Urban public art: can it be more than a developer’s decoy strategy?

Expensive sculptures are often funded from the same small pot of money as affordable housing, public space and highways improvements – but do we really need a physical manifestation of a developer’s guilty conscience?“Hosting of Draped Seated Woman” was an unlikely request to see advertised by a local council this winter, alongside tenders for the provision of litter bins and parking enforcement. But the London borough of Tower Hamlets is in a quandary: it needs to find a