Post #3890977

RE: https://mastodon.nz/@dayvblack/116818810472357241 '... #rightwing #governments in the #UK and around the world that have focused on #cost-cutting and running down the #public sphere in favour of private provision have neglected and in some cases destroyed #community #amenities, and communities with them. Shared spaces, Mazzucato makes clear in her book, are at the heart of any idea of the common good. “It’s investing in those collective structures,” she says. Arsenal FC also run children’s football teams and training sessions around north London, an example of the common good in action. “My kids all used to play [at nearby pitches] there on Friday nights, and I used to almost cry when I’d go there. You just see hundreds of kids and their parents, lots of them from the local estates, and I used to think, imagine if this was normal, imagine if this was everywhere, people had a place to go,” she says. “It’s not that it would solve #crime, but I literally would bet that if you made a kind of Marshall plan #investment in soccer pitches, public #libraries, public pools, and made it beautiful, you would see #health benefits and lower crime and a lower #cost to the state. We shouldn’t just do it because it’s good for people – which is the reason to do it – but it also costs you less, ultimately.”'