A tiny victory for improved urban design

Earlier this month I blogged about a broken and ugly piece of railings in Crouch End:

It is these details – the look of road name signs, the style of bollards, the appearance of railings – that cumulatively can do so much to raise or depress the look of an area and the pleasure or dislike it gives people living there. Good design need not be expensive either – but it does require people to be committed to doing their jobs well rather than content with sticking in any old bog-standard approach and ignoring its impact.

In a small victory in that battle, the railings have now been replaced – and replaced with a new and better design more in keeping with the area: