AoU Journal 8: Bridging the divide

Here & Now

AoU Journal No. 8 Autumn 2016 ISSN 2058-9123

In focus: bridging the divide

Julia Unwin: Reaching out a helping hand The economic divide behind Brexit Take Back the City Housing crisis?

Contents

Front cover image: Julia Unwin CBE AoU

1 Welcome 2 Editorial 3 The Academy in action 8 Common wealth or private wellbeing?

Nicholas Falk AoU calls for a

different approach to

measuring value

The Academy of Urbanism 70 Cowcross Street London EC1M 6EJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 20 7251 8777 academyofurbanism.org.uk @theAoU Join The Academy of Urbanism on LinkedIn, Facebook and Flickr Editorial team Alastair Blyth (Editor) Steven Bee Emeka Efe Osaji Stephen Gallagher David Rudlin Lucy Sykes Timothy White Design Richard Wolfströme Advertise in this Journal!

If you would like to reach our broad and active audience, speak to Stephen Gallagher on sg@academyofurbanism.org.uk or +44 (0) 20 7251 8777

11

Historical cities and everyday life Carlotta Fontana looks at how contemporary life plays out in historic Mantua

14

All change in Chattanooga A story of resurgence in this famous post-industrial Tennessee town

17

Bridging the divide...in focus

18

Reaching out a helping hand James Gross AoU interviews Julia Unwin CBE AoU, the outgoing chief of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

22

How the government can tackle the economic divide that drove the vote to Brexit Centre for Cities’ principal economist, Paul Swinney, lays out the facts

40 Why infrastructure

investment matters: the

contribution of civil society

John Worthington AoU on the

long journey of city transformation 43

Bridging the divide in Bristol Bristol’s former mayor, George Ferguson AoU, looks back at a key intervention in the city’s recent past

46

My place People with places that are significant in their lives

48

Space for great places!

A gallery of ideas and reflections on great places

53

Urban idiocy Brilliant but flawed ideas for the city

55

Urbanism and the gap How gentrification took hold in London’s Brixton: an extract from the AoU’s forthcoming 56 book, ‘Urbanism’

28 The clash and cohesion of

Manchester’s cottonopolis

Lucy Sykes looks at how the

gap between two Manchester 72

neighbourhoods is being

closed

32 Take Back the City

Tim White interviews Zahra

Dalilah from the London

political startup 25

36 Housing crisis?

Social geographer Danny

Dorling looks at of one of the

leading factors of inequality: housing

…And a final thought…

Urbanism, the silent educator: David Porter’s fifth instalment Space Place Life The Academy’s 15 Great Places for 2017, featuring poems by Ian McMillan and drawings by David Rulin AoU Academicians and Young Urbanists Who we are

The Academy of Urbanism is a politically independent, not-for-profit organisation that brings together both the current and next generation of urban leaders, thinkers and practitioners. Our mission is to recognise, encourage and celebrate great places across the UK, Europe and beyond, and the people and organisations that create and sustain them.

Join the Academy Becoming an Academician, Young Urbanist or Friend at academyofurbanism.org.uk/ membership Support the Academy Sponsor one or more of our programmes of developing, learning, partnering and disseminating. Please contact Linda Gledstone on +44 (0) 20 7251 8777.

Principal Sponsor Grosvenor Sponsors* Alan Baxter Barton Willmore BuroHappold Farrer & Co. Muir Group Ramboll Savills Siemens Space Syntax Thames Clipper Tideway Urban Space Management U+I Supporters in kind* BDP Jas Atwal Associates JTP Lathams Monocle Prentis & Co. Space Syntax URBED Wolfströme * Autumn 2016 Academy Team Linda Gledstone Director of Operations Stephen Gallagher Director of Communications Zarreen Hadadi Membership Executive Delano Bart-Stewart Communications Executive Bright Pryde-Saha Young Urbanist Co-ordinator Dogan Behic Accounts

Welcome

As I suggested at the time, the result of the referendum on 23 June was a reflection of the general sense of disenfranchisement felt by a large proportion, possibly the majority, of the nation’s, and particularly England’s, population.

Nothing that has happened since, and it’s been an extraordinary sequence, changes my view. The ill-advised and desperate commitment by the then-prime minister to hold a referendum on a simplistic binary question has opened up all sorts of further questions to which no one can offer a clear answer, or even gauge accurately the consequences of different answers.

The Academy of Urbanism will remain confidently European and Internationalist in its outlook as the future unfolds, but in the meantime, this issue of Here & Now explores further the roots of this disenfranchisement. It draws examples from the places we have explored, the people we know, and the experience we have gained to suggest how we might promote a greater sense of belonging among communities, and a greater willingness to share responsibility for our collective interests.

It is my opinion also that the current circumstances represent decades of growing confusion and dissatisfaction with what we casually call democracy. The relationship between national and local governance has steadily deteriorated since the 1970s.

Responsibilities have been pushed down to local authorities while power and control has been increasingly concentrated in Westminster. This is now well-recognised, and there are signs that the consequences are beginning to be addressed with the emergence of increasingly influential and powerful city regions.

What is yet to be tackled is the confusion within the electorate of the relative roles and strengths of representative and participative democracy. Since the Skeffington Report, People and Planning, in 1969, successive governments have tried to increase public interest and involvement in the planning process, while at the same time allowing the decision-making process to become ever more professionalised and adversarial. Public consultation is widely discredited as a device for legitimising vested interests, and elected representatives are vilified for their inability to reflect the interests of those who voted for them.

The introduction of Neighbourhood Planning by the last government may have injected a degree of logical process and responsibility into local planning, but it is still constrained by the wider context in which the duty to co-operate is often interpreted as an opportunity to confound.

The Academy’s continual search for places from which we can learn and offer guidance has identified many examples, at all scales across the UK and Europe, where participation and representation have been distinctly and discretely employed in the widest community interest. From the direct responsibility of the mayor of Rotterdam to the citizens of the city, to the community responsibility for Devonport Park in Plymouth, we can highlight evidence of how clarity of responsibility can unlock local resources, speed action and promote a greater sense of belonging.

There is no point in various sectional interests waving flags at each other bearing the same word. We need a better and broader understanding of the different forms in which democracy may be practiced, and more care in the way they are deployed.

Steven Bee AoU Chairman

Chairman’s introduction 1

Editorial

How do we know? How do we know whether our propositions for an urban environment, small or large, really will work? When we make judgements about good and bad, do we really know? A director I used to work for was fond of quoting American quality management guru W. Edwards Deming: “Without data you’re just another person with an opinion!” The director is a data analyst, so no surprise there!

It was rare to hear the riposte attributed to Einstein: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Nicholas Falk AoU picks up on this idea: “In short those who are making long-term investment decisions … would do well to go beyond conventional property measures, such as land values, to the factors that ensure long-term value or resilience, and that add to our common wealth. It is these factors that urbanists should seek to identify and promote.”

In her piece on leading a study of the historic city of Mantua with her architectural students, Carlotta Fontana AoU asks how such places meet the everyday needs of contemporary living. Her conclusion is to demonstrate to the next generation of architects and urbanists the: “necessary negotiation between the monumental dimension and everyday life, both having to share the same built environment, and the difficult task of preserving cultural heritage while providing good levels of urban usability”. Such negotiation is the stuff of everyday life in a successful urban environment of any kind and perhaps sums up the essential task of the urbanist as we try to create places that can accommodate myriad of activities and uses over time.

Kevin Murray AoU and colleagues pick up on this in the transformation of Chattanooga which “not only reimagined itself but, more importantly, gained from that new self-image the confidence to move forward.”

As we think about how we address the urban related disconnections – ‘the divide’ that, as Steven Bee AoU points out, has been highlighted by the Brexit vote – we ask ourselves how we facilitate the negotiation between different needs and uses, how to close or bridge the divide, and how to help communities develop the resilience to withstand the uncertainties facing the country.

The In-Focus… section looks at some of the reasons for ‘the divide’ – some would say chasm – between elements of our society and how we bridge that through our urban decisions.

While we need empirical evidence for what works, we have to use judgement too.

Alastair Blyth AoU Editor

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The Academy in action!

Cycling trips to Copenhagen and Milton Keynes, a conference in Dublin and a trip aboard the new Scottish Borders railway are just some of the activities that have taken place over the past six months. Add the assessment visits to this year’s 15 Great Places and our special 10th Anniversary Congress in London’s Docklands, and you have a stimulating, diverse and varied diet of learning from place.

However, we want to generate even more activity in 2017. But for this we need your help! If you have an idea for an event or activity in your area (geographic or thematic) that you would like to help us with, please get in touch with Stephen Gallagher, director of communications, on: sg@academyofurbanism.org.uk

Editor’s introduction | AoU in Action 3

URBAN FUTURES: CITIES AND TOWNS IN TRANSITION

The day proved that no matter people’s abilities, productivity was immense and the collective visual impact of everyone’s sketches was, without doubt, impressive! All in all, a fitting way to be part of Scotland’s Year of Innovation, Design and Architecture.

So, here’s to the ‘Spirit of Sketching’… fancy picking up your pens?

September 2016

In collaboration with the RIAI, this three-day conference looked at urbanism past, present and future with speakers coming from both Ireland and abroad to discuss national and international strategies. The conference was opened by minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Simon Coveney, who talked about ‘Rebuilding Ireland’, an action plan to accelerate housing supply to tackle the country’s housing shortage. The framework aims to “create more diverse, healthy and vibrant mixed communities with highquality design where it’s not obvious what’s public and what’s private housing.”

Dublin city architect, Ali Grehan AoU, echoed the need to create new communities with a focus on density and improving apartment living.

“Our household sizes are falling.

Not everyone needs a four-bedroom house. We have to look differently at apartment living. It could be wonderful, with communal spaces where neighbours meet and chat,” said Grehan. Other notable talks included Alpo Tani of the Helsinki Planning Department on the long-term strategy to develop the city to 2050, and Marten Sims of Happy City on the connection between urban design and happiness.

The event concluded with walking tours to the city’s cultural quarter and previous Urbanism Award finalist, Temple Bar, and the regenerated Dublin Docklands business hub.

Delano Bart-Stewart AoU communications executive

SKETCHING THE BORDERLINE September 2016

Sketching the Borderline was an opportunity to step away from technology and spend a day outdoors.

Core to the event was learning but it was deliberately designed as a way to experience the new Borders railway through drawing the place(s) as we travelled.

Everyone was issued with sketch books at Waverley Station and with some gentle encouragement and tips from architect/illustrator, Richard Rees, we were away! Final destination, the beloved home of Sir Walter Scott, Galashiels.

The art of sketching has become an under-utilised tool and yet it exists within all of us, despite many professionals feeling that they can’t draw. Once that barrier has been overcome, however, the power of drawing can not only be ignited quickly but also feel liberating. If used more often within the place agenda, it’s a very simple (and inexpensive) way to thoroughly connect to a place and translate how it both makes us feel as well as how well it functions.

With thanks to all the sponsors: Scotrail, Scottish Borders Council, Midlothian Council, Scottish Government, Architecture and Design Scotland and Born in the Borders.

Susie Stirling AoU head of placemaking and housing Scottish Government

YOUNG URBANISTS IN ACTION The Young Urbanists have been continuing to develop The 2026 Urbanism Manifesto, hosting a workshop at the Academy Congress to explore the future of urbanism in relation to transport, housing, the digital revolution, and funding and devolution. A series of roundtable discussions will take place to further develop the manifesto, which is due to be published in early 2017.

The second annual cycling trip was a great success, with 16 savvy young professionals cycling their way through Copenhagen and Malmö in early July.

Participants enjoyed a presentation from Gehl Architects and tours from Copenhagenize and the Danish Cyclists Federation. In Malmö, delegates had the opportunity to see and provide input on two major development sites, sharing their thoughts directly with the city planning team.

Learning on Garden Cities continued with a second trip to Milton Keynes – this time on bike, guided by Stuart Turner AoU. Arup recently hosted the very first YU Skills Workshop to help members develop design portfolios.

To celebrate UN World Cities Day (31 October), the Young Urbanists hosted a special edition of their monthly pub night to launch the Academy’s new book, Urbanism.

Looking towards the end of 2016, they will launch the next round of the Mentoring Scheme as well as the next edition of the Small Grants Scheme.

Bright Pryde-Saha Young Urbanist co-ordinator

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LEADERSHIP IN PLACE This year Grosvenor is working in partnership with The Academy of Urbanism to create a series of study trips, aimed at growing our expertise and exploring what lessons we can draw from other cities. Grosvenor’s mission is to plan, create and sustain exceptional neighbourhoods where people love to live, work, learn and play.

Bristol and Glasgow were the first two of four learning journeys, each attended by approximately 10 Grosvenor staff. With the help of local AoU chaperones and local stakeholders who have contributed to each city’s transformation, varied and in-depth discussions were held to try and distil lessons learned in each location.

Bristol Our experience of Bristol was varied, as were the lessons learned. Bristol is a city that is constantly evolving and re-inventing itself – for example the reinstatement of Queen Square to its former glory following the dualcarriageway development in the 1930s.

Bristol’s collaborative approach to the city’s development and management works well, with local residents exhibiting a real sense of ownership, entrepreneurial spirit and ‘can do’ attitude. Watershed Media Arts Centre was one great example where the creative industries have transformed the area, bringing vibrancy and local buzz through the provision of an exciting and flexible community hub.

We saw in Stokes Croft that a strong community, shared purpose and vision can be transformative in local placemaking. Grassroots placemaking initiatives have given this neighbourhood a new identity.

Renowned for its innovative street art and alternative thinking, Stokes Croft is Bristol’s self-declared cultural quarter.

At its heart is Hamilton House, a hugely successful social enterprise providing community space that promotes

collaboration, coexistence and community growth. Looking forward, Bristol is undergoing significant transformation, particularly in the designated Enterprise Zone. Here, early-stage community engagement is crucial if they are to deliver a project that meets local needs. In this scenario, balance is key – we can’t always please everyone, particularly when transforming areas and making key strategic decisions.

Glasgow Glasgow’s streetscape grid and architectural heritage have created challenges for local placemaking initiatives. The configuration of the streetscape means that many streets have grand facades and narrow alleyways at the rear. These back streets are under-utilised spaces that, with better lighting and security, could contribute more vibrant and active spaces, particularly to the city centre.

The River Clyde and M8 motorway – which flank the city centre to the south, north and west respectively – present challenges to placemaking because they are perceived as both psychological and physical barriers, inhibiting the nature and scale of development beyond. Connectivity is a major issue, and while some initiatives have helped to break down barriers, more thought is needed at the key junctions to smooth the sense of transition between the city centre and beyond.

Cities with a real mix of uses are the most successful in terms of placemaking, so Glasgow City Council has been re-thinking its approach to spatial planning, moving away from a more mono-cultural land use policy to a more diverse one. A particular current focus is to increase the city centre’s resident population, including encouraging more families to live there.

One supporting goal is to increase the level of amenity provision for families in the city centre, although there are concerns that the important

nighttime economy can conflict with this objective.

In the once-infamous Gorbals neighbourhood, to the south of the Clyde, we found that communities can create a great sense of place through proactive management of place. The area now looks well looked after and very inviting. This ‘new Gorbals’ neighbourhood also demonstrates that through good design and imaginative procurement we don’t have to compromise on quality to deliver something that is affordable.

Overall, Glasgow is a city with a strong identity and civic pride. People’s passion for the city and its longterm success is strong and genuine.

Importantly, the public and private sector need to work together to deliver long-term place transformation, in particular by linking up successive projects over time to reach a targeted and coherent end-state.

Leadership There can be no doubt that both Bristol and Glasgow have successfully undergone significant transformation in the last few decades. By visiting these cities in person and talking to local stakeholders we can use their experiences to inform our own decisions when creating and sustaining places. Both trips highlighted that strong place leadership, community engagement and a shared purpose and vision are crucial in achieving longterm, positive place transformation.

We’d like to thank each and every person we met in Bristol and Glasgow for taking the time to showcase their cities with such enthusiasm and eloquence. Finally, particular thanks to The Academy of Urbanism for co-creating and co-curating these invaluable learning experiences. We look forward to continuing our learning journey together.

Natalie Thomas Grosvenor Editor’s introduction | AoU in Action 5

OXFORD CENTRAL WEST Earlier this year the Academy and Oxford Civic Society, organised a workshop to look at an area around Oxford railway station known as Oxford Central West. This area is crucial to the future of the city and is perhaps the most extraordinary underdeveloped area of any historic city in the UK. Furthermore, with plans for the redevelopment of the station being promoted and masterplans being announced for the adjacent Oxpens and Osney Mead sites, there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to transform the area into a new quarter for the city, fit for the 21st century.

The area should be unified by a pedestrian cycle network with five new light bridges to create a web of routes that link a series of existing and new public spaces The University has released plans for the redevelopment of Osney Mead to transform the industrial estate into a knowledge park. This will include engineering, laboratories and a range of business space from start up accommodation to headquarter builings. The plan also includes student and graduate housing.

There was concern at the workshop that the potential of the area will not be fully exploited unless the various developments are co-ordinated. Yet there seemed to be no mechanism to do this. A group of Academicians therefore resolved to organise a charrette to explore a physical vision for the whole area. This was done on a pro-bono basis and was not intended to challenge any of the proposals currently being developed. Rather, the aim was to explore how the various proposals could be joined together to create a coherent urban quarter and better gateway to Oxford.

The 200-acre site is currently a fragmented and largely forgotten part of the city. It is susceptible to flooding and sliced up by the railway line, river and canal so that east-west movement is very difficult. Despite its proximity to the centre of Oxford it feels isolated, and despite the character of the canal it does not have the appeal of a valued area like the city’s Jericho neighbourhood. It should be one of the most valuable parts of the city but the constraints make development difficult and the railway station redevelopment remains unfunded. All of this can potentially be overcome with a co-ordinated approach. The main findings of the workshop were therefore: 1. The aim should be to substantially reduce the amount of traffic coming into the city from the west and certainly remove all through traffic.

This will allow the improvements to Frideswide Square to be extended and allow the car park on the former canal basin site to be redeveloped.

2. The Botley Road bridge under the railway is an impossible problem – as those who know the city will gladly

A new traffic route to allow Botley Road to be closed and to open up Osney Mead.

With a well-designed bridge over the river and railway linking to a new junction with Oxpens Road next to the Ice Rink. Cars will use this route to get to the station car parks.

The SPD for the Oxpens site proposes a mix of medium rise mixed use accommodation along Oxpens Road. The southern part of the site is in the flood plain and is retained as green space.

The Westgate development is currently under construction and will include 80,000m2 of retail space. A basement car park will provide up to 1,100 parking spaces.

explain. The city could spend millions on the problem and it will still be substandard and the works themselves will exacerbate the gridlock. We suggest that cars are removed and the Botley Road is turned into a bus /pedestrian /cycle route (and potentially Oxford’s first tram line) 3. Bus stops should be provided onstreet, avoiding the need for a bus or

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indeed a coach station. A bus circuit would be created allowing for pick up and drop off on-street, with driver layovers happening elsewhere.

4. To achieve this we suggest creating a traffic route through Osney Mead with a well-designed bridge over the river and railway linking to a new junction with Oxpens Road next to the Ice Rink.

This will unlock the development of

Top: Grenoble Station has been redeveloped linked to a new office quarter.

Middle: Cannes Station has incorporated all of the station functions as part of a traditional street scene.

Bottom: Oxford Road Corridoor in Manchester is being converted to a pedestrian/ bus/cycle only route, despite being a major traffic route into the city.

The Botley Road bridge under the railway is an impossible problem.

The city could spend millions on the problem and it will still be substandard and the works themselves will cause gridlock. We suggest that cars are removed and the Botley Road is turned into a bus/pedestrian/cycle route (and potentially Oxford’s first tram line).

The Academy of Urbanism brought together a group of professionals on a pro bono basis over an intensive two day period to look in a coordinated way at the development of the Oxford Central West area:

The station should be developed in stages as funding allows. The new platforms and through tracks will happen first with each element linked to subsequent commercial development as part of a clear masterplan that is integrated into the rest of the area.

Bus stops should be provided on street, avoiding the need for a bus or indeed a coach station. A bus circuit would be created allowing for pick up and drop off on street with driver layovers happening elsewhere.

There is a way of making the whole area into somewhere that is coherent and connected and which makes the most of its unique sense of place.

Reduce the amount of traffic coming into the city from the west and remove all through traffic. This will allow the improvements to Frideswide Square to be extended and allow the car park on the former canal basin site to be developed.

Osney Mead and allow access to the new Westgate shopping centre, while relieving pressure on the station area.

5. The area should be unified by a pedestrian / cycle network. We suggest that this will require five new lightweight bridges to create a web of routes that link a series of existing and new public spaces.

Illman Young Jon Rowland Studio Real UiP URBED WestonWilliamson +Partners

There is also a way of procuring a new station at a realistic budget, dealing with congestion on the Botley Road and even sorting out the bridge without spending millions. All that is needed is an areawide perspective.

6. Commercial and residential development on the Osney Mead and Oxpens sites should be undertaken incrementally. A comprehensive approach that requires sites to be cleared before work starts will mean that nothing ever happens.

7. The station should similarly be developed in stages allowing the platform work to be undertaken

first, with each element linked to commercial development as part of a clear masterplan that is integrated into the rest of the area.

8. This all requires a mechanism to coordinate development across the area and to use part of the value generated to fund the necessary infrastructure.

Editor’s introduction | AoU in Action 7

Common wealth or private wellbeing?

Every property surveyor learns the adage that there are only three rules in making money in property: ‘location, location and location’. But what does the value of a location depend on and how can it be influenced?

Nicholas Falk AoU reflects on a recently published book, Challenging Conventional Policy Wisdom, from the London School of Economics.

Top: Leidschendam Neherpark, Netherlands © Vincent van Zeijst

In an important book on urban policy subtitled Challenging Conventional Policy Wisdom, a group of economists at the London School of Economics (LSE) review research findings before arguing for radical changes in the way cities are planned in the UK1. Their basic conclusion is that markets work well in sorting people out, which is why those with most money end up in the best locations, so that planning is effectively trying to push water uphill and holding progress back.

