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In the unrelenting wake of the global recession has intensified pressure on the public realm to mediate between different actors vying to assert political rights, economic claims and social expression. Multi-disciplinary frameworks for reading economic systems as integral to the design and lived experience of the public realm have shaped our conceptualisation of the financial crisis as a city design problem. The following images and narrative offer a socio-spatial and political analysis of the City of London as a ‘business as usual’ city in which private interests trump public good. Through a design-based proposal for policy intervention and physical restructuring that radically alters the City's socio-spatial realities, we re-imagine the City of London as a true public city for the 21st century, where ‘productivity’ stems from the residential diversity, urban intensity and inclusive public spaces produced by significantly increasing the number of people living in the City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]