Dear London,

Have you ever imagined how to make downtown London a better place? This is something I do all the time. Several months ago I had an idea: what would happen if I took my furniture, set up my apartment in a downtown public space and lived there for one day? Today, we find out.

I have set up my apartment complete with a living room, dining room, and back yard and will be living my day in the pedestrian lane-way between the Covent Garden Market and Dundas Street. My objective is to show Londoners what happens when public space is designed for people. By making this normally void public space my home for the day, I hope to reveal that good design brings good behaviour.

I acknowledge that there are many talented planners, engineers, and politicians working hard to make the necessary changes happen. I also acknowledge that the changes cannot come soon enough. I hope that this act will inspire all those working to create high quality public spaces for people to continue the fight, despite the many challenges ahead.

Downtown London is lacking in public spaces designed for people. Striving to reduce pan handling and other types of “bad behaviour,” the downtown core has unfortunately been designed to deter people rather than welcome them.

Making public space uncomfortable for the “wrong” type of people makes it uncomfortable for everyone. All the efforts made to remove park benches, add spikes to ledges and blast classical music has clearly not worked. The bad behaviour persists and the good behaviour remains elusive.

I invite everyone to come and share this experience with me. Have a coffee, read the paper, discuss London’s latest sinkhole, play some badminton or just observe. If you can’t make it today, come to Dundas Street between Wellington and Ridout this weekend to experience it as a place designed for people at Car Free Festival.

Ryan Craven