Because it is so hard to get hold of land with planning permission in the UK, there are real imperfections that reduce the supply of housing, and lead to unnecessary hardship. The authors draw on studies to dismiss the value of area-based regeneration, at least as far as economic growth is concerned, and conclude that urban policy should focus instead on ‘improving skills in declining places, and on investing in infrastructure and housing in more successful places.’ Given that views such as these predominate in the UK treasury, which pulls the strings in government policy, urbanists need to

know how to deal with such arguments, including other research on the value of streets and open spaces.

Residential segregation Economists tend to compare cities in terms of GDP (Gross Domestic Product or Gross Value Added) per capita, but as the areas vary so much between countries such conclusions are often flawed. For example, averages conceal disparities, and major cities generate far more value than peripheral areas.

So a better criterion is a city’s ability to attract and hold on to population, which is linked to job prospects and wage levels. As ‘agglomeration economies’, that is the advantages of larger places, are greatest in services and least in manufacturing (other than some specialised sectors), the cities that are centres for consumption with giant shopping malls, educational and health centres, appear to outperform the others, even though they may be unattractive places to live or work in.

Hence we need to compare social and environmental as well as economic capital in deciding what makes a great

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place, and not try to group ‘apples and oranges’ together.

Britain’s ‘second tier’ of cities appear to be quite small compared with other countries, as a new Centre for Cities report brings out, with a ‘date tool’ that should make future appraisals much easier2. They are also tightly bounded.

So instead of growing upwards as compact cities, for many decades the population (and house building) has expanded most in villages and suburbs beyond the boundaries of the cities.

The LSE economists put the blame on Britain’s failure to grow as fast as other countries squarely on restrictive planning, which has stopped the areas where people most want to live, such as Oxford or York, achieving their full potential.

The book is very helpful in bringing together research conclusions on residential segregation. The differences lie in ‘quality of life amenities’ such as access to parks and entertainment, and ‘productivity amenities’ such as better schools or jobs. These differences are reflected or capitalised in house prices

Top: Monpellier © Berlinrobi via Flickr Left: Newhall, Harlow

and hence in land values (and interest from developers).

The factors that influence housing choice are fairly universal, at least among countries with Anglo-Saxon customs and attitudes; most people value space, and pay more for it as their incomes rise. So unequal incomes reinforce spatial disparities. But people’s welfare is also influenced by the compatibility of their neighbours, and the bigger the city, the more specialised a neighbourhood can be.

Differentiation may produce both economic and welfare benefits (but it can also lead to social conflicts).

The evidence from the various studies quoted here suggests that causal links between neighbourhood characteristics and life chances are weak or non-existent.

One of the authors, Paul Cheshire, has highlighted the negative effects of greenbelt policy in leading to people having to pay more for less than in other European countries. For example, the price per square metre of housing is 45% less in the Netherlands than

in the UK. High house prices lead to land values inflating, which cause landowners and developers to hang on to land, as the holding costs are low, rather than responding to demand, as economists would like them to do. He points out the absurdities that more land is given over to golf courses in Surrey than to housing, and that large parts of the green belt are given over to industrialised farming, which neither looks beautiful nor is good for nature, but which helps keep house values higher than they should be.

possibly because we are a much more unequal country.

The value of Common Wealth

As inequalities within cities are so important in the UK, what can be done to reduce them? Research into wellfunded policies such as the New Deal for Communities suggests the answer is very little. Where people’s life chances are improved, for example by acquiring the skills to get a job, they often move to be replaced by someone less skilled.

Also wealthier people much prefer to be surrounded by others like them, and resist proposals for mixing tenures. So housing policy is crucial.

So how should we respond?

Economists tend to value only what can be measured, which tends to miss out urban quality or wellbeing. Socalled ‘public goods’ such as parks or transport facilities have benefits that are hard to capture through charges.

Spatial disparities may be the price we pay for living in a liberal economy.

Interestingly while ‘area effects’ account for only 30% of the difference between city performances in the UK they account for 50% in France,

Private wealth, as Thomas Piketty showed in his influential book Capital, is largely bound up with housing, where governments have seemed powerless to tackle inequalities3. But urbanists should also consider common wealth, which governments can shape through planning and public expenditure.

The term can be used to cover environmental resources, as the great economist Jeffrey Sachs does in his superb book Economics for a Crowded Planet4. But it also can cover public

Editor’s Commonintroduction wealth or private | AoU wellbeing? in Action 9

local infrastructure should concern economists, for they may well lead to riots or anti-social behaviour, which do have a real economic cost (even if counted positively in the national economic statistics!).

San Sebastián

goods in general. Social entrepreneur Martin Large uses the term much more widely in another book with that title5.

He offers six solutions to the ‘loss of the commons’:

• Building a sustainable local economy, vibrant culture and community; • Transforming capitalism for public good and for individual enterprise; • Securing permanently affordable homes for all through community land trusts; • Enabling social inclusion and individual initiative through the Citizen’s Income; • Freeing education from bureaucracy and children from commercialism; • Leading and learning from the social future as it emerges.

Can we put a financial value on public goods, such as access to open space?

Any appraisal of Common Wealth should include the features we most love in our cities, such as the grand squares that serve as landmarks, the galleries and other civic buildings, and the bars and shops that generate vitality. The tree-lined streets of suburbia, as well as the many parks and smaller open spaces should also be counted, and perhaps even our inheritance of pubs and independent shops. Even if you do not own property, you may get some pleasure from their existence, which will also be reflected in property values.

If the public realm is allowed to decay for lack of maintenance, both rich and poor suffer, though it is the poor who are most likely to rely on the buses or walking. Hence property values and

research into preferences can be useful in countering the arguments for doing away with planning. Indeed ongoing work on a practical tool from the Royal Society of Arts enables you to compare places in terms of Heritage Index, and many factors have already been mapped6.

The value of streets A concise review of the extensive literature on the value of streets is contained in a pamphlet by Nicholas Boys Smith AoU, the founder of the charity Create Streets7. With 241 references, there is an excellent synopsis of what people value.

Indicators such as life expectancy or property values suggest that the old inner suburbs do best. Surprisingly perhaps green and open space are not the key determinants that might be expected. Of course prosperity matters most in predicting wellbeing, longevity and childhood obesity. People do sort themselves, given choice, into the best looking places. But fresh research using data from London shows that the bestconnected places perform best.

Improvements to our ‘common wealth’ depend largely on public expenditure or philanthropy, and property taxes bear most heavily on the poor. There are a host of projects that cost much less than High Speed 2 or Hinkley Point C and that have a greater impact, such as pedestrianised streets or trams (as in French cities such as Montpellier), but which do not get adopted in the UK because there is no money for them. Yet these are the factors that urbanists tend to notice when they ‘rate’ a great city or neighbourhood.

Major disparities and the quality of

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A city like San Sebastián, winner of the Academy’s 2015 European City of the Year award, is not only great because it is wealthy, but also because deprivation is spread around the city, not concentrated. It could well be that one reason why the Basque country has been so successful economically, with 25 per cent of people still working in manufacturing, is because it has been made so easy to get around, and because the common spaces are so well looked after. Undoubtedly the look of a place conditions how both residents and investors feel and behave, and so deserves to be properly valued. A research project by CBRE provides evidence that better quality of housing design in schemes such as Newhall, Harlow, can lead to higher prices, especially in areas of high demand. So people do appear to value amenity.

Conclusion In short those who are making longterm investment decisions, such as a building or an infrastructure project, would do well to understand urban economics, but then go beyond conventional property measures, such as land values, to the factors that shape long-term value or resilience, and that add to our common wealth. It is these factors that urbanists should seek to identify and promote. For as Einstein once said: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Dr Nicholas Falk AoU chairs the new URBED Trust, and founded URBED 40 years ago.

1. Paul Cheshire, Max Nathan and Henry Overman, Urban Economics and Urban Policy, Edward Elgar, UK 2. Competing with the Continent: how UK cities compare with their European counterparts, Centre for Cities 2016 3. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century, Harvard Press 2014 4. Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, The Penguin Press, 2008 5. Martin Large, Common Wealth: for free, equal. mutual and sustainable society, Hawthorn Press, 2015 6. Nicholas Boys Smith, Heart in the Right Street: beauty, happiness and health in designing the modern city, Create Streets 2016 7. CBRE Place Making and Value, 2016

Historical cities and everyday life Much has been written about the architectural and aesthetic virtues as well as the history of Italy’s ancient cities. But how do these places meet the everyday needs of contemporary living? For the last three years Carlotta Fontana AoU and her students have studied Mantua in northern Italy to get a better handle on this.

Many authors1 have often praised the Italian historical towns and cities because of their complex and sophisticated quality, capable of fulfilling both aesthetic aspirations and sensorial desires, in contrast with the general dissatisfaction generated by the functional urban schemes of the contemporary city. Historical cities have been intensely analysed, with many different methods and tools, to capture the secrets of their wonderful capacity in satisfying different levels of human needs. However, less effort has been made to understand how these cities perform in meeting everyday needs.

In most cases, the historical centres of what we call ‘cities of art’ are architectural monuments in their own right: visitors and tourists appreciate the human scale, the proportions, the materials of ordinary buildings and open spaces as much as the monumental beauty of the grand palaces, churches and piazzas. Quite often, the opinion of visitors and inhabitants on the quality of this kind of urban fabric diverge, as locals perceive a hindrance where as visitors appreciate quality. This is not just the case with very special cities such as Venice, where the simple act of purchasing and delivering a washing machine may prove difficult. It is quite often the case in less obvious examples of historic centres, where the pressure of everyday contemporary life puts a

strain on the built environment, which impacts on the inhabitants’ behaviour towards their own city.

Over the past three years, my students and I decided to explore this field.

Most of the students on the course2 come from abroad; they are mainly interested in restoration issues and choose to study in Mantua, where the Milan school of Architecture has a branch, because it is one of the most beautiful art cities in Italy. As soon as the course started, I realised that my students scarcely looked at the city as a real place. Rather, they tended to see its streets, piazzas and arcades like a theatrical stage where people are actors, and the houses, shops, restaurants and cafés represent a highly valuable scenery. In fact, there is something to that.

Mantua is a quite affluent city of about 50,000 inhabitants, surrounded by three artificial lakes, derived by the river Mincio in the 12th century, which create spectacular views. It was founded in the 4th century BC by the Etruscans. It became an important Roman city, where the poet Virgil was born; later it became a thriving Medieval free commune3, and finally a beautiful renaissance capital under the powerful House of Gonzaga that ruled the city and its wealthy region for almost four centuries, establishing marriage links with royal families all over Europe. Such a long and regal

Above: The steps of the church of Sant’Andrea by Leon Battista Alberti

Editor’s Historical introduction cities and | AoU everyday in Action life 11

history resulted in a rich heritage of art treasures and architectural masterpieces, all of them set in a homogeneous, well-balanced urban fabric where, today, many cultural events take place throughout the year.

During literary and musical festivals, thousands of international visitors flow along the streets and sit in the piazzas and under the arcades, moving from one ‘stage’ to another, and the city where Giuseppe Verdi set his Rigoletto actually shows its theatrical soul.

Yet Mantua is a city where real people live their everyday life. I invited my students to explore the ordinary, common character of a built environment they used to observe from a completely different point of view. I suggested a performancebased approach4, thus connecting functional aspects and the inhabitants’ perception. For our case-study, we chose the Percorso del Principe (the Prince’s Path), a thoroughfare which runs for almost two kilometres across the city centre, connecting Piazza Sordello, the main city square, to Palazzo Te. The route is significant, because it links places and monuments which attract hundreds of visitors every day. At the northern end, the large Piazza Sordello is surrounded by

important buildings from the 14th to the 18th century – San Giorgio Castle, the Cathedral, the Palazzo Ducale, and the Palazzo Arcivescovile. At the Southern end, just across a park, sits the magnificent Palazzo Te, the pleasure palace which Giulio Romano designed for Federico II Gonzaga.

Along the road, one can find medieval buildings and arcades, and outstanding monuments, such as the church of Sant’Andrea by Leon Battista Alberti, the House of Mantegna, the Temple of San Sebastiano, all of them spaced out by a curtain of ordinary houses that have been built over time, mainly in the 19th and 20th centuries, flanking the once suburban trail.

The ‘hard facts’ of the townscape (dimensions, shape, materials, texture, colour) have been mapped, together with the street equipment and furniture, street-level functions and activities (ground floors and shop windows, traffic, bus stops), as well as viewpoints and landmarks. A simple environmental landscape model has been derived by observing – from March to September – how sun and shade, wind and rain play along the path, walls and floors. Within this framework, people have also been observed: different groups of city

12 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

users, their activities and interaction with the open built environment, their movements, flows, use of urban equipment and furniture during the day and night, and during the week.

Over three years, around 50 students have been involved in direct observation, taking photos and videos, interviewing over 700 people in the streets – two-thirds of them residents or local workers, one-third visitors.

The investigation has been focussed on the observable (by researchers) and perceived (by users) performance of places, furniture and equipment, in terms of safety (mapping critical points for risk), comfort (mapping critical points for heat/cold, noise and so on) and use-adequacy (mapping critical points for poor condition, failures, unclean/unkempt places, poor accessibility, poor wayfinding).

One practical result of this work was, of course, a mass of detailed data and observation, organised by place and time, about issues such as pedestrian safety and wellbeing, wayfinding, hot-spots of overcrowding, poor maintenance, and the lack or poor position of equipment. Each of these performance assessments provides useful suggestions for willing city

managers. The users’ survey confirmed a few seemingly obvious facts: both residents and non-residents enjoy the piazzas and arcades as outdoor living-rooms, where people can meet, stroll, sit, chat over a cup of coffee or an ice-cream and watch the world go by; the flow patterns of tourists are conditioned mainly by the location and opening hours of museums, monuments, shops and restaurants; the movement of residents follows the timetable of schools, offices, and weekly markets. But both groups enjoy sitting and looking at ‘the other half’; notably, for many older residents watching tourists seems to be the main daily entertainment.

A closer scrutiny of residents’ activities and perceptions gave more interesting results. Residents, like visitors, complain about the overwhelming number of cars and motorbikes parked everywhere but, at the same time, dislike the idea of enlarging pedestrian areas or further limiting car access.

The residents are usually very proud of their beautiful city and its treasures, but many complain about some of the typical ‘positive aspects’ of historical centres, such as the narrow streets and sidewalks. These aspects cause cramped bus stops, traffic to pass

very close to pedestrians and make the movement of buses and service vehicles difficult. In fact, cleaning up after the weekly street markets seems to be a major problem. On the contrary, the irregular traditional cobbled and stone slab paving and kerbs are never mentioned as a nuisance, even by older people, although they are forbidden in the newer developments along the road by safety regulations.

Younger residents seem to be quite indifferent to the abundance and quality of their usual outdoor meeting places. They take them for granted and consider the city a place for old people. Despite the popularity of the steps of Alberti’s Sant’Andrea’s as an after-school meeting place, for the boys and girls interviewed the most significant local landmark seems to be the nearby McDonald’s. This point raised many questions among my students, but in the end it was clear that you do not need to be aware of the cultural significance of a specific place to enjoy the pleasure it gives. The kids sitting in the small piazza on the church steps do not stand in awe looking at Alberti’s facade because it is a familiar backdrop on their way to school.

Nevertheless, they do perceive and enjoy the well-tempered dimensions of

the open space, the friendly measure of the arcades across the street, and the apparent carelessness of good city form. They just sit there and chat, the McDonald’s sticking out in their memory because it’s part of their teenage imagery.

Most of my architects-to-be surveyors were puzzled at first by the idea of linking together the analysis of the ‘good city form’ embodied in a real historical city and the analysis of how ‘normal’ people (not tourist or visitors) use it. The foreign students especially, found it difficult at first to look at the city in terms of different layers of the same reality. They were more accustomed to consider the two aspects – the mundane and the artistic – as worlds apart. The Italian students, on the other hand, while sharing widely the same point of view, were more cynical, taking for granted that living in a monumental city is, in many ways, a bother – and that’s all. Both groups seemed to also share the unexpressed perception that, as far as architects are concerned, residents in a city of art are, above all, a nuisance!

The discovery of a necessary negotiation between the monumental dimension and everyday life, both having to share the same built environment, and the difficult task of preserving cultural heritage while providing good levels of urban usability, gave the students who were involved in the work a fresh outlook on the possibilities of their future profession.

Carlotta Fontana AoU is an architect, professor of architecture technology and director of the Course of Environmental Architecture at the School of Architecture, Urban planning and Construction Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano university.

1. Gordon Cullen, Christopher Alexander, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Jan Gehl, to name just a few.

2. Scuola di Architettura e Società of the Politecnico di Milano – International Master Degree in Architecture – Architecture and Preservation.

3. In Medieval northern Italy many cities managed to break away from greedy overlords, becoming independent city-states based on a form of democracy by the institution of the Comune (Lat. communis = common). The Comune was a sworn allegiance between productive citizens to ensure mutual protection and peace within the city. It entailed the right to armed self-defence, to freedom of trade, and often to mint coins.

Directly above: © Carlotta Fontana AoU

4. For a quick reference see: S. Mallory-Hill, W. F. E. Preiser, C. G. Watson (eds.), Enhancing Building Performance, Wiley Blackwell, 2012.

Other images: © David Bramhall

Editor’s Historical introduction cities and | AoU everyday in Action life 13

All change in Chattanooga In summer 2016, Kevin Murray AoU witnessed the changing scene in Chattanooga, the former industrial city in eastern Tennessee. Impressed by the distinctiveness of the place and its current transformation, he met with local people to understand the underlying story more fully. Here, Macon Toledano of the Lyndhurst Foundation and Ryan Sandwick of the Chattanooga Design Studio explain some of the economic, cultural and civic factors behind its resurgence and the role played by urban design.

Industry, as a way of life, is deeply rooted in Chattanooga and is perhaps the defining image by which the city has come to know itself and be known by others. Once celebrated as the ‘Dynamo of Dixie’, Chattanooga’s economy traditionally bore more likeness to Northern industrial cities than to the predominantly agricultural American South. As a city that takes great pride in its self-determination, Chattanooga’s particular brand of industry has always inferred not only a great place to manufacture and distribute, but also to invent, create, innovate and reinvent. It is this particular openness to the possibilities of invention that has been carried forward as a legacy from Chattanooga’s industrial past, to manifest itself in its current revitalisation.

Industry left a strong physical imprint on Chattanooga. In a city historically inclined to demolition as a path forward, industrial structures often weathered the wrecking ball better than traditional residential and commercial buildings. The greatest realisation of adaptive industrial reuse is surely the 1890 Walnut Street Bridge, which was converted from a defunct highway to pedestrian use in 1991. As well as being a ubiquitous, industrial era icon by which the city is widely recognised, the bridge has become the

dirtiest city in America”. In 1971, the last passenger trains ceased service to Chattanooga, ending the city’s reign as a great American rail hub. The trolley systems had long been demolished and, with the decline of industry, those with the means abandoned the city for cleaner, higher ground. Suburban sprawl dominated between the 1950s and 1970s, and the downtown was largely abandoned to America’s poorly conceived Urban Renewal movement.

The demolition of entire urban neighbourhoods, often replaced with nothing more than surface parking lots, was exacerbated by new highway projects that ripped through three sides of the downtown.

Many of the more formal design traditions that characterise other Southern US cities are conspicuously absent from the local palette. With the absence of any dominant vernacular heritage, there is no particular aesthetic that is more authentic to the city image than industry itself. The counterpoint between new and historic industrial buildings has become part of the city’s evolving identity. New uses often clash with discordant industrial neighbours: a stranded chicken processing plant or a drug manufacturing plant surrounded by encroaching residential and mixed-use development.

This was a bleak picture for a city that once stood at the forefront of American innovation and enterprise.

To some citizens, it was not remotely an acceptable self-image; they were determined to re-establish a sense of place and a civic vitality that would restore confidence in the city and make Chattanooga desirable to future generations. As leaders, they made no pretence of having all the answers. In fact, no one knew what the revitalisation of Chattanooga should look like. What they did have was a strong legacy of innovation and an openness to the possibilities of reinvention. They turned for help to leading urban thinkers and, more importantly, with their guidance, to the broader community. From the late 1970s there ensued a ground-breaking effort to involve the citizens of Chattanooga in defining the vision for the future of the city, a broadly-defined strategy that Chattanoogans ultimately adopted as ‘the Chattanooga Way’.

The landscape and townscape of Chattanooga today is as much a result of its meteoric rise to industrial prosperity as it is of its later decline.

Unfettered industrial development and its subsequent decay as an economic engine ravaged Chattanooga, leaving a legacy of physical, environmental and social degradation. By 1969, national news anchor Walter Cronkite declared that Chattanooga was “the

Early participants stressed the need to identify and exploit the city’s key assets, to create a place that truly served the needs of local citizens.

As Ann Coulter, the former head of Chattanooga’s Regional Planning Agency, has stated, “We learned early into our revitalisation efforts that the most important things were being authentic – not trying to be someplace else – and to do whatever we did with

preeminent pedestrian destination and vantage point in Chattanooga. The once vibrant Chattanooga ‘Choo-Choo’ train station is undergoing a similar reinterpretation as the core of an emerging entertainment district.

14 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Above: Historic Warehouse Row with new addition © Hefferlin + Kronenberg Architects, PLLC Right: Walnut Street Bridge, built 1890 © Ryan Sandwick Below: Chattanooga’s Riverfront during the annual Riverbend Festival © Chattanooga Convention Visitors Bureau

the highest quality. And now, almost two generations later, that is still our recipe for success.” Chattanooga eventually became one of the best known post-industrial revitalisation stories in America.

While the iterative community-driven visioning process – combined with strong leadership, expertise and local philanthropy – provided the principal framework for this effort, the outcome was a clear directive to reinvigorate public spaces and civic life in the city.

