New Start editorial Oct-Dec07

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December 2007

 * 12 Why Aldershot? Why should the home of the Parachute Regiment suddenly be touted as the future of Britain’s cities?


 * 5 I’m possibly in a minority here, but I really liked the ill-fated stylised tailfins that British Airways introduced in the late 1990s.

November 2007

 * 28 Once upon a time, in a land not unlike our own, a fairy godmother hatched a cunning plan. To disguise its cunning, it was given a boring name and dubbed ‘convergence theory’.


 * 21 Some towns leave an impression on you for life – but for all the wrong reasons. It might be the sheer ugliness of the shopping centre, the mind-boggling one-way system or the rows and rows of identikit housing.


 * 14 A friend of mine was explaining to me the other day why he’d decided to stay in his job, despite being passed over for promotion.


 * 7 You don’t have to be the Queen, or even a regular user of Midland Mainline, to be impressed by the jaw-dropping splendour of London’s restored St Pancras Station, officially reopened this week.

October 2007

 * 31 The great urbanist Jane Jacobs was never one to hedge her opinions with ifs and buts. ‘To seek causes of poverty is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes,’ she thundered in The economy of cities. ‘Only prosperity has causes.’


 * 24 Imagine a football league where, if a team has a run of bad results, it could simply buy points from another club.


 * 17 Followers of hospital soaps will recognise the scene: the ambulance doors spring open, the trolley careers through the waiting rooms into the operating theatre, medical staff run, white coats flapping, knowing seconds make all the difference.


 * 10 It was intended as a celebration, and it had all the right ingredients: tasty nibbles, free-flowing wine and a room in Westminster. The audience was a rich mix of think tankers, politicians and activists.


 * 3 Every three years most public and voluntary organisations become virtual Big Issue sellers, standing outside the Treasury calling for the loose change from the comprehensive spending review.

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 * New Start editorial Jul-Sep07
 * New Start editorial Jan-Jun07
 * New Start editorial Jul-Dec06
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 * New Start editorial Jul-Dec05

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