Show caption Khan has more soft power than hard cash. What he does have, though, is the knowledge that when he speaks, people listen. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters Opinion Want to be a truly radical London mayor, Sadiq Khan? Here’s how Jonn Elledge From car-free days to London-only visas, Khan could bring about lasting change, and make the capital a nicer place to live in Mon 30 Oct 2017 04.00 EDT Share on Facebook

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The first thing to say about Sadiq Khan is: he doesn’t actually have much power. The mayor runs the city’s transport networks, through his role as chair of TfL. He oversees London’s land use strategy, by publishing the London Plan. Beyond that, though, it’s surprisingly hard to pin down what he can actually do.

Mayors in Europe or North America can pass local laws, raise local taxes, control huge local budgets. Constrained by a control-freakish national government, and a couple of dozen boroughs jealously guarding their privileges, the mayor of London can’t do any of that. What he does have, though, is a mandate – and one hell of a bully pulpit. So given these constraints, what would a radical mayor of London actually do?

1. Cut down on the cars

Khan is already moving to pedestrianise Oxford Street, which is a good idea because it’s currently horrible. But why stop there? After all, cities without cars are nicer, and the space given over to cars in central London is vastly out of proportion to Londoners’ desire to actually drive on it.

So a radical mayor would announce an ambition to reduce the proportion of land given over to traffic – and start looking for back streets that would work much better as street cafes or children’s playgrounds.

Khan could steal an idea from Anne Hidalgo, his counterpart in Paris, and run a series of car-free days. Photograph: Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images

As a first step, and to show how banning cars would make life better, Khan could steal an idea from Anne Hidalgo, his counterpart in Paris, and run a series of car-free days within the congestion charge zone. That should make it easier to spot promising sites for a full-scale ban. And once we’ve all seen how much nicer a car-free London is, it’ll be easier to win the argument that we should remove some of the roads altogether.

2. Keep the doors open

In last year’s EU referendum, just under 60% of Londoners voted remain: only Scotland was less Brexity, and there only slightly. Still, all dropping out of the single market will do is cripple London’s economy and cost it its spot as the world’s pre-eminent financial centre, so that’s fine … The mayor probably can’t do much about that. What he might be able to do is jam the doors open.

The majority of migrants to Britain come to London, after all – and London, unlike much of the country, is delighted to have them. So why not introduce a London visa, which allows incomers to live and work in the capital but not the rest of the country? Such a regional visa model has already been adopted in places as far apart as Canada and China.

City Hall doesn’t have the power to set its own immigration policy, of course. But it could, as the Centre for London thinktank has argued, sponsor a certain number of visas, with the tacit permission of the Home Office. That way, the leave-voting provinces could be protected from scary foreign people, while London could be protected from Brexit lunacy. Result.

3. Grow the city out and up

London at dawn from Primrose Hill. Photograph: Paul Davey/Barcroft Images

For years now, the rallying cry of British housing policy has been “brownfield first”. Not until we’ve completely run out of derelict or ex-industrial land, the likes of the Campaign to Protect Rural England argue, should we even think of building on green belt.

There are two problems with this approach. One is that a lot of land classified as brownfield is not, in fact, brown: the desire to protect the green belt at all costs has meant, perversely, allowing developers to concrete parks and playing fields in zone 2. (One in Peckham was given over to new flats just this week.) The other problem is that it’s blindingly obvious that it doesn’t work.

A radical mayor would realise that there isn’t enough space available in the city as it stands to meet its residents needs, and would look at how to expand it. He’d review the green belt land that lies within Greater London, and highlight less picturesque spots with good transport links that might make good sites for housing. He’d also look into the ludicrous farce of the “protected views”, which give rich people in Richmond the bizarre idea they should get a veto over development in Stratford, 15 miles away, just so they don’t have to see buildings behind St Paul’s.

Some of these things would be worth protecting. But a radical mayor would be honest about the fact that many of them aren’t – and that our fetishisation of them is making life harder for many Londoners. Unlike rival mayors in cities like New York or Tokyo, Khan has more soft power than hard cash. What he does have, though, is the knowledge that when he speaks, people listen. He should start shouting.