Three key strategies stand out: 1) The physical reinvention and redevelopment of downtown neighbourhoods, including the city centre and the waterfront;

2) The focus on restoring and accessing the natural environment; 3) More recently, the development of the technological infrastructure surrounding the innovative economy, especially the smart grid and super high-speed internet.

In each of these three dimensions, Chattanooga’s strategy was revolutionary for its time, reflecting the same spirit of innovation and ingenuity that characterised the city during the days of the industrial era. Long before cities began grappling with how to reinvent themselves, the citizens of Chattanooga collectively recognised the value of bringing public life back to the downtown core.

These efforts were embodied in the creation of Miller Park in 1976, designed to be the civic heart of the waning business district, and subsequently in 1988, in the development of Miller Plaza as an offshoot of the work of the Design Center. As interest in the form of the city and its public spaces developed, the Chattanooga Urban Design Center was established in 1981 under the leadership of Stroud Watson, a professor of architecture at the University of Tennessee. Stroud brought students to Chattanooga for transient studios, using downtown as a laboratory for innovative urban experiments. Many of the downtown’s most iconic places, such as the Aquarium, emanated from these

All change in Chattanooga 15

city and restoration of the environment are two of the legs upon which Chattanooga’s reinvention stands, then certainly technology is a third.

Invention and long-term vision have been hallmarks of the effort to rethink the city and build community confidence. In 2010 the city’s municipal utility company, the Electric Power Board (EPB), set out to build the smartest energy management grid in America. The same fibre optic network used for the smart grid simultaneously made gigabit broadband widely accessible for the first time in any American city.

The Flying Squirrel, a popularArt Hunter Museum of American Southside destination in an industrial neighborhood © Ryan Sandwick Sam Silvey of Spectruss

student projects. The studio would grow to become the city’s conscience on matters of urban design.

In the early 80s, the Moccasin Bend Task Force enlisted citizens to explore the potential of a national park along the river. The Task Force not only prioritised conservation over development, but seized this opportunity to expand the scope from Moccasin Bend, a distinctive meander loop, to include the entire river’s edge, leading in turn to the development of the Tennessee Riverpark Master Plan.

Most remarkable about the Riverpark and the early planning efforts was the consistent level of citizen involvement and the unusually long-term vision embodied in the plans.

In 1989, the first leg of the Tennessee Riverpark opened, finally allowing access to the river’s edge for public enjoyment and initiating the trend towards open space infrastructure across the city. As a centre of civic life, the riverfront attained a new level when the Tennessee Aquarium and Plaza opened in 1992. The reconnection to the river was reinforced by further investment in the public realm of the blocks surrounding the Aquarium, establishing an entire riverfront district Below: The Flying Squirrel, a popular Southside destination in an industrial neighborhood © Sam Silvey of Spectruss

with the Aquarium and its plaza as the centrepiece.

While early emphasis on the public realm laid the ground work, it has long been recognised that the key to a vibrant downtown lay in the residents.

River City Company, a non-profit development company, kick-started the housing revival in 1993 with RiverSet Apartments, the first marketrate housing in the downtown since the 1920s. Reflecting the growing appreciation of walkable urbanism, over 1,200 new downtown units were built in the early 2000s. To further enhance the appeal of urban life to families and downtown employees, the city government joined forces with philanthropic and private partners to build two downtown magnet schools, the first urban schools in a generation.

Right now there are more than 2,000 residential units under construction in the downtown area, gradually generating a market for the essential mixed-uses and services necessary for a dynamic downtown.

The urban revitalisation effort cannot be separated from the environmental restoration movement. Green infrastructure and open spaces have become a trademark of life in Chattanooga; almost as if John Nolen’s 1911 plan for a Chattanooga park system, while not realised in form, somehow foretold the city’s destiny.

Chattanooga has become a national destination for outdoor activity, with a growing network of trails, pathways, and waterways to match any. It is not surprising, but perhaps ironic, that the once ‘dirtiest city in America’ is currently home to the USA Cycling Championships, Ironman, Half Ironman, various trail running and biking events, America’s largest rowing event, a world-class rock climbing scene and has twice been recognised

by Outdoor Magazine as the ‘Best Town Ever’! If the return to the river-

16 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Soon Chattanooga was ‘Gig City’ and, with the recent release of 10-gigabits to the public, the full potential of such high-speed internet is only just beginning to unfold. The appeal to young entrepreneurs is strong if not obvious, and the reincarnation of downtown as the Innovation District represents the melding of technological potential with the more established focus on place-making and activity programming. Driven by the possibilities of the innovative economy, the first mid-sized city to have an Innovation District has just now become the first to launch an electric car ride-sharing programme.

At its nadir, Chattanooga had nowhere to look when it began its regeneration, other than to itself. It was the positive legacy of industry – of invention, enterprise and creativity – to which Chattanooga adhered as a guide for a ‘New Age of Industrialism’. The processes that the city pioneered, such as asset inventories and community visioning, have become standard best practices in cities around the world. Building upon these methods, Chattanooga has not only reimagined itself but, more importantly, gained from that new self-image the confidence to move forward with a commitment to pro-active, creative reinvention.

Chattanoogans must periodically remind themselves that the evolving notion of the ‘Chattanooga Way’ entails casting the net of community participation widely, in order to find a truly sustainable pathway into the future. Despite the many remaining challenges, each phase in the reinvention of Chattanooga reinforces the image of the city as a place of possibility.

For more information, visit: lyndhurstfoundation.org www.chattanoogastudio.com

Bridging the divide In Focus This In-Focus explores the nature of the divide that seems to have become so much more apparent after the 23 June vote for UK withdrawal from the EU. Needless to say it was always there, perhaps we should have known and picked this up.

Let’s start with a number. 13.5 million people in the UK do not have enough to get by points out Julia Unwin, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (p18). She points out that often their only power in times of change is to resist. But poverty is all around us, they are less likely to be homeowners – Danny Dorling (p36) picks up on the inequity of home ownership – and are the ones who are likely to be disenfranchised. While Dorling observes how house ownership, and particularly the rising property prices have led to displacement in communities as those who cannot afford to buy are forced out of an area, Unwin notes that while places have always changed the question is how to facilitate such change to avoid displacing the existing community. Perhaps the message from the vote is that those with power (anyone who makes or influences a decision over others) cannot carry on “doing things to other people” as Unwin puts it, but have to bring them along.

Economist, Paul Swinney, offers a historical perspective (p22). Drawing a distinction between the affluent South that has made headway in global competition while the impoverished North (and other parts of the country) was slower to adapt. Swinney observes that the vote to remain was stronger in those cities that have adapted to globalisation with a higher share of their jobs in high-skilled occupations. Therefore, there should be a stronger focus on improving skills in places with weak economies, and while it isn’t about skills alone, failing to address these almost certainly guarantees that these local economies will continue to fail.

Clearly then, while localism might be a good thing, central government has a key role to play in setting the strategic policy, particularly with skills development and education. For example, too many young adults in the UK still leave education without the requisite skills to be socially or economically productive. According to the Office for National Statistics, 11.7 per cent of 16 to 24 year olds are neither in education, employment or training, the so-called NEETs. 16 per cent of these are in the North West.

The urban agenda must include finding ways to bind together local communities, providing the education and the job opportunities, as well as the housing, enabling them to be globally connected but locally focused.

The following articles should offer some more perspective.

Heygate estate © Andrew Sides via Flickr

All change inEditor’s Chattanooga introduction | Editor’s | AoU introduction in Action 17

Reaching out a helping hand: identifying and enfranchising the impoverished in Britain’s urban neighbourhoods For Here & Now James Gross AoU caught up with Julia Unwin CBE AoU prior to her stepping down from 10 years at the helm of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and in advance of her chairing a new Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, alongside its involvement with sustainable urban neighbourhoods such as Derwenthorpe, has a long and established history of tackling the root causes of poverty and social exclusion. As part of Here & Now’s focus on mechanisms and analysis of how to connect to the disenfranchised, we wanted to establish some of the key pointers towards successful enfranchisement and how (and who) practitioners should be targeting to ensure a greater sense of true success when regenerating poor areas of the UK. JU: “At JRF we talk a lot about the ‘geography of poverty’.

We know that there are 13.5 million people in the UK without enough to get by, which is the definition we’ve used to describe people in poverty, which causes real harm; to not just to them as individuals but also to the communities in which they live. Too often their only power in times of change is to resist. Our planning system privileges the ability to resist and say no, rather than to imagine and to create something new.

However it’s really important to recognise that there are some places where poverty is concentrated and that there are equally the same number of people who are not in poor places who are poor. It’s probably a bigger group in poverty who feel disenfranchised, but the people who haven’t got the money to take part, and who are less likely to be home owners (or if they are home owners they may be in more precarious home ownership), are the ones who are likely to be disenfranchised in any local decision making. This presents a real challenge for public policy makers whether they focus on the poorest places, or on the poorest people who are spread between the poorest places and other places”.

H&N: So, a question for regeneration professionals is how to recognise that poverty in different areas will 18 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

have different impacts on who can take part in debate given the challenge of focusing on poorest places or people?

JU: “I suspect that for regeneration professionals both of those are quite a dilemma and present a conundrum.

In areas of concentrated poverty you can tell if you walk down the street that this is a place that is full of people in poverty. There are signals in ways that are completely obvious to people; cheap [expensive] finance, cheap alcohol, betting shops and fast food outlets – nearly all things that are licenced by somebody to be there.

If a place looks as if it’s full of poverty, it makes it extremely hard to have a sense of self-respect and enfranchisement. Equally in more mixed areas there are still people in desperate poverty who can also be just as excluded”.

H&N: But would you agree that the degree to which a neighbourhood is mixed is a strong indicator of a successful place, and one where there is likely to be better enfranchisement of the community as a whole?

JU: “In mixed areas, what Frank Field called several decades ago ‘the sharp elbows of the middle class’ will drive out the concerns and voices of those who haven’t got as much. We have in the past used a proxy of housing tenure to suggest whether people are enfranchised or not. Our research shows that this is out of date. There are 4 million people who are poor that are in home ownership, just as there are 4 million people in the private rented sector, and another 4 million in social housing. Housing tenure isn’t that useful as a measure of describing where poverty is”.

H&N: So, if the tenureship of household is no longer an indicator of poverty and effects enfranchisement across the board, what might be the tools and triggers to break down barriers to engagement?

Left: Scarborough: recently announced as one of the government’s 10 ‘social mobility hot spots’.

Above: Julia Unwin CBE AoU

JU: “Lets start for the other end – it’s a question of which voices you want to hear and what are you offering them?

In my experience the quickest way to get people involved is to do something about what we want people to stop.

Campaigns to stop the hospital from closing or have new housing being built are very loud and vociferous and involve a lot of people. Despite decades of ‘Planning for Real’ and other such activities, we are still desperately far adrift from enabling people to envisage and design what it is that they want.

Ben Page [of Ipsos Mori] always says this thing about getting people to agree to housing; that if you poll people in a town/village and ask ‘do you want there to be more housing?’ they say no. If you ask do you want there to be more housing for their children and so that young people will remain, they say yes. To me that is a metaphor to keeping the benefits connected to the individual you’re talking to rather than abstract”.

H&N: This links to the AoU’s commentary on Brixton, one of the 75 ‘Great Neighbourhood’s the AoU has identified in its 10 year history (see page 25). David Rudlin AoU et al seem to suggest that regeneration via gentrification can be seen to have shortcomings from the perspective of the existing community.

Perhaps this is due to the extent to which the disenfranchised are unable (or insufficiently skilled) to take advantage of the benefits supposedly targeted at them, and that other groups identify benefits (e.g. community safety) which suddenly provides the triggers for rapid colonisation of a place to the subsequent disadvantage of those for whom regeneration was originally intended. Might there be mechanisms for avoiding these pitfalls that could be employed in Brixton and elsewhere?

JU: “The former Housing Action Trusts [a big regeneration experiment under New Labour] worked

very well to engage the disenfranchised because people could see the benefits for themselves. They were very targeted on a particular group of people rather than a wider area. Most of us are human (enough) to see what’s immediately in front of us but not see what’s further away. So one set of tools is to focus on what matters to people.

Very often you’ll see a regeneration prospectus that looks as if it will have very little to do with peoples current lived experience, and indeed it may not. Areas of London that have been transformed have been part transformed by repopulation by a completely different group of people. It’s not that surprising that instinctively people didn’t want to engage in something that is unlikely to benefit them”.

H&N: Does this suggest that regeneration via repopulation (as a necessary component of gentrification) is a bad thing? The current complaints of North Londoners around the closure of Fabric nightclub etc. and the metamorphosis of traditional pubs into trendy bars that no longer suit the longerstanding community are seemingly at odds with one-another. Does this have the potential to make enfranchisement harder when the composition of the community begins to serve the incoming sector more visibly?

JU: “Places have to change, they always have done. At the JRF we talk about inclusive growth [Unwin is one of 11 commissioners on the RSA’s panel investigating growth through Inclusive Growth Commission chaired by former BBC economics editor and now JP Morgan market strategist – Stephanie Flanders]. Growth can bring with it the risk that it can displace existing communities.

Too many economic growth strategies focus on particular new sectors without recognising that the Reaching out a helping hand 19

Port Talbot © John McLinden

sectors that really are the infrastructure of our economy; of care, retail, hospitality are the sectors in which low pay is endemic”.

H&N: You suggest challenging economic growth prospectuses to deliver genuinely inclusive economic growth that brings jobs and meaningful change to people who are in those communities at the moment.

So, is the JRF able to single out communities or neighbourhoods that have delivered on this mechanism for success or should we simply accept that as part of growth and change some people will be able to better access advantages than others?

JU: “In both Manchester and Leeds there are real efforts to ensure as part of neighbourhood regeneration people are not left behind. However recent JRF research still points towards the inability of some people to manage to take advantage of available ‘jobs on the doorstep’, and that (in a common feature across regeneration strategies generally), all too often the focus is on the hard aspects of regeneration in the built environment, neglecting investment in skills, readiness and social capital in an area”.

The conversation gives a pause for thought. Julia Unwin has lectured on the need to build this social capital as part her address to the Human Cities Institute back in April of this year. She argues that cities can feature the best of good and bad, where we can be liberated from the “stultification of small-town thought”, but where “innovation and creativity are driven out and where, ultimately, poverty is locked-in”.

Aspects of social capital which support enfranchisement, and which urbanists and regeneration professionals would do well to acknowledge and seek to promote include factors, such as ‘everyday kindness’; meaningful networks 20 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

that touch peoples lives (as an aside from the numerous self-serving networks of ‘stakeholders’); and lastly, the institutions or ‘anchors’ that serve the city and the immediate neighbourhood. Considering ‘great neighbourhoods’ through these lenses offers an alternative view of place, one that transcends the physical and which is perhaps a foundation for developing inclusive and sustainable growth. Unwin describes this as trying to contrast the ‘metrics of regeneration’ (and therein one presumes the metrics and objectives of urban and civic design), with the metrics and language of how people live.

She acknowledges that the argument is still not yet sufficiently developed, but as an example she cites the regeneration and socio-economic ambition of inward investment, which is generally chased after without a good understanding of the networks and associations of social change that hold places together and make people’s lives worth living.

This is something promulgated by the US Urban Economist Scott Bernstein. The seemingly obvious, (but in reality rarely achieved) objective of paying ‘very close attention’ to what is really happening in an area, rather than the somewhat more superficial view of regeneration and design professionals (perhaps borne out of budgetary/time constraints or a lack of deeper awareness) who take a view of what they would like to imagine is holding communities together and how they are best engaged.

Again this reminds me of the AoU’s assessment of Brixton. Who is best placed to assess the performance of a place? Are indices of deprivation accurate measures of disenfranchisement and lack of community cohesion/satisfaction? The diagnosis of neighbourhood health and performance may

be experienced one way by an urban environment professional, and differently by the incomers (notably of the hipster variety) and again through different eyes from the long-standing residents. So, I asked Unwin, is it possible that our assessment of urban neighbourhoods (and therewith our ability to analyse and advise), has become too formulaic, and insufficiently sensitive to enfranchise those with the most to say?

JU: “Valuing regeneration through growth in Gross Value Added (GVA), and therefore house prices, works in a London (and possibly metropolitan) context, but in areas of high unemployment or industrial decline, where poverty is either rife or, on the predictable increase, and where values are far lower (such as in Redcar and Port Talbot), the measure of what matters and to whom, and the determination of ‘what is success’ cannot be achieved via a review of house price increases and must be much more closely linked to what the community can do rather than relying on inward investment in terms of bringing new people in”.

H&N: The role for professionals then is to take a more active position in planning for change and forecasting, rather than merely responding. This ‘what if’ scenario is perhaps one of the biggest weaknesses in the UK planning system; the absence of a plan B, and the difficulty of producing a plan A that benefits those really in need, results in a system that is forever reactionary and therefore undermines the skill sets required to forecast and make provision for major change.

Echoing the likes of Shelter criticising the £23bn housing benefit bill as a consequence of not planning for enough housing, Unwin is critical of successive Governments not having done enough to tackle the de-industrialisation of Britain during and after the 1980s. By simply allowing thousands to fall into unemployment, the State has created another huge benefits bill with too little attention paid on transferability of skills and getting people back into work.

This brings us back to Scott Bernstein and the need to look closely at community needs. Do you believe that more sensitive, locally developed frameworks for combining existing community skills, extant training and education excellence, and encouraging local entrepreneurship as part of targeted growth programmes, have the visibility and immediacy to be perceived by the disenfranchised as something tangible which would benefit those in difficulty?

JU: “It’s important to recognise and provide people with the feeling that they’re better off functioning as economic assets at the heart of the community and that they can be provided with the opportunity to both borrow from and build on their local social capital.

This is something that needs to be acknowledged and communicated right at the beginning of any intervention and not at a later stage. However, there is no one way of

doing things; regeneration takes an enormous amount of hard work and patience. I’ve learnt as much how to kill off social capital as to how to build it. The things that ruin social capital include a precarious labour market and a very insecure housing market. These are both ways that make it very difficult for people to participate and contribute”.

H&N: So, do you buy into the view promulgated in Here & Now’s last issue by former government economist Dame Kate Barker that the housing crisis isn’t touching sufficient people to warrant the moniker?

JU: “Housing needs to be looked at in terms of the ‘great iron triangle’; of security, affordability and [good] quality.

Security is being eroded very fast. There is less security in terms of housing ownerships with many families only just managing to meet mortgage payments at over 50% of their household incomes on (currently) very low interest rates which (as Unwin has been saying for some time) will inevitably go up at some point.

The terms in which families are able support their adult offspring have changed. With housing benefit no longer available for spare rooms, the private rented sector, which used to be a stepping stone to alternative tenures is now somewhere where people are raising families under shorthold tenancies. The affordable housing sector has become so strongly rationed that it now mainly provides for people who are facing very complex needs rather than people who will be able to contribute economically to their communities”.

H&N: Therefore the housing crisis, enfranchisement and engagement become intrinsically linked. The process of massively increasing housing supply needs to be made palatable to the communities and neighbourhoods who are going to receive the growth necessary to catch up on decades of under supply.

Perhaps your new role chairing an inquiry into the future of Civil Society might present an opportunity to ensure that inclusive, sustainable growth is provided with a stronger policy platform going forward?

JU: “There is a real risk that political power will always move to the better off, and that the voluntary sector and wider civil society will mimic that, unless it actively works against it, and actively engages with hearing the voices of the disenfranchised, and be owned and managed and accountable to the people it exists to serve, then it will go the other way of other sectors where power accrues extra power. What I’m interested in is how civil society can ensure that its beneficiaries actually have control, and have some accountability. In the 21st century we can’t carry on doing things to other people. We need to bring people with us and engage them in it. They need to have some control”.

For more information on the work of JRF visit jrf.org.uk

James Gross AoU is founder of Urban Place Lab Ltd Reaching out a helping hand 21

How the government can tackle the economic divides that drove the vote for Brexit The uneven geography of Britain’s economy has been more than a century in the making. Paul Swinney argues that to address it, the government must learn from the mistakes made by previous policy-makers.

One of the most commonly cited factors for Britain’s decision to leave the EU is that the economic disparities across different places in the UK helped galvanise the vote for Brexit – with people living in Britain’s so called ‘left-behind places’ using the referendum as a way to kick back against the political establishment. It’s not surprising, then, that Theresa May has made tackling these divides a top priority in her first months as Prime Minister, launching a new economic and industrial committee tasked with driving growth “up and down the country, from rural areas to our great cities”.

Other

Figure 1: Jobs growth in non-southern cities, southern cities and London since 1841 (source: © Great Britain Historical GIS/University of Portsmouth, 2016: www.visionofbritain.org.uk; Centre for Cities, 2016) 3.5m

Non-southern cities

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Let’s split these charts into three phases. Phase I runs from 1841 to 1951. It shows the incredible job creation seen in cities in the North, Midlands and Wales during this period, which were six times larger by the end of the period than at the start of it. This growth was driven predominantly by the expansion of mining and manufacturing, which accounted for half of the total growth over the period.

Phase II runs from 1951 to 1991. During this time, these cities went into reverse, seeing their total number of jobs decline by 14 per cent. This was a result of increasing globalisation, which opened up the manufacturing growth engine of these cities to ever greater global competition. The outcome of this increase in competition was that jobs in mining and manufacturing fell by 56 per cent. Phase III signals another shift in the economies of cities outside of the south of England, with the total number of jobs rising

However, to understand the uneven economic development of the UK and how it can be addressed, policy-makers need to look at how Britain’s economy has changed over the past 180 years – and in particular, why some places and industries have thrived, while others have gone into decline as a result of globalisation. Figure 1 shows the growth in jobs of different parts of the UK since the first half of the nineteenth century, divided along the following

8m

categories: southern cities (excluding London), London itself, and cities elsewhere in England and Wales.

Public

High Value Services

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22 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

2011

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again in these places. This time, however, it was the growth of the public sector that hid the continued malaise of the private sector, which was 22 per cent smaller in jobs terms in 2011 than its peak sixty years earlier.

