practitioners; it was held at the DPU (UCL). My involvement is due to synergies with the Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS) project but there is a larger mutual agenda. Both initiatives seek to inform contextually rich understandings that contribute to Southern perspectives on cities and notions of the urban. Inclusivity is a quality attributed to London by an English colleague. As I negotiated the London Underground, observing the clothing textures and colours, the head dresses, the scarves, the business suits all amassed into a tide of dense human activity, I recall another friend saying: "the average Londoner has a level of familiarity and comfort with seeing people from many different cultural forms of dress and skin shades". I cannot help but wonder if the infrastructure, the enforced public interaction enabled through good public transport and celebration of open spaces through maintenance and upkeep is perhaps to some extent responsible for this.
In an excellent piece in the Guardian Simon Jenkins reflects on his relationship with London thus: "A true city is a mirror, in which the blemishes are our own." I would expand by saying that a true city confronts us with the difference that is within all of us. How comfortable we are with those internal contradictions best defines how inclusive we find a city to be. As planners and urban practitioners the task then is to create the physical opportunities for such interaction.
