as for 'cascades' - while it doesn't cause major league offence (po-mo is too insipid to incite moral outrage) ideologically, it's another matter. following two decades of urban dereliction post the peremptory closure of the docks, there was an opportunity to give local people whose families had lived for generations in substandard conditions while they unloaded and despatched the fruits of the empire to their social superiors, an improved quality of life by building them decent accommodation adjacent to what is now the cleanest river in the world, running through a major conurbation. but then came the london docklands development corporation and a very different agenda of social engineering and financial manipulation was unfurled. this is best exemplified by taking a trip along westferry road, which runs down the eastern half of the isle of dogs, parallel to the thames. where once locals were cut off from the river by imposing walls and warehouses (they never saw the thames except when in harness) you now find them no less cut off by an endless phalanx of luxury riverside apartment blocks: on the riparian side of the road, duplexes by the dozen; on the terrestrial, council estates - as clinical a piece of social segregation as can be found anywhere on the planet. the lddc was a ruthless oligarchy, serving the interests of it's ideological paymasters through the cynical manipulation of billions of pounds worth of tax breaks, in order to initiate brobdingnagian office blocks, housing schemes and infrastructural developments, which guaranteed handsome benefits to those who were favoured by the politcal incumbents of the day. if it entailed the local populace being shuttled around like so many poorly made pieces on a chessboard, so be it - that's just the way of the world... been waiting 15yrs to get that off my chest.
btw, my original post should have included 'o/t' in the subject header, for which i apologise.