Mansfield

60%

Coventry 50%

Now contrast this to the performance of southern cities, where economic growth has been uninterrupted since 1841, primarily because they have historically been less reliant on mining and manufacturing to grow their economies than cities elsewhere. As a result, they expanded more slowly up until 1951, but were not hit as hard by the decline of the two sectors after 1951.

The rise of higher value services in their economies has allowed them to make ever larger contributions to the national economy in this period, as it has moved towards specialising in these activities.

40% 30%

Hull

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Share of jobs in extraction & manufacturing, 1981

Figure 2: Share of employment in extraction and manufacturing industries in 1981 and share of votes for leave (Source: Electoral Commission, NOMIS)

Share of votes for leave, EU Referendum 2016

Ratio of high-skilled to low-skilled jobs, 2011

Figure 3: Ration of high-skilled to low-skilled jobs and share of votes for leave (Source: Electoral Commission, NOMIS) 1.2

London falls somewhere between these two groups.

In the first two historical phases, the capital’s fortunes reflected that of cities further north – firstly enjoying strong growth, then going into reverse in the second half of the 20th century (London had 23 per cent fewer jobs in 1991 than 1951). But since the early 1990s, London has undergone an amazing turnaround, driven by high-value service businesses, which brought 1.4 million extra jobs in 20 years.

Manufacturing Services

1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2

These changes across different parts of the country have been driven by globalisation, which has created both winners and losers in the UK – increasingly rewarding highly-qualified workers, but leaving poorly-educated workers more vulnerable to global competition. Urban areas that have been the winners from this process (such as those based in the south of England) have adapted to the changes in the structure of the national economies, and have been able to attract higher-skilled business investment. They now have higher average wages, higher productivity and more new businesses being created as a result.

0 Under 50%

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Share of votes for leave, EU Referendum 2016 Figure 4: The highest qualification of residents and share of votes for leave (Source: Electoral Commission, NOMIS)

40%

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The opposite is the case for cities elsewhere in England and Wales, many of which have struggled to adapt.

They have received business investment in recent decades – when looking at absolute amounts of foreign investment received in particular, some have done very well. But the investment they have received has tended to be in lower-skilled activities, meaning that they have swapped coal mines for call centres and dockyards for distribution sheds, rather than creating higher-skilled, higher-paid employment.

20%

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Share of votes for leave, EU Referendum 2016

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Unsurprisingly, it is those cities that have been the losers in the globalisation story that were also most likely to vote to leave. Figure 2 shows that those places that historically have had a high share of jobs in industries most vulnerable to globalisation were more likely to vote leave – there is a positive correlation between share of employment in extraction and manufacturing in 1981 and the leave vote in cities 35 years on. Meanwhile Figure 3 shows that those cities that have adapted to globalisation – they have a higher share of their jobs in high-skilled occupations today

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Share of votes for leave, EU Referendum 2016

The economic divide behind Brexit 23

have not ignored these places, but they have failed to meaningfully tackle the root cause of their problems.

Figure 5: Share of employment in skilled manual occupations and share of votes for leave (Source: Electoral Commission, NOMIS)

Share of residents in skills manual occupations, 2011

30%

Mansfield

25% 20%

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Share of votes for leave, EU Referendum 2016

(both in services and manufacturing) – were most likely to vote to remain in the EU. This is also reflected in the skills-levels of residents in different cities. Places with a high share of residents with degrees were much more likely to vote to remain in the EU, while those places with high shares of residents that don’t have five good GCSEs (or equivalent) were more likely to vote to leave.

Meanwhile those cities with the highest share of skilled manual workers – those most vulnerable to their jobs being automated or moved offshore in the future – were also most likely to vote to leave.

This seems to support the narrative that people living in economically depressed places used the referendum to hit back at a political establishment which they feel has overlooked their interests. However, the truth is that policy-makers have not ignored the struggles of those hit hardest by globalisation – far from it.

Governments of all political persuasions have been trying to address the growing north-south divide for at least 80 years, and in that time vast sums of money have been spent in struggling places – both by the UK government and more recently through EU funds – and numerous programmes and policy initiatives have been launched to tackle these problems.

Yet these interventions have not had the desired impact because they have done little to equip people and places to respond to the changes brought about by globalisation. For example, in many places there has been investment in new buildings and dual carriageways, with little assessment as to whether lack of space or congestion are the fundamental barriers to business growth in these places – or whether that money could be used more effectively on tackling other barriers to business growth.

More counterproductively, we’ve had a string of policies and rhetoric (such as the industrial interventions of the 1970s) aimed at preserving employment in declining industries, rather than helping different sectors and places to adapt to the changes in the economy. As such, policy-makers 24 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

To address the economic disparities that helped drive the vote for Brexit, policy-makers must learn from the mistakes of the past. Politicians cannot hope to address the concerns of people in ‘left behind places’ by simply investing the limited funds available into ‘visible’ commitments to improve the physical infrastructure of places, when all too often building another new road or rail line alone will have little impact on the jobs and wages of the people living there.

Instead, there should be a much stronger focus on improving skills levels in places with weak economies.

Industries that offer high-paid, high-skilled work, of which the UK is continuing to specialise in (but which too many weaker economies struggle to attract) require a highly-qualified workforce with intermediate and graduate level skills. Of course, skills alone will not be enough to transform the economies of struggling cities. But history tells us that failing to address these skills challenges, now almost certainly guarantees that these cities will continue to struggle in the future – our research shows that the current struggles of cities like Hull and Stoke have been at least a century in the making.

More generally, the government also needs to ensure it is building on the strengths of the national economy, by recognising and responding to the diverse roles that different places – and cities in particular – can play in generating growth. As Centre for Cities’ recent report Trading Places underlines, that means prioritising policies to support continued economic growth in major city regions, making the most of city centres and ensuring that more people from suburban and rural areas can benefit from that growth and access the jobs that cities offer. Places are not islands, and understanding the roles that they play in the context of their wider areas will be important for understanding how to help the people that live there.

If economic disenfranchisement is to end, then we have to enable people and cities to take advantage of the opportunities available in the 21st century economy.

The emerging ‘place-based’ industrial strategy provides the opportunity to do this, changing the policy approach from one focussed on more shiny buildings to one focussed on tackling long-term problems. If this change in direction isn’t made, then history suggests that it will simply leave them vulnerable to the next economic downturn, whenever that may be.

Paul Swinney is principal economist at Centre for Cities.

For more information on Centre for Cities visit centreforcities.org/

Urbanism and the gap In November this year the Academy publishes its third book with Routledge written by Academicians David Rudlin, Rob Thompson and Sarah Jarvis. Urbanism is a compendium of the 75 finalists for the Academy’s awards between 2009 and 2013 together with essays that draw out some of the lessons from this incredibly diverse list of cities, towns, neighbourhoods streets and places.

One of the themes to emerge is gentrification; places that were once run down, which are then ‘discovered’ by creative people and businesses and which then become so popular that the local community (and indeed the creatives) are squeezed out. For the Academy this poses some difficult questions about whether our awards are recognition of the strength of the original community, the creative transition period or the gentrified end point?

Nowhere are these issues more relevant than in London’s Brixton neighbourhood; here is an extract from the book….

Brixton Urban 75, a popular online forum based in Brixton, says on its site that there are some who worry that a ‘slew of swanky bars and restaurants is threatening the very essence of Brixton’. They go on to say, however, that ‘it’ll take a lot more than a few sushi bars to kill off the colourful, exciting and unique character of Brixton’.

This, it seems, goes to the heart of the question about what makes a good neighbourhood. Brixton is now the trendiest of south London neighbourhoods with a ‘boho’ arts scene, farmers’ market and, yes, plenty of sushi bars, along with restaurants of just about every other nationality. It was also one of the first

places to apply the Transition Towns philosophy at the neighbourhood scale, hosts one of the country’s largest urban green fairs and has adopted the Brixton Pound as its local currency, all the things that secures a neighbourhood a nomination in The Academy of Urbanism Awards.

But there is another side to Brixton and one that has perhaps given it an even better claim to the title of great neighbourhood. This is the Brixton where the community has come together to battle poverty and poor housing, gangs, riots and rampant street crime. It is the resilience and character of this older community that makes Brixton a great neighbourhood rather than The economic divide behind Brexit | Urbanism and the gap

25

The new wave of delis and restaurants in Brixton Village

Ritzy Cinema on Windrush Square

the trendy bars or even the Brixton Pound. We hope that Urban 75 are right when they say it is not under threat.

The middle classes were not to stay long. By the end of the 19th century it had become a much less genteel place, known as home to entertainers like Dan Leno and even Charlie Chaplin for a time. Decline in the inter-war years led to the middle-class villas being subdivided into bedsits. During the Second World War Brixton was heavily bombed and in the post-war years, as the leases on its houses fell in, the area was subject to extensive slum clearance. Eventually, this led to the construction of six large council estates that were to accommodate a large part of Brixton’s population, particularly the Caribbean community.

This community brought with it some of the less pleasant aspects of Caribbean life. Brixton became the base for two notorious Jamaican ‘Yardie’ gangs, the Firehouse Posse and the Kartel Crew, gaining a reputation for street crime and drug dealing, and this gangland culture has been part of Brixton ever since.

As recently as 2012 the BBC called Brixton’s GAS the most notorious gang in London. At the time GAS was at war with Brixton’s other gangs, The Murderzone, Poverty Driven Children and Organised Crime and it was estimated that half of all shootings in the capital were gang related.

In 1948 when the ship the Empire Windrush docked in London, it bought the first 492 immigrants to the UK from Jamaica. The group was initially housed in a shelter in Clapham and instructed to sign on at the nearest labour exchange on Coldharbour Lane in Brixton. In the years that followed this seed community started to move into the surrounding streets and, as further immigrants came, they made Brixton into the first and largest Caribbean community in the UK. They came into a Brixton ravaged by war and poor housing.

Most of London’s local centres grew from villages absorbed into the growing city. Brixton is the exception.

It was an area of forest that remained undeveloped until relatively late in London’s history. Not until the construction of Vauxhall Bridge in 1816 did ribbon development start to stretch along the Clapham Road and the Brixton Road (both of which are Roman in origin). However, it was the opening of the Chatham Main Line railway in 1860 that caused the area to develop.

Indeed, the next 20 years saw a huge building boom from which Brixton emerged as a fashionable middleclass suburb. In 1877 James Smith of Tooting used his racecourse winnings to build the UK’s first purposebuilt department store in Brixton, which he called Bon Marché after the world’s first department store of the same name in Paris. Two further department stores opened and soon Brixton was rivalling Oxford Street as a shopping destination. Electric Avenue opened in 1880 as an arcaded shopping street, the first in London to be lit by electricity.

26 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Back in April 1981 a similar surge in street crime in the Brixton area prompted the Metropolitan Police to mount an exercise code-named Operation Swamp (which was presumably to be drained). Over the course of six days they stopped and searched almost 1,000 people, mostly young black men. On the seventh day the area erupted into some of the worst rioting seen in London for years. It is estimated that around 5,000 people took to the streets and there were 324 injuries, 279 of which were to police officers, who also saw 56

Brixton Market

Electric Avenue

of their cars burnt out. The rioting spread to 12 other towns and cities, including Toxteth in Liverpool and St Pauls in Bristol. The focus of anger was the ‘sus law’ introduced by the Conservative government that had given police powers to stop and search individuals based only on reasonable suspicion that a crime might have been committed. This was seen as a measure to persecute the black community, a view shared by Lord Scarman, who chaired the public enquiry into the riots. The sus law was repealed within months and the Scarman Report led to new codes for police behaviour in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and also the establishment of the Police Complaints Authority in 1985.

These were not the last riots in Brixton. A riot took place in 1985 triggered by the accidental shooting by the police of Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce. There was further rioting in 1995 and the area did not escape the Londonwide rioting in 2011. The 1995 riot was also triggered by a police shooting; however, a quote by a local resident in the radical magazine SchNEWS suggested that the problems went deeper: ‘Local people are not only pissed off with the death of Wayne Douglas but the whole gentrification of Brixton. Council houses and houses occupied by squatters are being sold off and local pubs like the Atlantic, traditionally run by black people, was opened last week by yuppies as The Dog Star. In anger this was smashed, looted and burnt out.

The £33m City Challenge development including CCTV is only of benefit to big business not local stall-holders’.

Yuppies were, of course, the target of much of the radical politics of the 1980s and 1990s. This does, however, bring us back to where we started. The people of Urban 75, who were not worried by sushi bars, are

more likely to have frequented The Dog Star than the Atlantic. Today the players in the story are hipsters rather than yuppies but the narrative is the same.

Young professionals are attracted to places like Brixton because of its grit and authenticity. They are keen to protect its diversity and culture but their spending power and tastes inevitably damage the thing that they found so attractive. Local shops become sushi bars, house prices rise and the area becomes gentrified.

Brixton has not quite been changed to the extent of other hipster enclaves like Hoxton and Shoreditch because of the presence of its large council estates.

However, London is a city where the enclaves of wealth have grown and merged, leaving islands of poverty. The righteous indignation of Brixton’s black community may not be as visible as it once was but that doesn’t mean that it has dissipated.

Is Brixton therefore a great neighbourhood? Whether the members of The Academy of Urbanism who voted it as such did so because of its working-class Caribbean roots or its more recent gentrification we will never know. The tensions between these communities are, however, playing out across London as the city’s economy and property market overheat. If Brixton can find an accommodation between these old and new ideas of what makes a great neighbourhood, then it really will have discovered something significant.

Urbanism is published by Routledge and available from academyofurbanism.org.uk Urbanism and the gap 27

The clash and cohesion of Manchester’s Cottonopolis There is no more obvious, and usually contentious, divide within cities than along the border of two distinctly different neighbourhoods. These spaces can serve to disrupt our urban experience, and are often breeding grounds for tension and conflict. In East Manchester the development of New Islington, right next to Miles Platting, has seen an attempt to blur these inter-neighbourhood divides. Here, Lucy Sykes considers just how effective it has been in its efforts.

Subtlety is hard to come by in New Islington. Basking in the industrial spires of Ancoats, what currently exists of this new neighbourhood is loud, brash and absolutely in your face. The 25 acre site offers a new waterway, an eco-park, contemporary design and an impressive number of geese. Cranes have stood like markers and pointed Manchester in the direction of this development for years, but the constant sound of construction and vacant plots remind us there is a lot more to come. In an otherwise gloomy and wellworn city, New Islington is the saving grace of modern design, and almost every young professional within Manchester has been tempted by the bubble gum masterplan, close enough to the Northern Quarter to hear the cocktails shaking and the avocados smashing.

are responsible for the masterplan which has seen the ongoing delivery of Manchester’s most visionary and wanted neighbourhood, right on the doorstep of its most deprived.

But it is here that one of Manchester’s biggest divides comes to life. New flats are pressed hard up against weathered family homes and apartment balconies look into the gardens of dated terraced council houses. To the east of New Islington a much older, less polished neighbourhood remains. Smooth paved streets turn to pot-holed nightmares as the physical divide across these neighbourhoods translates into a bike riding hell.

It could have been a success too, had its development not coincided with economic turmoil for the city.

The late 20th century saw the industrial heart ripped out of Manchester. The birthplace of the world’s first industrial empire was being restructured; manufacturing was outsourced in favour of a service based economy. The grafters of Cottonopolis were left without jobs, and in the spiral of economic decline, East Manchester emptied.

In terms of inter-neighbourhood divide, it would be difficult to find a place which exhibits it as crudely as here. The point where New Islington meets Miles Platting is where redevelopment meets deprivation.

It is the urban borderland where, to look at, there couldn’t be a starker contrast between the physical fabric of the two communities. But various methods have been adopted to try and smooth these differences, and the area can be seen somewhat as a case study as to how, or maybe how not, we urbanists can use design and planning as a tool to connect communities rather than segregate them further. For this, we have Urban Splash to thank. The property moguls of the north-west 28 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Understanding the history of the site can help us to see why the development of New Islington has been so contentious. Prior to the development, the area was known as the Cardroom Estate, a late 1970’s neighbourhood which was less about design and more about functionality. It offered a low density solution to housing need; 200 council owned units propping each other up with large gardens and quiet streets. As in Miles Platting, it offered a much needed cluster of social housing within Manchester.

The vacant landscape was primed for dissent as the estate became victim to its undesirability, to its cul-de-sac design, darkened alleyways and lack of surveillance. The problems which had previously been associated with high density council flats were being realised on the streets. A few residents remained loyal, resilient to the sinking of their estate and getting used to having fewer conversations over the garden fence. They duly watched as the Cardroom Estate fell into worryingly low census-data territory and as the reputation of their homes became tarnished by association.

was going to be a neighbourhood for the people.

The recession offered an unexpected opportunity for the development to be processed by locals. With work grinding to a halt, New Islington began to look more like a failed ambition rather than East Manchester’s utopia. But the gift of time has allowed the initial units to become weathered, to lose some of their shine and scrutiny. No longer standing like unwanted guests at a party, the ‘new builds’ have become more consistent with their neighbours.

© Urban Splash

Urban Splash came onto the scene at the turn of the Millennium when, in 2002, funding was secured to redevelop the estate as the UK’s third new Millennium Village. Tasked with creating a new neighbourhood where the old Cardroom Estate stood and right next to Miles Platting, Urban Splash not so humbly went about turning, in their own words, the ‘dreary to the desirable’. The masterplan offered colour and quirkiness and housing on stilts. It was going to be one of the ‘most ambitious regeneration projects in the world’ claimed Nick Johnson, the previous development director for Urban Splash, based on inclusivity and mixed use.

In addition to Islington Square, the first phases of development have since seen The Guts (Mae Architects) and a stretch of terraced housing by architect de Metz Forbes Knights, both offering a mixture of shared ownership and social housing, incorporating tenure blind design into the neighbourhood. The handful of pre-existing residents were invited to opt into a ‘Right to Return’ scheme, allowing them to move back into a brand new house once it was built. The New Islington free festival of 2006 offered an annual opportunity for old and new residents to meet to the sound of Mr Scruff, whilst simultaneously drawing the city’s attention to the area.

Just how well they achieved this vision has since been speculated. There is no doubt that the gentrification critique looms heavily over New Islington, but I wanted to explore some of the ways Urban Splash tried to ease the blow of their extroverted development plans. I look here to see exactly what they did to help achieve crossneighbourhood cohesion over the physical and social realms of space.

With regards to bridging the physical divide, units of the initial phases stuck religiously to a tricolour palette of red, grey and beige, allowing for symmetry with the older units across the streets. With ambitions for ‘the best chippy, the Indian Takeaway, a beautiful laundrette, a great pub as well as a poncey wine bar and a three star Michelin restaurant’, Johnson had promised mixed use to provide services for everyone but, a decade since the first housing units were built, only a local chemist is actually open.

The Urban Splash approach To ensure social inclusion between the new and the old neighbourhoods, consultation was, as expected, a crucial part of the process. Residents were invited to select out of a shortlist an architect to deliver one of the first phases of social housing- Islington Square.

They picked FAT architects who, rather than giving a more formal presentation like other bidders, sat down with them and started a conversation with a brew, listening to their design preferences. With the demolition of the vast majority of the site, the association with the Cardroom Estate was rinsed clean through a radical rebranding exercise with the local’s name of choice, ‘New Islington’, being plastered on every construction fence. Heeding to the demands for housing variety, Urban Splash incorporated lowdensity family homes into their masterplan. With inclusion in the consultation and design process, this

A cohesive community?

But have the festivals, consultations, and efforts for inclusion been enough? Despite the attempts made

by Urban Splash, it still does feel as if a kink exists between the communities. Janet, whose house looked directly onto the new developments, told me how she had lived in the area her whole life and raised six kids on the Cardroom Estate. Rather than cohesion, she feels strongly disconnected from what is happening over the road. ‘They’ve taken the community out of it here’ she tells me, ‘We’ve been the ones who have

The clash and cohesion of Manchester’s Cottonopolis 29

Ancoats Voice Up 2015-2016 © Len Grant

had to sit through the dust and noise for houses we’re never going to be able to afford, and live next to people in flats who we are never going to meet’. The failure to provide the mixed uses is another issue for Janet.

‘There’s no social clubs, no shops, no nothing…they’re just crowding us with housing,’ she said.

Furthermore, most of the affordable and social housing provision to date has been squeezed along the border of the development site rather than pepper-potted throughout, the location of which feels more peripheral than welcoming. A recent art installation has captured a snap shot of local opinion perfectly. Presented on the border of New Islington, the Voice Up project shows sketches of residents alongside a quote. ‘They said there would be rich and poor people living side by side – it would be like salt and pepper’ says the obviously concerned sketch version of Lillian, ‘but we don’t mix’. Kate apparently shares the same sentiment; ‘I sometimes feel like a trespasser, as if I shouldn’t be here,’ she says, followed by a rather haunting sketch of Roisin who reckons the area ‘needs more buzz’. For now it seems that the borderland frustration still does exist.

Lessons learnt Emerging out of the other side of the recession, work in New Islington has restarted. The pre-fab, modular housing units, House (designed by ShedKM) have been built and snatched up by buyers, albeit with no social housing provision. Stubbs Mill has been converted into office space, and a number of higher density apartments are growing to the north of the site courtesy of Manchester Life Development Company. A nodal point is taking shape in the form of New Islington Free School, almost completed in its development, and is likely to enable cohesion in the playground at least.

one apparent saving grace is appearing. In a celebration of public space, it is the completion of Cotton Fields and the marina where the merits of any sort of inclusion lie. Providing wooden enclaves and walkways, an urban beach and distinctive Scots Pines, Cotton Fields offers breathing space for the neighbourhoods to come together.

What’s more, it allows for affordability in the form of colourful canal boats right at the heart of New Islington.

‘We call it the beach’ Janet tells me, ‘We couldn’t drag the little ones away from it this summer’. Testament to her word, you can usually find the area being used for various BBQ, fishing and dog walking purposes. For a city with little in the way of dedicated public areas, it provides a unique platform to combat the critics of the development. It will be here that the true mix of the neighbourhood will be proven.

