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Flats block a nuisance to neighbours
• TO find Ayn Rand’s views on individualism being presented as the last word in social philosophy, as H Ishiguro does in reference to Robin Hodges and his glass-fronted block of flats in Barnsbury Square, came as quite a shock to me (Legacy of a fulfilled ego, February 15).
Rand, an exile from Stalin’s Russia, identified enthusiastically with an American tradition of thinking which can best be summarised as “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” and which has for good reason never quite caught on over here. Quite simply, a philosophy which justifies – even glorifies – selfishness and greed can just about be sustained in a country with lots of space and seemingly limitless natural resources, such as America in 1943; it has nothing to tell us about the infinitely more complex problems involved in trying to accommodate large populations in confined areas.
All the thinkers, politicians and administrators who have dealt with London’s problems have come to realise that the intensity of interaction here requires a strong community framework, expressed by laws and regulations, if one man’s selfish actions (smoking or loud noise, for example) are not to create intolerable nuisance for his neighbours. Building an unsuitable block of flats in a quiet and historic square is a good example of such a nuisance. Hardly any of Mr Hodges’ neighbours like his scheme and many of them are going to be seriously inconvenienced by it.
We think, despite the government inspector taking a personal liking to it, that it drives a coach and horses through Islington’s conservation area guidelines. And we are prepared to support the council in its wish to see some affordable housing built into it.
Ms Ishiguro thinks we are being “irrational” in so doing, but she should reflect that altruism is nowadays thought by many philosophers to be a perfectly rational response to complex social situations. By contrast, the Rand doctrine of unbridled free enterprise has taken a bit of a knock recently with the demise of Northern Rock and the sub-prime mortgage market. And where are the heroes of Enron?
DAVID GLADSTONE
Mountfort Terrace, N1
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