Review: The City is Ours, The Museum of London ★★★★★

'How and why is our city changing?' is the question that lies at the heart of the Museum of London's interactive family-friendly exhibition, The City is Ours. Originally created by the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie in Paris, this is the first exhibition at the Museum of London to be presented in both English and French.

Split into three sections – Urban Earth, Cities Under Pressure and Urban Future – the exhibition attempts to explore the pleasures and challenges of urbanisation, sustainability, affordable housing, air quality, and green spaces, as well as the ways in which individuals, communities and governments can work together to improve city life, from reducing food waste, to creating cleaner air, and better transport systems.

But with so many questions and themes, the exhibition lacks any direction and is exasperatingly random. Moving from exhibit to exhibit, it is unclear which ideas are being addressed at any one time. Despite moments of brilliance – the nine-metre-wide-film in Urban Earth, which compares the characteristics of the major cities in the world, is one of the highlights – the majority of the exhibition resembles a haphazard children's playground.

The series of never-ending maps, the text-heavy panels, and an overwhelming number of interactive machines, videos and data-centic exhibits makes this one of the most confusing exhibitions staged in recent months.

The ambition was there, but, unfortunately, the exhibition fails to present any coherent answers to the big socio-ecological questions it attempts to tackle.