Although in the midst of its completion, New Islington reinforces various lessons about the importance of mixed use, the value of consultation, tenure blind design, housing variety and siting as methods for cohesion between communities. Social events and a generous time scale obviously have had a part to play as well. But what appears to be the most valuable asset to help dissolve community tensions really does seem to rest on the provision of an accessible and inclusive public space, something that we as planners and designers know the merit of only too well.

Lucy Sykes is a Young Urbanist and works as a graduate planner in Manchester.

Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods Network (SUNN) Lessons from Ancoats Urban Village and New Islington Millennium Village, Manchester (2011), Available: http://media.urbed.coop.ccc.cdn.faelix.net/sites/default/files/ Ancoats%20and%20New%20Islington%20report_0.pdf Accessed: 02/09/16

Whether these current developments will smooth or exacerbate the neighbourhoods remains to be seen, but 30 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Len Grant, Ancoats Voice Up 2015-2016, Available: http://www.lengrant.co.uk/ work/ancoats-voice-up/, Accessed: 02/09/16

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Editor’s introduction | AoU in Action 31

Take Back the City: reclaiming London for the people

© Neil MacWilliams via Flickr

If we vilify the disenfranchisement, disconnect and disparity across Britain’s towns and cities, we must surely act upon it. It is no secret that many Londoners feel ignored by the powers-that-be, in thrall to market forces. But there are other ways of expressing our perplexities than taking a baseball bat to Foxtons or Brick Lane’s Cereal Killer Café, writes Tim White.

Founded in March 2015, the grassroots movement Take Back the City wants London’s future to be in the hands of the many, not just the few. I went along to the group’s September ‘training event’ and had a chat with member Zahra Dalilah about the problem, the objective and what urbanists can do to help.

The story The political establishment is “letting the people down”, Dalilah tells me; disconnected from the lived experiences of communities. As the epicentre of Britain’s local institutional experimentation, the effects of neoliberal urbanism on London’s neighbourhoods are the central qualm of Take Back the City. The group holds that private property rights and the free market have promoted capital accumulation over the requirements of community, family and home. It points to the institutional legitimisation of wrenching profit from social space, both producing and exploiting socio-spatial difference. There has been, Dalilah suggests, minimal political effort to “make the land 32 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

for people, not for profit”, as unprecedented levels of displacement and unaffordability plague Londoners.

Meanwhile, the group posits, top-down attempts to empower localities have made no difference, and power remains firmly with the “super-rich and corrupt politicians”. London mayor Sadiq Khan, with his ties to property developers and dubious transport promises is, advocates feel, doing little to address London’s inequalities. The Labour party is busy tearing itself to pieces and Theresa May slips into leadership without a word from the people.

“We need activism based on the everyday needs of communities”, says Dalilah. Our populace is progressive, diverse, full of energy and vitality – we shouldn’t stand for being so poorly represented. Take Back the City holds the simple view that we all have an equal ‘right to the city’, to co-create our urban spaces. It proposes a shift from participative tokenism to delegated power and citizen control; a creative, transparent, open style of democracy.

Take Back the City canvassing ideas for their manifesto.

“While you regenerate this city, it seems you’ve forgotten who generates this city” ‘Can you see us now’ event, Take Back the City With a crowd funded sum of £5,000, members campaigned hard, directly pitching their message to people on London’s buses, streets and through cultural events. Come May 5th, Amina gained 1,368 votes, apparently tripling expectations. Although amounting to just over 1 per cent of the total, this is a substantial following for a 14-month-old movement. The group’s Facebook page also currently has 3,000 subscribers.

Steadily gaining supporters, Take Back the City began forming a ‘People’s Manifesto’ for London.

This involved crowdsourcing the views of over 1,000 Londoners through visits to community groups, including unions, homeless shelters, schools and housing co-ops, as well as receiving online contributions. Dalilah stresses the importance of creative mediums, for example art and poetry, in attracting politically disengaged participants. What emerged were a set of policies “built solely from the needs and wants of every day Londoners”.

Part of a wider movement?

As Harvey’s ‘Rebel Cities’1 delineates, divisive state power and contemporary capitalism must be tackled based on the reality of individuals’ everyday experiences. The workplace no longer provides the main platform for this struggle in the West. Collective action thus revolves around the places in which we live; the insecure city-dweller against privatisation and gentrification. Take Back the City is therefore certainly not alone. The map above, created by Action East End, shows 53 local action anti-gentrification and housing campaigns across London, the majority of which have sprung up over the last few years.

I get handed the manifesto at the ‘training event’; a simple paper booklet “stating the obvious”, as Dalilah puts it. Among sections on housing, education, labour, transport and environment, it offers “seven changes we urgently need”. These include rent control, the reintroduction of Education Maintenance Allowances, a compulsory London Minimum Wage of £11 per hour and cutting current transport prices by 20 per cent. Take Back the City sought to campaign for these changes from within the establishment. In the 2016 London Assembly elections, Amina Gichinga, the movement’s powerful public face, ran for the City and East constituency. Dalilah described this as a process of “engaging with the political system from the outside, to demonstrate how different things can be”.

Right to the city-esque movements are also erupting in other cities. Take Back the City’s members talk proudly of the inspiration gained from Spanish citizen

Take Back the City 33

Above: some of London’s housing and gentrification campaigns, including: Save Soho, Aylesbury Estate Occupation, Save Earl’s Court, Hands Off Knights Walk, Save Norton Folgate, and many others. Map © Googlemaps

We Share Europe: a meeting of Barcelona En Comú © Marc Lozano via Flickr

platforms, where five years of austerity have shaken the establishment. Ada Colau, founder of a direct action housing group and leader of citizen platform Barcelona en Comú, won Barcelona’s 2015 mayoral election.

Colau has promised to “govern by obeying the people”.

Policies to reduce the city’s wealth polarisation have been set out, including taxes on banks holding empty properties, free transport passes for those under 16 and a ‘freeze’ on new hotel building. Similar radical democratic constellations are gathering recognition across other parts of Spain, including Madrid’s pluralist platform, Ahora Madrid. Syriza, Greece’s anti-austerity leftist coalition, is also of notable comparison. Much like Take Back the City, these urban groups originated as collaborative ‘spaces’ in which social movements could come together.

voice” regarding the unjust impacts on local minorities.

Potential involvement in a ‘renter’s union’ is also mentioned.

Looking forward Can Amina Gichinga and Take Back the City be London’s Ada Colau and Barcelona en Comú? The latter received robust backing from populist party Podemos, the second largest in Spain, and anti-capitalist, proindependence party the Popular Unity Candidacy. Take Back the City lacks this official support from within the establishment. However, at a post-Brexit alliance meeting, Gichinga spoke of building a progressive alliance with more established political bodies, like the Green Party and Labour. In turn, the Green Party and Momentum have reportedly shown interest in them.

The group’s post-election online video asserts the importance of “connecting pockets of resistance across our city”. Dalilah proposes that Take Back the City has unique strategic strength due to not being a single issue group, establishing it as a “political arm for the grassroots”. Efforts are thus greatly focussed on collaborating with smaller grassroots groups, like Focus E15 and the Radical Housing Network. Dalilah discusses the significance of a recognised movement that represents London’s cultural and ethnic diversity.

At many political events, she reflects, “if we weren’t there, there would be no one like us there”. Of late, the group has been particularly active in speaking to local communities about post-Brexit racism and xenophobia.

The expansion of City Airport has too been a major focus, “working with communities to build a cohesive 34 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

There is no doubt that Brexit Britain’s anti-elitist sentiment makes grassroots urban movements like Take Back the City more relevant than ever. Local activism can rebuild trust outside of central politics, allowing civil societies to realise their collective potential. If only through cementing social ties, these mobilisations can contribute to wider progressive movements. Meanwhile, they help to reconstruct the civic importance of urban space.

What can urbanists do?

Apparently, urbanists could play an important role in Take Back the City. Dalilah talks of the lacking transparency and accessibility in procedures behind changes to the built environment. Planning processes are especially bureaucratic and complex, working to “keep people out who they don’t want to listen to”, she says. This ‘knowledge gap’ hinders the ability of members to effectively anticipate and campaign against unjust decisions. They therefore want built environment experts to help them with insights, for example which local buildings or public spaces may be under threat, as well as general ‘nitty gritty’ policy knowledge. The group have already collaborated with Just Space, an informal body encouraging public participation in planning, and Land for What, who question the for-profit dominance of land. Interested?

Dalilah suggests heading down to the next meeting; your skills and knowledge will no doubt assist the cause.

Tim White is a Young Urbanist and has just completed an MPhil in Planning, Growth and Regeneration at Cambridge University. Motivated by improving socio-spatial equality, his latest research focuses on progressive housing concepts in London.

1. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to Urban Revolution, David Harvey, 2012

At JTP, we approach all our projects through a process of understanding, engaging, and creating, which together we call ‘Collaborative Placemaking’.

This means putting people at the heart of the creative process, unearthing the real needs of a community, empowering stakeholders and building consensus.

Together we build a vision, which leads to places that are vibrant, valued and sustainable from the outset.

www.jtp.co.uk

Housing crisis?

In a talk given at this year’s 4x4 event series in Manchester in July, social geographer Danny Dorling argued that the divide in our society is largely as a result of housing. Here we publish an adapted transcript of his talk.

It is 160 years ago (that’s only your great great great grand parents ago) that this city of Manchester where we are today had a housing crisis. On this exact spot or more likely a floor below us - people were living in jerry built housing that was so bad that life expectancy fell below 25 years. The reason for this crisis was immigration. So yes immigration can cause a housing crisis (although not the one that we have at present). In the 1840s Manchester was sucking people into its mills, many fleeing from famine in Ireland. Combine this with badly built housing and you have a housing crisis, the same kind of crisis that is happening in slums and shanty towns around the world. Manchester did this first. But our current housing crisis has nothing to do with immigration.

You can also get a housing crisis if something destroys your housing - a flood, a fire or bombing as happened in the Second World War. In London, the middle-class in Notting Hill fled when the V2 bombs came – they don’t like to talk about it because it sounds a bit cowardly.

People who were bombed out in the East End moved into Notting Hill, which is why Notting Hill became poor, which was then why the West Indians were able to move there in the 50s and 60s. It has taken a long time for the middle classes to get Notting Hill back, for it to gentrify back to the social position it held in London a century ago. Bombing, floods, fire and plague can cause a housing crisis. But our current housing crisis is not the result of bombing or floods.

The third way to get a housing crisis is to have lots of babies as we did in the 1960s, leading to ‘Cathy Come Home’. There weren’t actually that many babies then,

36 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

just over two per couple. Although those couples were often themselves the result of the post-World War One and Two baby booms. But in any case, our current housing crisis is not due to babies because, since the 1960s, the birth rate has fallen below the fertility replacement rate.

No, the current crisis is due to one thing and that is greed. While we may not have built as many homes as we want in recent years, we have extended the existing housing stock to such an extent that the number of rooms per person has gone up. The 2011 census measured the most rooms per person that the UK has ever had. We have never had as much housing as we have now. We should have enough housing for everyone, it’s just that more housing is under-occupied and more and more is owned by private landlords who rent it to whomever can pay the highest rent rather than, as in the past, allocated more by social landlords on the basis of need. In the past, councils allocated houses on the basis of household size, whereas now in London you see single professionals living in maisonettes designed for four or five people.

Or, encourage people to have a flat in Manchester during the week and a house on the coast that they might go to at the weekend. In both scenarios you rapidly run out of houses and flats. This is the type of housing crisis we have. This is a great place to be, because the solutions aren’t that difficult. We don’t need to build huge numbers of houses, we don’t need to deal with the level of immigration that Manchester once experienced, we don’t need to house lots of families having babies, we just have to more fairly

Figure 1: People with a mortgage or who own outright in the UK by age.

1983-2012 (0% within a single year of age and year group)

State spending as a proportion of GDP, twelve rich countries 2002-20 (%) 65

Year 2005

2010 ‘12 60

Usually less than 50%

55

Finland

50%

54

France

51

Sweden

50

30

57

Denmark

Italy

45 40

UK Japan

US 35 50

2015

2013

2014

2011

2012

2010

2009

2007

2008

2005

2006

25

2003

70%

Source: The 2010, 2012 and 2015 IMF database, projections after 2014

70

80

32

30

2004

60

36 (UK) 35

Ireland

2002

Usually higher than 70%

43 41 40

Germany

Norway 40

49 48 47

Greece

2016

20

2019

2000

2020

1995

2017

1990

2018

‘83 1985

Usually less than 50% 70%

90 50%

Source: Analysis by the author of the British Social Attitudes

distribute the housing stock that already exists.

I’m very proud of the graph (above) because it’s the only thing I have ever got in the Telegraph newspaper.

Even the relatively well-off people who work for the Telegraph realise that there is a housing crisis because they can’t afford to buy a house in London.

The diagonal stripe on the graph shows the generation who were able to buy a house in the ‘home owning democracy’ of the 1980s. The bottom triangle shows the end of the old rented sector, both private and council housing, while the triangle at the top shows the new renters, many of whom will always rent, paying money to enrich somebody else. We don’t need to live in a society where everyone can buy a house. In most European countries buying is a lifestyle choice; if you like DIY you buy, if not you rent – but more than half the population choose the latter. However to create such a society we need to deal with the housing crisis because at present it means that too much of our national wealth is tied up In property, much of it owned by a small percentage of the population creating huge inequity.

I created the next graph (above right) because I got sick of politicians saying there is no alternative to the way we’ve been doing things in this country. It shows the proportion of GDP spent on public services and the thick line is the UK. Apart from the naughty spending

by Labour in 2002-4 (particularly naughty because much of it was spent paying for war in Iraq) the UK spends far less on public services than countries like Finland, France, Denmark or Germany. We would have to spend an extra billion pounds a week on our Health Service to have the spending levels that the Germans

have. How do they do this? They tax rich Germans.

But we are told ‘oh no we’ve got to compete, it will be economically disastrous, you’ve got to have low taxes’.

But all those other countries in Europe shown below (apart from Ireland) have higher taxes, they’re not basket cases. And Ireland is not in a good economic position itself right now. The European Union have ordered it to tax companies like Apple properly because Ireland has been undercutting average continental tax rates, not just failing to tax its own rich.

The Brexit vote has taught us something that we didn’t know. Nobody knew this, nobody knew that a narrow majority would vote to leave. The markets didn’t know it, otherwise they would have behaved differently. The political commentators didn’t know it, the opinions formers didn’t know it, not a single person like me knew it, otherwise we would have sat down and written a book and put it out the day after and make an absolute fortune. We’ve discovered that amongst us there is a level of fear and anxiety, and that the ‘metropolitan elite’ missed this completely. Some people may have wanted to make Britain to be great again or didn’t like the colour of people’s skin, but I don’t think this was it for most. For most people who voted to leave they were voting against business as usual in the UK, against there being no change.

On the day of the Brexit vote statistics were released showing that an extra 52,000 people died last year, the mortality rate rose by 9% compared to the year before. This was the planned publication date for that statistical release, but you couldn’t have chosen a better day to bury the news and it wasn’t due to flu

Housing crisis? 37

We are not ‘swamped’ The regional geography of ‘foreigner-born’ in Europe in 2014 (% population)

Foreign citizens by NUTS level 3 region <5% 5-10% 10-15% 15-20% 20+ No data © Stephen GG via Flickr

that mortality rose so much. It was when I saw that the rise in mortality was so high that I first thought about what the government had been doing to monitor health and wellbeing in the UK. Let’s put that together with happiness data, I thought. You will remember David Cameron’s happiness index? He introduced it when first elected and a key part of the data relates to health. I had forgotten about this until recently, but the data has been collected annually for many years and it shows is that year on year since 2011 the happiness measure has been getting worse. This all fits with the numbers of isolated elderly people increasing and their circumstances getting worse, with the slashing of visits by adult social workers to people who are frail, with the cuts to Meals on Wheels, with the cuts of to Pension Credits, it fits with the growing sense of pessimism. No wonder the mortality rate has risen and that it was the elderly who voted for Brexit – who voted for anything but this. For several years the elderly had been telling us that their lives were getting rapidly worse and we did not listen because we thought the triple lock on pensions was a great help. It is of little help when you fall down the stairs, break your hip, and the support services are no longer adequate. It is of little help when you get dementia and care homes are underfunded and short-staffed by poorly paid staff.

But it’s not just the elderly. I used to work at the University of Sheffield and every year we would put up a list of courses. We had 15 courses including one called TBA (to be announced), which turned out to be the most popular. The university students picked it more than any other course because they didn’t like what was on offer, just as happened with Brexit. Lots of people in London voted for the status quo as did the residents of Oxford and Cambridge and indeed Manchester and Liverpool (but not Sheffield). But most of the country voted for “anything but this”. Most

38 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Leave voters live in the south of England and almost 60% are middle-class. I have been saying for years that the growing divide in our country will lead to trouble ahead, such as the riots we had a few years ago.

However, Brexit could only have happened because the divide has grown to include the middle class. Even people who are themselves reasonably well off worry about their kids and grandkids being subject to the vagaries of the rented housing market (families living in private rented property in London move on average once every three years).

The divide that has opened up in society is largely about housing. Between 2004 and 2014, private landlords saw their wealth increase by £434bn and yet they make up only two per cent of the population.

During the credit crunch even quite well paid people couldn’t get a mortgage so landlords bought more houses and the divide between those who own property and those who have to earn a living widened.

The good news, however, is that the wealth is still in the country, because property can’t easily be moved. The problem we have is distribution.

So we don’t have a problem of immigration as the map above shows. Many parts of Europe have high levels of immigration and often the immigrants are us Brits. Paris has lots of immigrants as does Ireland and London. As the Brexit vote shows, the more immigrants you have, the less you worry about immigrants. And as the map also shows, most of the UK has very few immigrants, by European standards. So we didn’t have a problem with immigrants. We did have a problem with innumeracy.

We did have a problem understanding what is normal on this continent. We did have a problem of not realising that housing is expensive because of the way it is owned and occupied. We did have a problem of not realising who actually builds our houses, where the

Amsterdam housing © Andrés Nieto Porras via Flickr

Map drawn by Ben Hennig based on data from Hoopla’s website extracted in 23/8/2016

labour comes from, where the bricks come from. We did have a problem understanding who staffs our care homes and our hospitals. But the great news is that we are all going to find this all out. People like me are not going to need to explain why immigrants are an asset because it will start to become painfully obvious.

rates fall post-Brexit (it falls when the economy does badly as confidence falls) and in many places we have all the homes that we need. We do need to repeal the 1988 housing act that allows people to be evicted with only two months notice and allows landlords to charge such high rents. We do need rent controls if we are going to have rented housing as a real alternative to home ownership. We also need a right to sell – something that exists everywhere in the UK other than in Northern Ireland but has only been used by a few thousand people so far – where people in difficultly can ask to become social tenants and the house is given back to the bank and loaned to a housing association but the family can keep living there. A private home becomes social housing. We do need to raise more money to spend on decent public services and the best way to do this is to tax wealth held in property.

So what’s to be done with the housing market? Let’s start with this rather desirable house in Amsterdam (similar to that shown above) where property records have been kept since it was built. In 1669 it sold for 28,000 guilders, about half a million Euro today. It peaked in value in 1778 when Amsterdam was the most expensive place on the planet, but since then its value has fallen in real terms for 250 years. Currently the most expensive place on the planet is London. The average semi-detached house in the UK is today selling for £250,000.

This is not radical; we could go a long way simply by adopting the property taxes they have in New York – especially for London. All this would help prevent a future speculative housing price boom.

In Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool it is slightly lower than this, in Oxford it’s £460,000 and absolutely cripples the city. In Westminster it is £4m and in Chelsea a whopping £7m and still people can’t imagine prices in London falling, despite them being so high – maybe because they are so astronomically high? Well they have fallen post-Brexit. If you factor in the fall in house prices and property investment funds you will find that Boris Johnson has done more than any Labour Prime Minister to reduce the wealth of the Sunday Times 1000. The problem is that this wealth has not been redistributed, it has evaporated.

Danny Dorling is a British social geographer and is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography of the School of Geography and the Environment of the University of Oxford.

We probably don’t therefore need to build that many new homes, especially now that we will have put off people coming to the UK by how we voted, whether we enact immigration controls or not. We need some modest building in London and Oxford where there is positive net migration but we are likely to see migration

Housing crisis? 39

Why infrastructure investment matters: the contribution of civil society From many years’ experience of observing how successful cities transform themselves, John Worthington MBE AoU provides some advice for cities at the beginning of a journey of change and for us all on how we can be involved in these transformations.

We live in an unpredictable, fast changing and paradoxical world. Paradoxical in that the faster and more disruptive change becomes the more we are searching for the constructs and institutions that provide continuity, identity, and permanence, with the ability to organically adapt. Infrastructure, with transport one of the key components, is just such a structuring element, steering long term aspirations and shaping the form of our cities. Transport “has to do not only with moving people and goods into, out of and through the city but with the spatial organisation of all human activities within it” (Dyckman 1965).

Accessibility defines the pattern of urban growth for each city to shape its movement systems to match its particular aspirations.

We face a time of economic, social and political uncertainty. HS2 has triggered a programme to both increase rail capacity and rebalance the UK economy1.

High aspirations and expectations have been set. The mayor of London in his consultation document London Infrastructure Plan 2050 identifies a total estimated infrastructure cost for London 2016-2050 of £1.3tn; housing (42 per cent) and transport (35 per cent) accounting for 77 per cent of the total (Arup).

A series of workshops run by the Independent Transport Commission (ITC) with the city regions impacted by HS2 and summarised in a report, Connected Cities: Accessible Places for Growing Economies 2016, identified three key themes in maximizing the benefits of transport infrastructure investment. Firstly, the need to foster an open and inclusive collaboration within and between city regions; secondly, the benefits that could be gained by integration of delivery and services between modes of transport; and lastly, recognising that the greatest benefits will be achieved by developing successful places where people wished to come and then stay.

