The King's Cross development has turned fifty acres of former railway wasteland into the most discussed new neighbourhood in Europe. Opinion on it varies, but the urban design is genuinely good: the canal basin at the centre, the Granary Square fountain, the Coal Drops Yard conversion — all of these work in ways that forced-regeneration projects usually don't.
Granary Square on a summer afternoon, with the fountains running and the canal boats moored alongside, is one of London's better public spaces. The Camley Street Nature Reserve at the northern end — two acres of meadow and woodland on former industrial land — is the quiet counterpart to the rest of it.
