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Auctioning honours to community benefactors |
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Score
52%
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11 votes,
Feasibility
0%
Originality
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Humour
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Innovation in cities tends to be stifled by red tape, lack of patronage and lack of community identity, with the average rich company or individual feeling no particular loyalty to the local neighbourhood, or responsibility for improving it. One slightly eccentric idea would be to auction a particular lifetime honour, such as a new type of knighthood, one per rural or urban parish, to the highest bid over a reserve amount - the winning bidder would then have to put the money into a neighbourhood fund.
'To auction a particular lifetime honour, such as a new type of knighthood, one per rural or urban parish, to the highest bid. The winning bidder would then have to put the money into a neighbourhood fund'This fund would invite new and imaginative proposals for improving the area; a committee with local authority appointees on it would put those proposals which met basic criteria on a short list, leaving the final choices to the benefactor, who would also be able to suggest projects. Entries thus selected would be given a fast track by the local authority through planning and other obstacles. So to become Sir David of Seven Dials or Lady Marilyn of Easterhouse, veritable 20th century mini-Medicis, able to build follies and Albert-type Memorials almost at whim, would require a substantial financial commitment. It is the sort of honour that the Prince of Wales should delight in creating.
For a wilder version of this idea, see Leopold Kohr's book, 'The Inner City', £4-95 from Y Lolfa Press, Talybont, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY24 5HE, Wales (tel 0197086 304).
Valerie Yule, 57 Waimarie Drive, Mount Waverley, Victoria, Australia (tel 013 807 4315; e-mail: vyule@pa.ausom.net.au). She runs the Australian Ideas Bank (at: http://avoca.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/).
Based on a conflation of ideas from Professor Leopold Kohr, Nicholas Albery and Valerie Yule:
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