THE CROWN LANDS

摘要

The role of the monarch and the Crown, with its privileges, properties and political power, has gradually and inexorably waned as the democratic and secular state has grown. All of chis evolutionary change pales when compared with Paris, where revolutionary political change precipitated Haussmann's revolution in urban planning.The effects of evolutionary change can be seen in little conflicts, little uncertainties and a lack of clarity. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Crown lands, as the great royal palaces were never originally designed to be separated from their surrounding lands as they are now.rnA large part of the lands owned by the Crown for its economic benefit now lie within the Crown Estates. Paradoxically, though this body acts as if the land was still private, deriving income from the market within a democratic secular state, they are beyond the normal controls and interests of both local boroughs and the Mayor.rnThe Royal Parks, which began as the monarch's hunting estates, are now becoming recognised as London's primary public realm. Lacking the boulevards and squares of Paris or Berlin or other great world cities. London's Royal Parks stand out. unrivalled and unequalled.