For the cities and all those concerned with urbanism three issues should be addressed: 40 40 Here Here & & Now Now || AoU AoU Journal Journal No. No. 88 || Autumn Autumn 2016 2016

• How we can plan or assess infrastructure investment to ensure economic success and places we desire?

• How might cities adapt to the impact of new technologies and how as citizens we can ensure they will match our aspirations?

• What cities can do to ensure they have a shared vision and capture the potential benefits from infrastructure investment?

Who then are the players in this on-going process of collaborative dialogue? The state, as central government, who I would argue have three critical roles: firstly, to establish the infrastructure for cities and their citizens to thrive; secondly, give guidance to steer, enable and regulate; and finally, to provide clear and timely decisions and with that certainty. The cities provide long-term vision and leadership; develop a vision that reflects a shared ambition, support the success of their citizens and ensure the outcomes are distributed equitably. And finally civil society, including Institutions of learning, trusts, community interest companies, the chambers of commerce and professional institutions who can support and contribute to the ambitions of the city by being proactive and responsible.

For those committed to urbanism, by making our communities a more successful place, we can all contribute. Whether we are professionals in private practice or public service, as pro-active and responsible citizens we can contribute to the success of our community.

The Academy of Urbanism, through its UniverCities / Urban Labs initiative, identified a wide range of organisations who contributed to the wellbeing of the urban environment. Individuals or organisations clustered in communities of common interest. The three communities identified were learning, living

Rotterdam © Tobi Gaulke

and practice, operating formally, informally or as web based networks.

Greater Bordeaux Urban Region, one of the three learning cities selected for the AoU/INTA Learning Cities Platform3, provides an excellent example of a growing region which recognised that to sustain its success required not only physical connections (local and regional infrastructure) but also human connections (social, political and organisational networks). Collaboration between all the parties has been central to accepting and implementing a process of change. The city acts as the initiator, inducing active engagement of the community. The CUB (Bordeaux Public Development Agency) has put in place a consultative charter consisting of public meetings, dialogues, urban walks, and a project house. It is a 20year project building trust between public, private and civil society.

Compendium for the Civic Economy by Zero Zero Research maps the contribution that can be made by a balanced collaboration between the social state, the private economy and civil society. Civil society, through community interest initiatives, is supported by ‘City Hall’ in its role as enabler providing the encouragement, and the business community contributing professional pro-bono advice or underutilised space for short life functions.

Changing Chelmsford, initiated in 2010 by Malcolm Noble AoU – a recently retired head teacher and active member of the RSA – posing the question “how do you make Chelmsford a more successful place?” Essex County Council, Chelmsford Borough Council, the RSA and the AoU, came together to run an eight week programme of workshops and symposia, culminating in a ‘Town Commons’ event titled Changing Chelmsford: How bold is your vision. Change takes time and the big wins often come from unexpected initiatives. The Ideas Hub2 has become the continuity of the project with an annual ideas festival sponsored and hosted by Anglia Ruskin University. Change and the value of pride in the city are now on the agenda. Young families are moving in and the challenge is to build an active community in what is still perceived as a dormitory to London.

In the UK, HS2 has become a catalyst for greater collaboration. In Leeds, concerns about the poor integration between HS2 and the existing rail connections stimulated an alternative proposal by the Chamber of Commerce, supported by Leeds Civic Trust, which has initiated a more integrated solution and a collaborative process of working between the wider group of stakeholders. Similarly in South Yorkshire, Sheffield’s two universities and Sheffield Teaching hospital NHS Trust are providing leadership in bringing parties together and supporting the existing agencies in developing an ambitious, coherent and challenging vision for the city region4.

The devolution agenda, with the evidence of the performance of European cities which have greater independence of decision making and fiscal powers, has focussed UK cities on a better understanding of their long-term aspirations and opportunities. Cities are recognising the need to identify what makes them distinctive, how they can gain by collaborating with others who traditionally they might have seen as competitors, and above all the value of working between public, private and civil society in an open and inclusive alliance.

Rotterdam – AoU European City of the Year 2015 – provides an exemplar for the integration of both modes of transport and spatial and transport planning. The central station, using the footprint of the existing station and its forecourt, seamlessly integrates all levels of transport from the new high-speed service to local trams, cycles and shared taxis for the region.

The entrance to the station becomes a living room for the city and movement to either side of the tracks is now opened up for pedestrians in the concourse below

Why infrastructure investment matters 41

Bordeaux

the platforms, with a dedicated tunnel for cyclists.

The city mayor is working closely with The Hague and surrounding municipalities to continue to improve accessibility and services to create a strong southern wing of the Randstad. The city administration has refocussed its role to one of enabler, encouraging a culture of openness, small enterprise and doing things and seeing what happens.

Of the recent finalists for the AoU’s European City of the Year award, we have seen some notable examples of transformational change. Antwerp, Marseilles, Aarhus, San Sebastián in the Basque Country and Eindhoven are all excellent examples of cities who over a 30-year period have transformed themselves through far-sighted and ambitious leadership, open communication and inclusive co-production. The archive of 10 years of awards provides insights and inspiration for cities and towns on how to effectively engage with their communities, and exemplars of community-inspired initiatives.

From my experience of watching cities in the midst of transition or having achieved a transformation, I would conclude for those beginning on a journey of change:

The Wikihouse: Changing Chelmsford

gatherings provide a common focus and a showcase to the outside world • Capture the energy of civil society. Encourage rather than control. Allow for failure. Learn from mistakes • Engage the generation to come. Recognise that cities take generations to mature. Infrastructure investment has a long term return Successful cities are dynamic, organic, open systems that thrive on diversity. They reflect the pride, enterprise and generosity of their citizens.

Participating in the success of your city and its wider region is hugely satisfying when undertaken with the right motives. You may choose to contribute your experience and expertise as a school governor, starting a pop-up shop to help rejuvenate a changing neighbourhood or participate in a community interest company. The satisfaction is to have supported the creation of wealth by creating openings for others, or helped shape a more successful place. By giving, what you get is a broadening of your personal understanding, new knowledge and the satisfaction to see others you have helped succeed.

• Be ambitious. Understand and accept risk. Be prepared to fail early to succeed sooner • Start small to ensure big plans succeed later. New markets are created; they are not simply a reflection of the past. Pilot and then implement • Understand your hidden assets. What makes you distinctive are location, space, people and heritage • Animate the City. Conversations, events, and regular 42 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

John Worthington MBE AoU is a collaborative urbanist, a commissioner of the Independent Transport Commission, past director of Changing Chelmsford and co-founder of DEGW. 1. ITC Ambitions and Opportunities, 2014 2. http://www.ideashubchelmsford.org 3. Places of Connection Utrecht 2012 4. www.scrvision.com

Bridging the divide in Bristol When part of Bristol’s industrial heritage came under threat in the 1980s, a local architect took a gamble.

George Ferguson AoU, recently Bristol’s first elected mayor, tells the story of how he came to buy the site and build a community.

This is a story of a very personal mission in placemaking and real regeneration that I have undertaken over the past 20 years in my home city of Bristol, well before becoming its first elected mayor in 2012!

What is now known as the Tobacco Factory, built in 1910, is a four-storey, 4000sqm building which was just one small part of the massive Imperial Tobacco Co. estate built in Bedminster and Ashton from 1901, on what was then open land, lying south of the river and harbour that divides the city. Imperial Tobacco, which included the famous WD&HO Wills brands were at the heart of the city’s industrial revolution and the greatest contributor to Bristol’s economy and culture.

In the early 1970’s, Imperial relocated its HQ and Factory to a ‘Miesian’ masterpiece and rolling landscape in Hartcliffe on the southern fringe of the city, leaving millions of square feet of empty buildings and a deeply depressed community that was further shattered by the closure of the new site when Hanson took over at the end of the 80’s. Unemployment and poverty levels were amongst the highest in the country.

The great brick factories, a model industrial development of their time, were largely designed by the flamboyant architect and later Bristol Lord Mayor, Sir Frank Wills, who had it made professionally as a member of the Wills tobacco family! He also designed the richly decorative Bristol City Art Gallery, which was just one of the many great gifts of the Wills family to the city and its institutions.

For many years I had woken every morning to the magnificent industrial view of the WD&HO WILLS skyline sign, rising above the workers’ terrace houses, across the river and harbour from my Clifton house, and had long admired what I had thought of as Bristol’s ‘mills’. However my active involvement began at the end of the 80s, when I had been asked for help by two recent graduates who lived nearby who were determined to save the great red brick complex from demolition.

With them, I did my utmost to stop demolition at a planning inquiry and subsequently developed a sketch plan, re-using the powerful four and five story buildings, entitled ‘a sustainable urban village’. My

Why infrastructure investment matters | Bridging the divide in Bristol 43

faith in the planning and heritage protection system took a deep dive. Subsequently, not being prepared to contemplate defeat, as demolition commenced I made a silly low offer for the corner site – to secure a foothold and to try to bring others on board. I paid £5 per sq foot – cheaper than carpet. I was not expecting my derisory offer to be accepted so had to scrabble around to raise the funds. The property agents thought I was crazy.

They were right – I failed to save the vast majority of the buildings, which were replaced by bungalow development in the form of an Aldi supermarket and car park and adjacent nursing home, all of which could have fitted into a fraction of what existed.

Did I have a plan? Not really – just that I wanted to demonstrate to my sceptical property agent friends and foes, that all they preached to my clients about the benefits of single use ‘monoculture’ development was misguided. I was determined to go the whole hog and show them that the more you mixed it the better it would be! The challenge was that I found myself with a building beautifully sited at one end of a run down high street in an area that was suffering from depression at the loss of its staple industry and employer.

Having no money to spend on the building I first let some artists in to occupy space and protect it from the local villains who were breaking windows, vandalising the interior, and stripping the lead flashings from the roof. Having met Sir Ernest Hall the great entrepreneur who had bought the old Crossley carpet factories at Dean Clough in Halifax and seen how he had led a remarkable regeneration by involving artists and the arts, I felt strongly that the Tobacco Factory had to put the arts at its core. My instinct was that this should be

44 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

the performing arts, partly not to compete with the nearby Spike Island studios – and that it should strive to give a new heart to the community and to what was the ‘cultural desert’ of South Bristol.

Serendipity would have it that the small but adventurous Show of Strength theatre company was looking for performance space. It fitted my plans – so, having identified a space on the first floor I stripped it bare, leaving only a few ducts and other features to maintain the factory character, and left them to paint it black, bolt up some lights, and get on with it. That was the birth of the Tobacco Factory theatre that has earned itself a national reputation for its creativity and quality of productions.

20 years on we have only had two aims – and they are, firstly that what we put on is as good as it gets of its type, whether it be traditional, new writing, comedy or music, and secondly that we attract new audiences to live theatre. I think the record shows that what is now the Tobacco Factory Arts Trust has done a fine job in meeting those aims and Bristol’s second theatre’s reputation rides high!

The theatre was and is at the heart of the Tobacco Factory, which with its management and dance/ rehearsal space takes over the whole of the first floor, leaving the ground floor for eating and drinking, the second floor for creative industry workspace, and the top floor a mixture of workspace, conservation studio, fitness gym and residential use, including my own loft living space (or should I say caretaker’s flat?) that I have been happily living in for the past 15 years.

So here we have a community of activity, and a reviving local economy, but it does not stop at the building. A

weekly Sunday market taking over the car park has become the community’s meeting place, encouraging new independent traders and extending into a car free Raleigh Road once a month. Down the road we opened a brewery – the BBC food & farming award-winning Bristol Beer Factory – which also helped spawn an artisan bakery, celebrated by Jamie Oliver, as well as a studio theatre and dance space in an old garage.

Expansion plans include a brewery visitor centre and apartments in the brewery tower, all making use of existing buildings.

All this is underpinned by a strong environmental ethic ranging from re-used materials to renewable energy – the theatre is cooled and the fair trade coffee is brewed via solar panels – to a strong bias towards independent and local, including local sourcing of food and skills.

So why does all this matter? It matters because it has transplanted a heart into a community that desperately needed reviving, without turning its back on its traditional working class population who had lost many of its shops and services. The Tobacco Factory is not so much a project than a self-sustaining slow revolution.

It will continue developing throughout my lifetime and hopefully well beyond. The theatre will of course develop its programme and audience under the care of the Trust and the rest of the building will change to react to circumstances but with its strongly held principles remaining in tact.

Maybe one of the things that gives me the most wicked satisfaction is to see some of the property agents, who clearly thought I was crazy buying the building in the first place and who were religiously opposed to the sort of extreme mixed use that I have been

advocating, bringing their clients in for lunch to show them how it can be done! Now that I am no longer part of my old practice I am able to concentrate on these other aspects which are ‘beyond architecture’ and yet at the same time very much about bringing the built environment to life. North Street, Ashton and Bedminster, not long ago on their knees, are now one of the liveliest independent high streets and neighbourhoods in Bristol.

The postscript to this story is, however, the regeneration of the 1970’s Hartcliffe Imperial HQ SOM Chicago building and landscape I mentioned earlier, which is being developed by Urban Splash who commissioned Ferguson Mann to convert it into a great new living community in an area that so desperately needs a boost. So the 800-year life of the Corten steel frame will be put to a new use that replaces one of Bristol’s most famous killing industries. So starts another story of creative reuse of Tobacco legacy, which was not all bad!

The lesson to me has been that we don’t bridge the gap with big architecture and swanky development, in fact the reverse is so often the case. But that we do, if we tread lightly, make the most of what we have and inject new life into old structures and places to create socially and culturally vibrant communities. The other lesson is that good placemaking needs continuing choreography and the job of the placemaker is never ever done. There is so much more we must do to help mend our deeply unfair society.

George Ferguson CBE PPRIBA AoU Mayor of Bristol 2012-16 and Honorary Academician

Bridging the divide in Bristol 45

My Place

People with places that are significant in their lives

Towards the end of the last decade, John Mullin AoU set about exploring the relationship between people and the places that matter to them. Here & Now brings you some of the highlights of his extensive and evocative archive.

The Colosseum, Rome Sam Although all is quiet now, apart from the chatter of tourists of course, I couldn’t help but be moved by the thought of all the death that occurred here as entertainment. In the first 100 days of celebrations which inaugurated the amphitheatre in 80 A.D., 9,000 wild animals were killed as entertainment.

I’m Sam and I have chosen the Colosseum in Rome as my place. There are many reasons for this. One is that I was just blown away by the sheer size of the place, and even though it has been stripped of its marble and statues over hundreds of years, since the fall of the Roman empire in the 5th century, it is still impressive.

Gladiators were trained to fight to the death and although Emperor Constantine and his successors tried to put an end to this practice, it only stopped when a monk called Telemachus entered the arena and put himself between the gladiators.

The crowd hurled insults and rocks, and he was stoned to death, but no more gladiator games were ever held.

Although I would not have liked to be in the centre of the arena, I would have liked to see the Amphitheatre in full swing.

The walls of the outer ring rise to almost 50m above ground; it measures 187m at its longest end; it took more than 100,000 cubic metres of travertine to build it and it could accommodate 70,000 people. And there were no JCBs in those days! I could not believe that the Romans, besides using the Colosseum for their famous gladiator battles and fights with wild animals, also used the amphitheatre to stage naval battles! I was also touched by the history of the place.

Southwark Street, London Bob Allies I spent two childhood years in France, one living in a small village in a 19th century house arranged around a paved courtyard, and the second living in a second floor apartment in a ‘modern’, concrete framed building, raised on ‘pilotis’ above the landscape.

Both, of course, were wonderful in their different ways, and both places influenced me in my choice of career.

The place I have chosen for this exhibition, however, is the Allies and Morrison studio in Bankside.

This is where my partner Graham and I work, effectively our home.

It’s a building which we designed and developed ourselves, so it embodies the things we believe in. It enlivens the

street, it makes new connections, it has a café (our café!) on the ground floor.

It’s made of reinforced concrete which retains warmth in winter and coolth in summer so it is an energy-efficient building. It is very glassy on the north, where solar gain isn’t a problem, and more protective on the south, allowing the sun to penetrate the building in a more informal unexpected way. And it has gardens on each floor, all the more surprising in its very urban context.

In the picture I am looking at another one of our projects, the Blue Fin Building, on the other side of Southwark Street. The blue fins, have a job to do of keeping out the sun, but they also give the building a surprising, complex surface.

46 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

w w w. b a r r g a z e t a s . c o m alistair.barr@barrgazetas.com

Masterplan for the Vaux site Sunderland, prepared for Siglion which is a joint venture between igloo and Sunderland City Council.

The scheme includes an initial building by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios that started on site Summer 2016

My Place 47

Manchester / London www.urbed.coop Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s introduction | AoU in Action 47

Space for great places!

The great places here are an opportunity to share what we love and know about the urban environment.

As you can see they range from small to large, inside and outside, and singularly identifiable to abstract ideas of what a great place is.

Please send us your great places so that we can share them in the next edition. Be imaginative and creative – we want to make these places live on our pages. Send us an image, a drawing, a poem, a…you decide.

Send contributions to sg@academyofurbanism.org.uk

Beach life Prof Matthew Carmona AoU

The great British beach is for so many of us soaked with memories and meanings, of family, fun and promise.

A few short weeks a year it comes to life and fizzes with inter-generational

sound and life. For the rest of the year it is a slightly haunted, often desolate, frequently tacky, but strangely beautiful place. They are urban but also natural, real and a little

surreal, sometimes thriving but more often just hanging in there. They are quintessential public space. Some will live and some will die. ...Do we choose beach life?

Munich: park in the city or city in the park

The Isar River traverses the city on an almost north-south trajectory. It forms the central spine of 1,200kms of cycle paths that extend across the city in all directions and into the Bavarian countryside. It is not surprising that Munich calls itself Germany’s Radlhauptstadt (bicycle capital).

spaces. While not all streets are lined with trees, vegetation finds its way onto walls, into pocket parks and spilling off balconies.

Kathryn Firth AoU

Whilst other towns and cities were building motorways, Munich was laying down cycle paths. There seems to be a perfect weave between nature and urbanity, with the latter obviously dominating as one gets closer to the centre, but the former never absent.

Indeed, one can find people literally surfing on the Isar’s rapids only 20m from a city street.

The city centre is compact, comprised mainly of courtyard buildings, which provide secure cycle parking along with play and green space, bin storage and other amenities. Amongst streets lined with shops and restaurants, one can also find studios and makers’ 48 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Munich’s ubiquitous intertwinement of nature and urbanity encourages people to walk and cycle rather than drive.

However, it is also the compactness of the urban fabric and density that contributes to these modal choices – this is not big news but always reassuring for an urbanist to observe at first-hand. Everything one needs, whether associated with goods and services or recreation and leisure, is easily accessible.

It is striking and revealing that Munich has 4,500 inhabitants per km2; London has 1,510 inhabitants per km2. London is without a doubt a very green city, however, its relatively low density means the cycling infrastructure and its inhabitants have to travel that much further to get to where they want to go.

The Harbour Arm Folkestone John Letherland AoU

Until recently a redundant commercial and ferry port and abandoned seaside resort, Folkestone is transforming through a resurgent economy based upon the creative arts, a massive investment in high quality public realm, and the energy and optimism of the community. There is a real sense of a new beginning here, nowhere better symbolised than by the recent opening up of the remarkable Harbour Arm. A man-made peninsula that shifts the threshold between land and sea, the Harbour Arm is a beautiful example of gritty industrial engineering transformed into public realm. It demands that the town is viewed from a whole new perspective (both literally and figuratively). It somehow retains a memory of excited continental travellers on the Orient Express or a ferry, and yet also as a reminder that this was the last piece of England trodden by millions of servicemen and women on their way the Great War. In spirit, it is closer to the Victorian

Pleasure Pier than to the modern amusement arcade. People are the main attraction; there is nothing so amusing or enjoyable as seeing and being seen by other people. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free music and dancing, bands playing, street food, artists and entertainers, rickshaw taxis, and pop-up bars and restaurants that punctuate your journey from Old Town to Lighthouse.

Without an obvious precedent to emulate, the culture of the Harbour Arm is capturing Folkestoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s essence as a place to live, where people of all ages and tribes mingle comfortably together. It also manages successfully to overcome the divide between townsfolk and visitors (80,000 last summer), between the prosperous and less-prosperous, all of which highlights the importance of good public realm as a physical, cultural and economic connector.

Gallery

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s introduction | AoU in Action 49

We Are Walking On The Moon Playground Nantes Emilie Leclercq AoU

Nantes, in the western part of France, has for many years been identified as one of the country’s greatest places to live. This is mostly due to its pleasant climate, dynamic economy, extended public transport system and great public spaces. Nantes also presents the ability to celebrate the local culture and distil it into every corner of the city.

Every year, Nantes hosts a summer festival called Le Voyage à Nantes, where a trail takes you to exhibitions, art installations and a variety of artistic creations dispersed in various locations around the city centre and surrounding neighbourhoods.

On the western side of the ‘ile de Nantes’, a large area being gradually transformed from a former shipyard and industrial land into a brand new urban neighbourhood. It is possible to find many permanent art installations.

These include the hugely popular ‘Machines’ (articulated mechanical creatures) and a giant carrousel, all inspired by the notorious fantastic imaginary worlds of Jules Verne, the famous 19th century French novelist who was born in Nantes.

Detroit Architectes, playground “On va marcher sur la lune”, Parc des Chantiers, étape du Voyage à Nantes 2016 © Franck Tomps / LVAN

50 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

The Millennium Gardens Bobby Nisha AoU

You think you know all about it, you know what to expect; yet, when you are there, the experience bowls you out. The Millennium Gardens, between Michigan Avenue and Lakeshore drive in Chicago, put me in this place.

The architect in me just couldn’t get enough of the tranquility, serenity and sovereignty with which Chicago celebrates its social life with state of the art public art, architecture, theatre and landscape. It had me pondering over the question how did they manage to get public space design over an area of 24 acres (99,000m2) right; to get it all to work in the way it was intended. And more importantly, how did they get art, architecture, theatre and landscape to complement each other?! That indeed, is an achievement in itself.

