Liabilities to Assets

An Engligh program called Changing Places, involving 500,000 volunteers and £57 million of investment, has been extended to complete its ambitious schemes. Already, some of Britain’s worst wastelands, derelict collieries, former chemical dumps, old quarries and industrial areas have been transformed into parks, wildlife areas, gardens and sports facilities. Rags to riches, one of the concepts in the American entrepreneurial spirit of pulling oneself “up by the bootstraps”, is in many ways synonomous with turning liabilities into assets. In this vein, it would seem a wonderful reinfusion of core American values to learn by example from this profound English project.