I stopped by at Dick Puddlecote’s blog today, for no particular reason, and learned about two places I hadn’t heard of. Exhibition Road, here in London is a long street where pedestrians and motorists are encourgaed towards spontaneous order. Worth a visit with a camera methinks. However, the gem of the article was Poynton which has completely regenerated its stressful traffic congested town square into a new more caring heart for the town.
See how the residents fell in love with it below.
It amazes me how many times word like “kind”, “caring”, and “friendly” are mentioned in relation to a scheme of which Ayn Rand and Margaret Thatcher would both have approved.
Turns out, that in general, when people are given responsibility for their behaviour they don’t act like complete nob-heads.
The rap against liberty is that people are too supid and/or too evil to be trusted to be free (as if the government was made up of angels – rather than beings that are just as human as the people they order about). However, even if the charge was true – there is no way that people can grow (either intellectually or in moral terms) if they are kept as playthings of the state.
Hat tip tp Gladstone – as he is not around to mention that I have just nicked his argument and reworded it a bit.
This is a good example of the kind of thing Libertarian politicians could be arguing for at the local level with a decent chance of success.
[...] Poynton falling in love with it’s libertarian heart [...]