Chicago was gleaming and glistening as I looked at it from the BP Bridge in the evening sun. If a pedestrian bridge can be so cool, then a part me shouts ‘bring on those car filled roads!’ The serpentine structure thoroughly complements the Jay Pritzker pavilion; truly, a Frank Gehry delight! A concert at Jay Pritzker on a summer day’s evening does make your day perfect. The hierarchy in the arrangement of the various elements makes the place very legible to your senses as a user.

The sight of Cloud Gate brought the poet / philosopher out of me and made me write ‘just like you and me it reflects and distorts all that it sees in unimaginable ways’! That piece of public art is genius, it has its deep-rooted philosophy and users of the space get to engage with that philosophy and take memories of their engagement home in the form of pictures. Ingenious stuff!

More importantly, they have an app for this public space, how cool is that?! As an architect, occasional poet and all time philosopher, this decorum of art, architecture, theatre, and landscape made me want to say: ‘I believe in the inexplicable and I also believe in art’.

They both know each other so well here at Millennium Gardens.

Gallery

Editor’s introduction | AoU in Action 51

The Clonakilty Effect; The place to be……

Giulia Valone AoU

Poem by Denis & Eileen Kingston for The Academy of Urbanism assessment visit August 2016

If someone offers you a flower in Asna Square, Clonakilty, you might only be asked a smile back and to take a balloon and join in the Random Acts of Kindness festival. If you are surrounded by hundreds of guitarists parading Main Street, follow the music and you will end up at De Barras pub (once the regular haunt of Noel Redding, bass player from The Jimi Hendrix Experience) – you are now part of the International Guitar Festival.

It’s all about brightening up your day with ceol, craic and colour. Other towns seek its secret recipe; however, the community spirit here is something that can’t be easily replicated – only experienced. Food, music, history, tradition, the surrounding landscape and wildlife of the Wild Atlantic Way, are celebrated every day on the streets

“The town of Clonakilty On the Wild Atlantic way Is famous for its beauty Both at home and away.

Buildings, Park and streetscapes All along the floral stroll Are witnesses to pride and care By natives young and old.

But what makes the town so special And beloved of those who call Is the spirit of its people And the welcome there for all.” of Clonakilty, bringing constant smiles and uplifted hearts.

Goodwill is abundant. Here, nobody is seen as a “blow in”, bringing a sense of grounded creativity and energy that’s warm, inviting and, ultimately, addictive.

When designing their public realm facelift with the town architect, the people of Clonakilty were confidently ready for a new layer of contemporary functionality, lifestyle and urban sensibility, embracing public space as the town’s new living room.

What was once a car park at Asna Square is now a people-priority space for public life and civic events. The dysfunctional Victorian Park at Emmet Square is reimagined to include a dramatic new striped horizontal surface, breaking through the walls

52 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

and inviting people to enjoy the water feature and minimalist yet harmonious sculpture.

What is its secret? Where does the energy come from to constantly build success upon success? There is no resting on laurels here; each batch of community enthusiasts ensures there is a wealth of successors to continue the magic. In short, as Michael Collins, the town’s famous rebel son, wrote in the days before his tragic death: ‘The people are splendid’. That’s the secret to the Clonakility effect.

Urban idiocy

Brilliant ideas that ruined our cities Part five: the neighbourhood unit Much urban idiocy comes from the misapplication of a good idea, and there is no better idea than the idea of a neighbourhood. Indeed, The Academy of Urbanism has a Great Neighbourhood Award and over the last 10 years has shortlisted, visited and written about 30 of them.

It’s true they were not all neighbourhoods, not in the strictest sense of the word – many were city quarters which were home to very few neighbours. However, we can surely agree that neighbourhoods are good. Places where neighbours know each other, where there are resilient community ties and a strong sense of identity. This should surely be something that we seek to create when planning cities?

The problem is that in order to do this the planning system has a tendency to try and codify the good idea, invariably killing it in the process. With the neighbourhood this started in the 1920s in New York. At the time the number of cars in the city was increasing exponentially but people hadn’t yet developed any road sense and new fangled ideas like traffic lights and pedestrian crossings were yet to catch on. The result was carnage and at one point a child a day was being killed in New York by the car.

We have written about this before in relation to Rayburn layouts (The Idiot

1). It is easy to forget that the accident rate in the early days of motoring was vastly higher than it is today and many planning innovations of the time were designed to stop the bloodshed – such as the Neighbourhood Unit.

This started with playgrounds. A New York City planner called Clarence Perry suggested that the city should build playgrounds to provide an alternative to children playing on the street. He developed a formula suggesting how many playgrounds the city needed and this in turn was used to divide the city into neighbourhoods. He went on to design a spatial framework for these neighbourhoods, each of which would be bounded by main traffic routes but with no through-traffic, allowing the playground to be built in the traffic-free heart of the resulting super-block.

Perry soon realised he was onto something and developed the notion of the ‘neighbourhood unit’. (The attachment of a word such as ‘unit’ to a concept as wholesome as a neighbourhood is a sure sign that idiocy is in the offing). The idea was set out in Perry’s 1929 monograph, The Neighbourhood Unit: A scheme for the arrangement of family life and community.

This proposed an ideal neighbourhood unit based on a particular population with a measured-out set of community facilities such as a primary school and community centre alongside the central playground. All designed as an

inward facing unit, freed from throughtraffic and surrounding main roads.

However, because Perry was initially trying to deal with the existing city, he continued to envisage that commercial development and shops would be located on the main roads and therefore on the edge of the neighbourhood – thus creating a confusion about the location of the neighbourhood centre. Lewis Mumford lauded Perry for taking the organic idea of neighbourhoods that develop naturally in cities and turning it into a codified planning tool to create the ‘modern equivalent of a medieval quarter or parish’.

This might have been alright, but most urban idiocy involves a process of Chinese whispers by which ideas are picked up, misunderstood, reinterpreted and thus morph into something quite different. The designers of new housing schemes and particularly new towns pounced on the idea of the neighbourhood unit as just the building block they had been looking for.

In doing so they resolved the confusion about where the centre of the neighbourhood should be by creating pedestrianised shopping precincts at the heart of the neighbourhood.

The peripheral streets could thus be kept clear of development to run freely through landscaped corridors (Parkways) meeting majestically at grade-separated roundabouts. Thus

Urban idiocy | About AoU 53

was the city turned inside-out, allowing cars to be separated from people and creating play facilities, schools, facilities and retailing in just the right quantities for the allowed population of the neighbourhood units.

The city that most represents this idea in the UK is Milton Keynes. However, as Michael Edwards wrote in 20011, this is only true because the notions of the traffic-free neighbourhood unit had become so established that the masterplan for the city was subverted by its own engineers. Before Michael Edwards became an academic at the Bartlett he had been a member of the team led by Llewelyn Davies, Weeks, Forestier-Walker and Bor who had been appointed to masterplan Milton Keynes by the newly formed development corporation in 1968.

The plan for Milton Keynes was incredibly radical. Rather than a series of concentric rings, the town was developed as a 1,000m grid of roads with neighbourhoods, facilities and employment distributed across the grid to allow people to live close to where they worked and to avoid a tidal rush hour. The logic was that there should be no city centre, but in the days before the shopping mall (in the UK at least) this was felt to be a step too far.

The question was how to organise all of this so, as Edwards recounts, a young planner by the name of Francis Tibbalds was sent off for the weekend to draw up the team’s findings. The result was ‘such a triumph of synthesis, with diagrams, charts and sketches illustrating a lucid, elegant, handwritten text that it was Xerox-ed as it stood for the Board, without typing’.

What Tibbalds had done was to resolve the contradiction inherent in the

neighbourhood unit. He proposed slowing down the traffic on the main grid streets to 30mph and created a second grid of local streets halfway between the junctions on the main grid.

He then moved the neighbourhood centre to the point where the local streets crossed the main grid. This, he suggested, should be the focus for higher density housing and retailing (which thus benefitted from passing trade) while the schools and playgrounds, along with low density housing, should be placed at the intersections of the local streets at the centre of the grid squares. Every local resident would have four local centres within a 1,000m walk.

This was the plan that was delivered to the Development Corporation, but it wasn’t the one that was built.

It all started to unravel when the Corporation’s engineers decided that traffic speed on the grid should not be restricted. This meant that the traffic light junctions had to be replaced with roundabouts and the minor street grid could only be accessed safely via slip roads and crossed by footbridge or underpass. Pretty soon the plan was amended so that the main grid streets ran in landscaped corridors and the neighbourhood centres were forced to retreat to the centre of the grid squares. As in New York in the 1920s, it illustrated that the neighbourhood unit has nothing to do with neighbours or parishes and everything to do with highway engineering.

Next year the Academy will be holding an event in Milton Keynes to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its foundation.

There will be many Milton Keynes enthusiasts at the event who will no doubt argue that this is not idiocy at all. Milton Keynes may be a city turned inside out, but they love it.

54 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

With its accessibility by car, its quiet neighbourhood centres, its distribution of employment opportunities and its thousands of trees and hectares of green space it is the city reinvented.

Maybe so, but the neighbourhood unit is still idiocy because it is not based on an understanding of urbanism.

In most traditional towns and cities neighbourhoods stand on crossroads and their shops benefit not just from the trade of the local community but from much wider passing trade.

Neighbourhoods without throughtraffic tend to become either exclusive enclaves or isolated ghettos. Their children may be safer from cars, but poorer neighbourhoods tend to have higher street crime. And then there is the whole notion of ‘neighbour’ as something more than the people who live next door.

Communities cannot be measured-out and apportioned as the neighbourhood unit implies; they form and reform, evolving over time and tend to atrophy when constrained physically.

The crossroads neighbourhood is livelier and socially mixed. Sure it can be a little chaotic and traffic can be a problem, but now that we are comfortable with the traffic light and the pedestrian crossing, or even better the shared space, we can tame the car and no longer need to make the good neighbourhood into the idiotic neighbourhood unit.

The Urban Idiot

1. Edwards, M (2001) ‘City design: what went wrong at Milton Keynes?’

Journal of Urban Design 6(1): 73-82 Map of Milton Keynes © OpenStreetMap contributors

…and a final thought…

Urbanism, the silent educator: Learning to learn from place part V

“Architecture the silent educator” – could this phrase be applied beyond architecture to our towns and cities, streets and places? Urbanism, the silent educator?

The phrase came from Henry Morris, the chief education officer for Cambridgeshire before World War II and the inventor of ‘village colleges’: secondary schools that did more than serve local children, but local adults too. A Village College was available for evening classes, included a billiards room as well as a public library, and had a school hall that doubled up as a local theatre. A great pioneering idea for a community that was, until Cambridge was transformed by science parks, one of the poorest regions in England. His vision extended beyond the provision of facilities into place-making: hence “architecture, the silent educator”.

At the age of 11, I became a pupil at the second Village College, at Impington, just north of Cambridge. Morris was not just pioneering but ambitious and charismatic, so approached Walter Gropius to design it for him: the man who did not just design the Bauhaus, but invented it’s pioneering curriculum.

Gropius was responsible for form and content, aesthetic and ethos.

My parents gave me a camera when I was about 15 and here is one of the first photographs I took. Here is my school: a low modest brick building among trees in an East Anglian landscape. The photograph shows that I was not just impressionable, but impressed. The building, and the community it housed, was a manifestation of caring, and that rubbed off on me.

It was here that I received my ‘silent education’ in architecture (I did not know what words like ‘architecture’

or ‘architect’ meant until much later).

I became an idealist and, much later, an architect. My ‘silent education’ was not through words, but somehow I absorbed the optimism of the building.

I had no lessons in architectural appreciation or educational theory, however, I got the picture!

What I picked up on a day-to-day basis was that this very simple building provided a socially progressive atmosphere, which complemented the landscape. It was a good place to learn and a wonderful one to look out of the window and day-dream. I did not know of Morris’s slogan when I was silently learning from Gropius and the East Anglian landscape, I only found the phrase last year when I went to the school’s 75th birthday. But I understood exactly what Morris meant because I had been a silent learner and it shaped my life. Increasingly, architecture is seen as a visual art, as an adjunct to sculpture, the making of icons. Gropius saw architecture as a social, rather than a visual art.

We tend to separate our environment into the ‘physical’ and the ‘social’, but if we put them back together, I would say that architecture is an environmental art and that all learning is partly environmental. We all know that, in trying to understand a place, we tune in to the expressions on people’s faces and the tone of their voices.

As an environmental art, architecture has a small, but significant, effect on many things, not a big effect on one thing. As a boy moving into adolescence, I had no vocabulary to help me understand what I was experiencing, nor lessons in how to do so, but I knew what expressions of caring felt and looked like. I cared enough to photograph it.

The Editor’s Urban introduction Idiot | And| aAoU finalinthought Action 55

CITY TOWN NEIGHBOURHOOD STREET PLACE

Poetry Ian McMillan Drawings David Rudlin AoU Figure grounds Lathams Words City Kerri Farnsworth AoU Town Michele Grant AoU Neighbourhood Tim Challans AoU Street Alistair Barr AoU Place Nick Childs AoU & Francis Newton AoU

At the threshold of our second decade, some might have expected us to be running out of great places to celebrate, having an archive now of 165 assessment visits.

This year’s finalists offer, however, lessons that are at least equal to those of previous years.

With our principal sponsor, Grosvenor, we have reinforced our connections this year with current and past Awards winners. We have revisited Bristol, San Sebastián, Rotterdam, Freiburg and Glasgow and engaged with Dublin, Hastings, and Dundee. And of course we have explored in depth our 15 worthy 2017 finalists celebrated here.

There are distinct differences between our three Great Places, but all reinforce the benefit of intensive focus on a specific challenge with strong leadership and longterm commitment; of resources and effort.

Our Great Streets this year have all overcome significant historic difficulties through environmental improvements and the encouragement of a diverse mix of mainly local enterprises serving both the local and the wider community.

Our three Great Neighbourhoods demonstrate what can be achieved through visionary leadership with long term commitment, whether led by community or business interests, or a combination of both.

The three Great Towns for 2017 are all well-known, but for their distinctly different characteristics. They offer an opportunity to compare and contrast, but all demonstrate the value of dedicated leadership; from politicians, professionals and community representatives .

I joined the teams visiting all three of our European Cities finalists this year. They all demonstrate the self-confidence of cities with a clear vision and the support of citizens to get on with it. Their characters are different – reflecting regional and national characteristics – but vitality and complexity are common to all.

Visiting all these places is a pleasure and a privilege. Recording the experience and the lessons to be learned involves a lot of work. I thank the representatives of our finalists who prepared their self-assessments and hosted the excellent visits. I’d also like to thank the Academicians who not only enjoyed the visits but gave their time to drawing together our assessments. Thank you in particular to the Assessment Team leaders: Nick Childs and Francis Newton (Places), Alistair Barr and Geoff Haslam (Streets), Tim Challans and Jef Smith (Neighbourhoods), Michele Grant and James Jackson (Towns), David Lumb, Andreas Markides, Nicholas Falk and especially Kerri Farnsworth, who has invested a great deal in leading our visits to the three European cities.

I’d also like to thank our Artist-in-Residence David Rudlin for the drawings; and the graphics team at Lathams for the figure grounds, which add to the distinctiveness and value of this record of our visits. Once again the sonnets of our Poet-inResidence Ian McMillan have added his unique perspective to provide a lasting memento for each finalist.

This is my last contribution to Space Place Life as chairman of the Academy. I remain continually impressed by the commitment of those Academicians who participate in the Awards process, and encourage all Academicians who have not yet participated to make time for the experience in the future. As ‘tourism with a purpose’ it turns a city break into invaluable CPD. Most of all I am impressed by the people we have met in the places we visit – citizens, politicians and professionals who are making better places because they can’t help it; to do otherwise would deny a natural instinct to engage, improve and make a difference. The Academy of Urbanism isn’t looking for award winners; we are looking for better understanding of the urban condition and better ways of improving it. The Awards are a means to this end, and an opportunity to celebrate with those places that are following the same path.

Steven Bee AoU Chairman

CITY

COPENHAGEN I am Copenhagen, look: water defines me, Water and light. I am Copenhagen, listen: I am what I am: a most liveable city Where mornings surprise, evenings glisten With promise. I am Copenhagen, take a walk And bring it back tomorrow, take a bike-ride Through the old Carlsberg district where the talk Is of potential, and growth from the inside To the outside. I am solar-powered, I am green, I have that kind of unassailable confidence That comes from knowing just where I’ve been Will show me where I’m going. It makes sense: Ask The Little Mermaid. She’s tiny but she knows That I am a city where the future really grows.

‘Cooperation, collaboration and mutual respect’ is the mantra for Copenhagen.

Its administrative structure is the prototype of a true political democracy, but is also one which prioritises social welfare, equality and human need. Its exemplar approach to environmental issues is world-renowned. It is physically still shaped by its groundbreaking post-war Green Finger

Plan: an initial pursuit of car-dominant modernism triggered counteractive initiatives including the world’s first pedestrianised street; world-leading legislation in pollution control and clean-up; and extensive public transport and cycling infrastructure.

Despite near bankruptcy in the late1980s, the city invested heavily in high quality public infrastructure, higher

education and cultural institutions to augment its highly distinctive and attractive built heritage, to create a range of high-quality living environments underpinned by worldleading sustainability commitments – including being the world’s first carbonneutral capital city by 2025. As a result it is frequently voted one of the world’s most liveable cities.

CITY

EINDHOVEN A settlement built on a lightbulb moment, a flash Of inspiration that led to mass illuminations And streets lit up by a comforting splash Of brightness. But things change. Ruminations On how to shape Eindhoven in the harsh translation From past to present led to this: a city of brains Built on a shifting map of open innovation And green design, technology to ease the strains Of modern living. Listen: that’s Eindhoven thinking How to be sustainable, and just how to innovate In a brainport that hums with projects linking Today to tomorrow because this afternoon’s too late.

It’s complicated: so’s Eindhoven. Just take it from me: Eindhoven lights the world up like a goal from PSV. The fortunes of this small Dutch city were tied for over 100 years to the rise – and subsequent fall – of two major companies (Philips and DAF Trucks). The quick successive decline of both in the mid-1990s meant almost half of all jobs in the city disappeared.

However, like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes, Eindhoven has over

the past two decades undergone a remarkable transformation from broken post-industrial city into global leader in high-value technology. It is a surprisingly green city offering a high quality, value-for-money range of living environments. This has all been achieved by a combination of strong municipal leadership alongside

an equally strong commitment to true collaboration to harness the latent potential of both private and public sector actors, with an aspirational yet pragmatic ambition – initially referred to as the Triple Helix approach but now being called the Multiple Helix, with citizens invited to co-collaborate and co-deliver services.

CITY

MONTPELLIER Montpellier reminds us that things don’t just appear; Nothing’s accidental, every last thing is designed, Redrafted, tried and tested till its function is quite clear: To be beautiful and practical. Montpellier’s a mind That thinks in spaces: Town Hall as blue ship of state Sailing through everyone’s life every day. A tight old town That manages to stay old and stay tight, early till late; Tram lines like the lines of a poem, smoothing people around As though you’re sitting in a work of art. Montpellier’s made Of history layered on history; It’s a gleaming palimpsest Of Hadid-created gasp-inducing gorgeousness on parade And the Quartier Antigone, where nothing comes to rest Except your eyes, taking it all in. Reader, raise a glass: To Montpellier, to style, and to the permanence of class.

The Mediterranean city of Montpellier has transformed itself since the 60s from a small sleepy city into one which is diverse, vibrant and culturally rich. It took a patient and intelligent approach to strategic spatial development, steered by charismatic municipal leaders, positioning itself as the laboratory for piloting French urban

innovation. It has harnessed the latent commercial potential of its worldclass universities in knowledge-based technologies and built intelligent and efficient public-private partnerships which augment strategic ambitions.

The city has also maximised the use if its fine built heritage. It has created a range of living environments for

all elements of society, including a commendably high proportion of highquality social housing. For the past decade it has been one of the fastestgrowing cities in France (around 10 per cent population growth each year), and was France’s first city to elect a mayor who is not party politically-aligned and the third to become a Metropole.

TOWN

BLACKPOOL Blackpool Council has shown strong leadership and vision in tackling the twin challenges of managing and evolving tourism, its main industry, and dealing with significant social and health issues to create a better place to live. From the high quality restoration of Grade I Listed Blackpool Tower to a major programme of purchase, restoration and re-use of tired B&Bs for housing, the council has boldly tackled the big projects working in joint-venture with businesses and neighbouring authorities. Investment in high-quality public realm and new trams has created an environment that both local people and tourists enjoy and a reputation-shift that is attracting inward investment.

Blackpool, jewel of the bright North-West, Fun palace at the edge of a shining sea.

Regeneration’s tide has made a start To prove this place can be the best Can be the town it wants to be With the Talbot Gateway at its heart And the Grundy Gallery: essential art And the towering tower: believe you me No-one will fail to be impressed; Blackpool, my friend, you’re looking smart!

The past gives up the future’s key To Blackpool: change can never rest.

Kiss me quick, transform me slow Show all the other towns the way to go!

TOWN

CLONAKILTY Let me start with this: black pudding. Go on, On a hired bike below recycling skies Through a place with a vision for everyone And the black pudding. Yes; let’s advertise And spread abroad sustainability, an idea Powered by a solar panel, lit by an LED light And a project as simple, practical and clear As rows and rows of cabbages growing tight In a community garden: as the endless sea Renews itself each day across the shining beach This town will sustain itself. This is Clonakilty: Let’s learn from the things it has to teach.

And listen: my pulse is racing, my heart’s thudding At the thought of an epic Clonakilty black pudding!

Clonakilty is a fantastic example of an ‘architect in the community’ approach.

The town architect, employed by Cork County Council, works with the community on the town’s development plan. This approach has built a strong sense of collective urbanism and civic pride and created a very democratic decision-making process. The model is

now being looked at by other counties in Ireland. The focus is on creating a thriving town centre with a strong commercial and social function, underpinned by a policy to consolidate the centre rather than encourage sprawl and dispersal. That has been achieved through sensitive restoration, repurposing historic buildings and

investing in a high quality pedestrianfriendly public realm including plenty of attractive spaces where people can gather socially. Clonakilty is proud to be one of the few towns in Ireland without traffic lights and with free parking.

