Surely there is too much emphasis here on the affluent and not enough on the mixed?Indeed a further look at plans for

Surely there is too much emphasis here on the affluent and not enough on the mixed?Indeed a further look at plans for the area confirms this view. Enter the redevelopment of Spring Street Gardens across the road, a calm little hinterland along the side of the railway which boasts not only one of the few areas of safe green space for children to play on, but also Vauxhall City Farm, earmarked for closure to make way for a shopping mall and multiplex cinema.There’s an interesting range of people standing in opposition to this proposal, which the council is giving every support to, including a group of nuns who have a convent there, a gay lobby which is campaigning for a local pub, the Vauxhall Tavern, to be left standing, and of course the local parents who have precious little space to bring up their kids and don’t relish the loss of the gardens and the city farm. This 17-storey building is not of course a wharf but a mixed development of luxury apartments, hotel, offices and leisure facilities.So far so good. Of course the rich will continue to live on the waterfront, and of course they will want certain facilities nearby. On the “Effra” site, across the bridge from MI6 a building called St George’s Wharf is presently being erected. “Because social housing generates people on low incomes coming in and that generates poor school performances, middle-class people stay away.”But while Vauxhall missed out on that redevelopment prize, the trend towards attracting wealthy residents at the expense of poor ones is already evident anyway.

Rumours that three estates have been earmarked for demolition in the area have been rejected by the council. But a statement from Southwark’s head of regeneration, Fred Manson, is far from reassuring. Last year there was a flurry of excitement when it was revealed that Lambeth wanted to house the new London Local Authority building at Vauxhall Cross.The bid was lost to Southwark, not far up the river on the same side. This area, already home to the redeveloped Tate Gallery Bankside, has seen land prices shoot up since the announcement.Southwark council has been accused of “cultural engineering” whereby poor Londoners are forced out of their homes to make way for private or luxury developments. For years development was deterred by the planning hurdles erected by Ted Knight’s corrupt and unmourned Lambeth Council, as well as the large amounts of public housing behind it.The transformation began some years ago with the building of Peninsula Heights, now well known as the building where Jeffrey Archer has his penthouse with a view of the Houses of Parliament. But while Vauxhall is a mixed area, with social housing next door to large Victorian town houses, every indication suggests that the partnership’s ambition is to turn Vauxhall into a rich area, and one with less provision for families instead of more.The main focus of attention has of course been the land on the waterfront. Instead, inner city communities must be mixed, and since the greatest pressure for new homes is in the south-east, this means London.Sounds nice doesn’t it? Except that I live in a part of London which I know that Rogers and Prescott would agree is a perfect example of an area ripe for regeneration, and indeed the area does have a partnership body funded by a government grant dedicated to doing just this.The Vauxhall Cross Capital Challenge exists to transform this area of inner London, just by the river on the south side, at the foot of Vauxhall Bridge The transformation has already begun.

To achieve these aims, says Rogers, we must persuade middle-class families to move back into the city, and make sure that the centres of Britain’s cities are no longer ghettos inhabited only by the poor. Launched by the architect Richard Rogers and the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, the Urban Task Force’s report will endeavour to stem the tide of greenfield home building in favour of brownfield, rationalise VAT so that new house builders face the same penalties as restorers of old ones, and generally grip the elbow of the building industry to guide it in the direction of towns and cities rather than virgin land.
All perfectly sensible, if we are to provide 4 million new homes by 2016, discourage people from moving out of our cities at the rate of 1,700 a week, and halt the incursion into the countryside that has characterised new home building for years. It should be the basis of the national response to globalisation.. IT IS difficult, judging from the leaks so far, to work out why today’s 300-page blueprint for the revival of Britain’s cities is being labelled controversial. It’s a far cry from global governance, which has no cultural or democratic resonance. It reveals a fundamental concern about the prospect of European political union – the absence of a meaningful connection between the decision-makers and the voters It’s a crucial link. It should set local conditions which encourage global forces to see Britain as a benign environment.

It does not require the national governments to be subsumed.Our response to the global economy should build on accountability and flexibility. A global economy requires co-operation, but co-operation between accountable national governments, if it is to retain the confidence of voters. Good government knows its limits.Globalisation does not need over-arching, one-size-fits-all solutions. These are essentially statist assumptions, seeking to cap globalisation with bigger government.Globalisation has put into sharp relief limitations to government. Socrates’ doctrine that the basis of wisdom is knowing the extent of one’s ignorance is a good one for governments.

It assumes blithely that multinational corporations must be constrained by multinational government. It should mean the end of the road for high-taxing governments. Globalisation hasn’t changed the laws of economics – it has brought them into sharper relief.To put it far more succinctly than most of its proponents do, the Third Way is the idea that one can maintain economic dynamism – which depends upon low tax and sensible regulation – at the same time as comprehensive state-provided social protection – which requires high tax and high regulation. If you chase the end of the rainbow long enough, they think you really will find a pot of gold.The Third Way seems to be based on mere assertions: the economy is more international, therefore government and legislation should be more international.