‘Nervous of its own boldness’: the (almost) radical rebirth of King’s Cross

The two-decade transformation of the industrial site north of King’s Cross station in London, once notorious, now a pleasant enclave of offices, homes, shops, bars and boulevards, is essentially complete. It’s a huge success – and yet is there something missing?The near quarter-century, kilometre-long, 67-acre project to redevelop King’s Cross in London is a monument of its age. It is the urban embodiment of the Blair era in which it was conceived, of the third way, of th