TOWN

TODMORDEN This is a border town in a Northern Valley And it faces both ways: Lancs and Yorks But to understand Todmorden fully Bring your knives and bring your forks Bring your plates and an open mind.

This is a border town on the cusp of change A bespoke and unique one-of-a-kind; Think canalside milltown then rearrange Your expectations into this: A border town that knows no bounds That fills me with Todmorden bliss Reduces me to Mmmm-ing sounds As though the whole of Tod is edible; Chew it slowly. The taste’s incredible!

Todmorden is an example of what community-led initiatives, energy and enthusiasm can achieve. The motto of the town is kindness – ask forgiveness not permission – which underpins a caring, can-do approach. Community volunteers took the simple idea of creating raised vegetable beds across the town in unused and unloved spaces for residents to harvest, and turned

it into a global movement. Incredible Edible has become part of a new identity for Todmorden. It has inspired the Apothecary Garden at the new health centre and the AquaGarden. It attracts green businesses to set up in the town, including in renovated mill buildings. ‘Made in Tod’ is a proud part of the town’s independence and evolution from its industrial past.

NEIGHBOURHOOD

ASHLEY VALE, BRISTOL New ways of thinking are never straightforward, Utopia didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get built in a day What looked quite simple turns out to be awkward You grasp it quite tightly but it flies away; So here is a story of process and progress Of ideas that trickle from paper to stone Here is a ballad of progress and process; One thing is certain: the idea has grown From a scaffolding yard just left to the birds To sustainable housing, a place you can live To your specifications. Homes grow from words To ideas to dwellings so now letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all give This new way of living unqualified cheers; And make the noise loud so that everyone hears!

When a former scaffolding yard in Ashley Vale closed, releasing a large site in the centre of a residential area, local people wanted to see a development that would work for the benefit of their neighbourhood. A group of activists realised that instead of simply preventing a conventional housing development taking place

it should take a positive role in presenting an alternative. Collectively, the self-builders financed the purchase of the yard and then developed their plots with different designs suited to their individual and family needs and took on joint responsibility for the management and maintenance of access and shared spaces. This is a fine

example of good urbanism, showing that people with a common purpose can take control of the development of their own neighbourhood in an innovative and positive way. As a result, Ashley Vale is now regarded as an international exemplar for self-build projects.

NEIGHBOURHOOD

NEWHALL, HARLOW In this part of Harlow they really set the bar high A new place to live, a new place to house your dreams A gentle Newhall Skyline against the Essex sky Somewhere very different to your normal housing schemes; Using residents’ ideas and building from the ground Combine urban and rural in an intertwining dance.

Listen: trees grow and people grow too; this is the sound Of a neighbourhood deciding it’s time to take a chance To be itself, to be the very best that it can be On the fringes of the city, on the edges of the green This is modernity, tradition. Just take a look and see At how they live in Newhall; you’ll get what I mean When I say that Newhall is a model for the rest.

So before the first plan’s drawn: decide to be the very best.

British urbanists know the significance of Sir Frederick Gibberd’s postwar Harlow New Town. Although unattractive to investors in recent years, high prices in London plus good road and rail connections make it a viable proposition. As a result, Harlow is attracting new employers and improving the housing stock.

Newhall demonstrates how sensitive neighbourhood development can help revive a town and create a unique living environment. The key to its success is that the original landowner, through a development company, has retained control of how it is built. It has worked with a number of developers, only allocating sites to them when satisfied

with the quality of the proposed architecture and urban design. Newhall is a welcome approach to housing and community development that respects the best elements of the legacy of Harlow. Its location, strong urban design and social mix will create a distinct neighbourhood in the former New Town.

NEIGHBOURHOOD

OUSEBURN, NEWCASTLE In a city that’s changing every time you look, Ouseburn; it’s your turn to step into the light.

Open up this valley and read it like a book Each chapter writes itself as tomorrow’s taking flight: Here’s a biscuit factory packed with brand new art, Here’s a late night venue with an urban groove.

Here’s a set of buildings with culture at the heart A confident culture with nothing left to prove.

The Holy Biscuit, Mustang S Alley: look and eat and drink Hire a bike at The Cycle Hub then off you go, explore All of Seven Stories stories make you stop and think But the stories here are endless, there’s always more & more.

Ouseburn: top example of just how to turn things round With food and film and beer and bikes, laughter, tales and sound!

The green wedge of the Ouseburn valley and its distinctive topography make it an oasis in the city of Newcastle. It is part of its industrial landscape with mixed-uses of small workshops, offices, artist studios and galleries, and with three high-level rail, road and Metro bridges creating a stunning urban feature.

Ouseburn has a distinctive approach to regeneration with a mixture of organic and managed development and strong, but open-minded, master-planning creating a viable and attractive urban neighbourhood. It has been evolving long enough to go through the recycling and repurposing of original buildings and the introduction of innovative

housing has added a greater number of permanent residents into the valley.

Ouseburn has a strong neighbourhood feel, despite having unclear boundaries, as the topography, the river and street patterns, the three bridges, its excellent pubs, music venues, visitor attractions, housing and the eclectic mix of uses offer a clear focus.

STREET

LARK LANE, LIVERPOOL To visit Lark Lane again and again Is always a pleasure and never a pain Always delightful and never a strain.

Sit and sip coffee, enliven the brain Hear some creatives discuss their campaign In the pub taking shelter from brief summer rain; See folks dressed fancy and some wearing plain Go for two starters or starter and main; Eating some Scouse and then drinking champagne Let artistry thrive! Give genius free rein!

And the scent of the zeitgeist will linger, remain Around this Nirvana we all can attain.

Yes, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve nothing to lose and so much to gain In the urban bohemia that we call Lark Lane.

Lark Lane is an exhilarating example of how a night-time economy can contribute to the overall vitality of an area, but it is much more than this. The street caters for many age groups with a good balance of activities. This has been an organic development over the last 20 years. The former police station now houses the community centre and

forms a pivotal part of the street. The activities within the centre are diverse and contribute to great community feeling. The food growing activities in particular create a focal point and encourage mixing across all ages. The pubs, bars and restaurants are very varied and encompass many ethnic backgrounds. In a similar way, the

residential element is flexible enough to work for families, rentals and elderly accommodation. The street is thriving and with some coordinated management initiatives will continue to do so for many years to come.

STREET

NEWRY STREET, BANBRIDGE Let the story of Newry Street be told once more; How the confluence of river and road set the scene How there’s an independent business behind every door How when we say ‘revitalise’ we know what we mean.

A bridge across the river’s at the centre of the thinking; A bridge you can saunter over in the evening light; Real bridge, bridge as metaphor, bridge of ideas linking Peoples’ concerns as the daytime softens to night.

Meet me on the boardwalk, see you at the park; Here come the visitors, let’s show them where to sit Inside a late-night café, bright lights in the dark Or outside a bustling restaurant, the River Bann lit By the light of hope and progress. This is the place to meet Where the present kissed the future down on Newry Street.

30 Newry Street businesses were destroyed by a bomb in 1998. Security checkpoints were introduced, along with concrete planters for shop front protection. The street was closed every night and by the year 2000, vacancy rates were at 26 per cent.

But this innovative council pursued a series of grants to regenerate the

street. A central reservation with trees was introduced and hard landscape design removed all trace of the previous environment. The council has recently harnessed the optimism of the community with an ambitious programme of initiatives.

Street wardens were introduced for day and night-time assistance. Many

cultural and sporting events are held on the street, which work well with the physical improvements. Local family businesses are building on tradition to create a broad mix of shopping. Newry Street shows how deep cooperation between a council and local businesses can create vitality and a highly successful reinvention of a great street.

STREET

WOOD STREET, WALTHAMSTOW A street, yes. A street. But more, so much more: Imagine a street that goes further than A to B, That’s an entrance to somewhere, an open door To an idea. After all, in that word ‘street’ is ‘tree’ And Wood Street grows like a tree does: With independent branches of one-off shops An indoor market with a discernible buzz That’s the sound of a street renewing and perhaps Reinventing itself for the times that lie in wait For the streets that aren’t as agile as Wood Street: Opening up to a plaza busy early until late Busy with footfall: look at all the falling feet That dance across the spaces the future will embrace Wood Street Walthamstow: a smile on a city’s face.

The rebirth of this fascinating street shows that local residents and businesses can work with local authorities to achieve great success in urban projects. Their joint commitment was obvious in this visit. In the mid2000s the street was neglected and many shops were just used for storage with no active frontages. Local groups

were set up to address this and many different initiatives were begun. The councillors we met all have local links and they have used their influence to commission a series of interlocking urban design schemes along the whole length of the street. The council officers have also risen to the challenge and appointed artists and craft-based

consultancies to complement the community activities.

A large housing scheme nearby will start construction next year and it will be fascinating to see how this changes the street. Local residents, businesses, and elected officials show here how to create a street with great future potential.

PLACE

GREENWICH MARKET, LONDON In a place built around the scientific notion Of Time, its applications and philosophy Let’s celebrate a space of perpetual motion, Of buying, selling and the distinct possibility Of finding perfect fashion, exquisite art, As hours seem to slow to a walking pace There’s such a lot here you don’t know where to start: With flatbread or a burger to fill your face Or a sculpture or a posy or a hand-made gift.

An ancient human instinct: the money for the goods In a setting like this always gives your heart a lift; For hundreds of years this is what we’ve understood, Perfect as the moment of a tightly-fitting rhyme; Here we are in GMT: Greenwich Market Time!

This is a not unfamiliar story of a declining market being turned around as part of a co-ordinated regeneration project. This particular market is unique as it sits within a World Heritage Site owned by Greenwich Hospital. But it is buried in an urban block and for many years was largely unvisited. There are benefits in

having one landowner capable of making planned and co-ordinated improvements, in this case in critical partnership with the local borough.

The project sought to improve the context for the experience of the wider heritage site and to deliver the benefits of this exceptionally successful tourist destination to a wider community

and the people of the town. There is no question that the transformation has been very successful. In 1985, the market had been reduced to an ad hoc event one day a week. Now it operates seven days a week selling crafts, collectables and street food. There is 20,000 sq ft of trading space and 200 regular stall holders.

PLACE

LEICESTER MARKET, LEICESTER Where Richard the Third got his fruit and veg Where Ranieri bought his lucky socks Where Leicester and its people renew their pledge: ‘Where you build a lovely market the city flocks.’

Where a brand new square will draw the crowds Where they can sit and drink, wield a knife and fork Where they can buy rice, light as floating clouds Where they can meet old friends and stand and talk.

Where a market is, there a place can grow Where the commerce flows between each stall Where time can speed by or go ‘Market Slow’ Where the sounds and smells and sights enthral.

Where a day at the market makes you feel alive Where a market thrives, then the people thrive!

Until a few years ago Leicester Market was struggling, the 1970’s indoor market hall was depressing and ineffective and the traders were leaving. Leicester City Council has revitalised the market by developing an elegant, modern food hall next to the Corn Exchange and demolishing the old building to create new public space. Once again we see

the improvement of the public realm by the removal of something ill-conceived and admire the authority for their courage in doing so. The key to the transformation appears to have been the shift in management of the market from property services to tourism and culture. This recognises the role of markets as places of cultural exchange

that help to define a city’s identity. The project is very much a work in progress but does demonstrate the importance of generating a change in perception, seeing the market as an opportunity not a problem, seeing it as a sociocultural issue as much as a commercial one. Leicester Market now has all the potential to be a great place.

PLACE

VIKING TRIANGLE, WATERFORD As though lines were etched between the horns On a Viking’s helmet, down to his chinguard And right back up again, the shape that’s drawn’s A kind of Viking Triangle. The idea’s not hard: A memory of the Vikings, a commemoration Of city walls a whole millennium old, That you can stroll by in a peregrination Of the sort they might have made. Be bold And pretend you’re from the past as you visit Christchurch Cathedral and Reginald’s Tower As history fans out from the Vikings, makes explicit That heritage is a continuum; feel the power Of remembering then re-remembering this: Clear as Waterford Crystal, triangulating bliss.

This multi-faceted approach to regeneration has exploited the best physical, historic and cultural assets, successfully fusing these with animated public spaces and urban renewal to achieve a memorable destination.

The approach has achieved a remarkable impact in less than a decade, transforming the area from a

level of neglect which is now difficult to comprehend, to a rejuvenated and vibrant urban quarter. The quality of what has been achieved in architecture, urban design and restoration has created a great stimulus for the revival of the city, when it hit an all-time low, and further city centre projects are already being planned.

The Viking Triangle is an exemplar for both the quality of the regeneration and the manner in which it has been achieved. The approach is clearly comprehensive, yet sensitive and unique to the place, turning an historically rich but rather forlorn place into a great one.

Academicians

DIRECTORS From top left to right Andrew Burrell Prof Kevin Murray Henk Bouwman Janet Sutherland John Thompson (Honorary President) David Rudlin Steven Bee (Chairman) Tony Reddy Biljana Savic Tim Stonor Bob Young

ACADEMICIANS Arthur Acheson Prof Robert Adam Marcus Adams Lisa Addiscott Dr Husam Al Waer Kyle Alexander OBE Pam Alexander OBE Malcolm Allan Joanna Allen Ben Allgood Charles Anderson Ewan Anderson Kathryn Anderson Nigel Anderson Simon Andrew Catton Ian Angus Debbie Aplin Judith Armitt George Arvanitis Jamie Ashmore Stephen Ashworth Jas Atwal Jeff Austin Jeanette Baartman Dr Samer Bagaeen Alastair Baird

Prof Chris Balch Yolande Barnes Alistair Barr Prof Hugh Barton John Baulch Will Bax Alan Baxter CBE Simon Bayliss Ian Beaumont Craig Becconsall Matthew Bedward Paul Bedwell Simon Bee Andrew Beharrell Keith Bell Neil Bennett Robert Bennett Duncan Berntsen John Best John Betty David Bishop Deirdre Black Adam Blacker Alastair Blyth Christian Bocci Martin Boddy Nicholas Boys Smith Rosemary Bradley Angela Brady OBE Noel Brady Torben Brandi Nielsen Chris Brett Eddie Bridgeman Mark Brierly Jane Briginshaw Annabel Brown Patricia Brown Robin Buckle Craige Burden Mark Burgess Sarah Burgess Jonathan Burroughs Richard Burton Peter Butenschøn Prof Georgia Butina Watson Peter Butter Karen Cadell

Gerry Cahill Bruce Calton Fiona Campbell Kelvin Campbell Charles Campion Steve Canadine Tony Carey Fredrik Carlsson Matthew Carmona Simon Carne James Carr Sam Cassels Philip Cave Tim Challans Marion Chalmers Joanna Chambers Dominic Chapman Richard Charge Ian Chater Ming Cheng Alain Chiaradia Nick Childs Dominic Church Shane Clarke Tom Clarke Anne Cleary Clare Coats Dr Jim Coleman Robert Coles Garry Colligan Paul Collins Martin Colreavy Max Comfort Brian Condon Charlotte Cook Karen Cooksley Prof Rachel Cooper OBE Ian Corner Cara Courage Will Cousins Rob Cowan David Cowans Michael Cowdy Timothy Crawshaw Toby Crayden Joe Crockett Emily Crompton Chris Crook

72 Here & Now | AoU Journal No. 8 | Autumn 2016

Adam Crozier Ciaran Cuffe Linda Curr Peter Cusdin Ned Cussen Jennie Daly Justine Daly Jane Dann Alex Davey Philip Davies Mark Davy Eric Dawson James de Havilland Neil de Prez Sophia de Sousa Ian Deans Toby Denham Guy Denton Nick Dermott Clare Devine Hank Dittmar John Downie Herbert Dreiseitt Prof John Drever Paul Drew Eugene Dreyer Craig Driver Peter Drummond Tony Duggan Paul Dunne Paul Durnien John Dyke Nigel Dyke Richard Eastham David Edwards Stephanie Edwards Elad Eisenstein Luke Engleback Gavin Erasmus Karen Escott Roger Estop Prof Brian Evans Prof Graeme Evans Martyn Evans Roger Evans Wyn Evans Patrick Eve Dr Nicholas Falk

Kerri Farnsworth Max Farrell Sir Terry Farrell Mahmood Faruqi Ian Fenn Jaimie Ferguson Kathryn Firth Stephanie Fischer Andrew Fisher David Flannery Prof Carlotta Fontana Sue Foster OBE Bernie Foulkes Ted Fowler Jane Fowles Simon Foxell Edward Frampton Alan Francis Peter Frankum Anna Freiesleben Daisy Froud Sandra Fryer Mark Furlonger Tim Gale Catherine Gallagher Carole Garfield Lindsay Garratt Tim Garratt Angus Gavin John Geeson Peter Geraghty Lia Ghilardi Andy Gibbins Prof Mike Gibson Ian Gilzean Stephen Gleave Dick Gleeson Guy Goodman Keith Gowenlock Michele Grant Mark Greaves David Green Ali Grehan James Gross Simon Guest Richard Guise Paul Hackett Leo Hammond Tim Hancock Philip Harcourt Geoff Haslam David Hastings Roger Hawkins John Haxworth Michael Hayes CBE Peter Heath Tina Heathcote Michael Hegarty David Height Russell Henderson Simon Henley James Hennessey Paul Hildreth Colin Hill Stephen Hinsley Marie Hodgson Eric Holding Peter Hollis Stephen Hollowood

Stephen Howlett Robin Hoyles Jun Huang Simon Hubbard Anthony Hudson Nigel Hughes Michael Hurlow John Hyland Tony Ingram David Jackson James Jackson Julian Jackson Philip Jackson Colin James Amy Jefferies Ruth Jeffs Timothy Jemison Cathy Johnston Eleri Jones Gregory Jones Howard Jones Peter Jones Rory Joyce Gesine Junker Martina Juvara Gavin Kain Dr Kari Kankaala Dr Kayvan Karimi Philip Kassanis Despina Katsikakis Daniel Kaye John Kelpie Steve Kemp Jonathan Kendall Angus Kennedy OBE David Kennedy Justin Kenworthy Anne Kerr Mary Kerrigan Ros Kerslake OBE Anne Kiernan David King Graham King Martyn Kingsford OBE Angela Koch Felicie Krikler Charles Landry Richard Latcham Derek Latham Diarmaid Lawlor Emilie Leclercq John Letherland Stephen Lewis Alex Lifschutz Einar Lillebye Fred London John Lord Mark Lucas Aylin Ludwig David Lumb Maja Luna Jorgensen Nikolas Lyzba Carol MacBain Robin Machell Roddie Maclean Peter Madden Keiji Makino Geoffrey Makstutis Grace Manning-Marsh

Andreas Markides Paul Martin Dr Katherine Martindale Andrew Matthews Bob May Steve McAdam John McAslan John McCall Frank McDonald Prof Michael McGarry Kevin McGeough Martin McKay Craig McLaren Mette McLarney Craig McWilliam Stephan Miles-Brown Gerry Millar Robert Millar Nikola Miller Adrian Millicheap Stephanie Mills Dr Negin Minaei Shane Mitchell Dr John Montgomery Cllr John Moreland Paul Morsley Richard Motley John Muir Ronnie Muir John Mullin Dr Claudia Murray Deborah Murray Prof Gordon Murray Peter Murray Dr Lucy Natarajan Stephen Neal Jon Neale Marko Neskovic Francis Newton Lora Nicolaou Dr Olli Niemi Ross Nimmo Malcolm Noble Hugo Nowell Richard Nunes Craig O’Brien Calbhac O’Carroll Killian O’Higgins Dr Dellé Odeleye Simon Ogden Tiago Oliveira John Orrell Emeka Osaji Trevor Osborne Paul Ostergaard Erik Pagano Chris Pagdin Dr Susan Parham Kevin Parker Phil Parker Michael Parkinson Fiona Parry Sowmya Parthasarathy Nikhil Pase James Patterson Waterston Richard Pearce Adam Peavoy Russell Pedley Ross Peedle Prof Alan Penn Hugh Petter Richard Petty Graeme Philips Alex Phillips Justin Phillips Louisa Philpott Jon Phipps Karen Phull James Pike Ben Plowden Demetri Porphyrios Prof David Porter Sunand Prasad

John Prevc Dr Darren Price Simon Price David Prichard Paul Prichard John Pringle Stephen Proctor Steve Quartermain CBE Helen Quigley Shane Quinn Colin Rae Christian Rapp Andrew Raven Mike Rawlinson Layton Reid Richard Reid Stephan Reinke Lawrence Revill Elizabeth Reynolds Eric Reynolds Christopher Rhodes Patrick Richard Sue Riddlestone OBE Antony Rifkin Marion Roberts Prof Peter Roberts OBE Steve Robins Dickon Robinson Dr Rick Robinson Sandy Robinson Bryan Roe Nick Rogers Raj Rooprai Anna Rose Richard Rose-Casemore Graham Ross Jon Rowland Sarah Royle-Johnson Dr Andrew Ryder Robert Sakula Huseyin Salih John Sampson Clare San Martin Peter Sandover Astrid Sanson Hilary Satchwell Arno Schmickler Dominic Scott Sharon Scott Symon Sentain Toby Shannon Chris Sharpe Cath Shaw Richard Shaw Keith Shearer Yihan Shen Gorana Shepherd Michael Short Anthony Shoults Ron Sidell Paul Simkins Dr Richard Simmons Anette Simpson Tim Simpson Alan Simson Anna Sinnott Ann Skippers Jef Smith Malcolm Smith Roger Smith Carol Somper Carole Souter CBE Adrian Spawforth Andy Spracklen Alan Stewart Peter Stewart Susan Stirling Rosslyn Stuart Peter Studdert Nicholas Sweet Ian Tant Jonathan Tarbatt David Taylor Ed Taylor

YOUNG URBANISTS

Nick Taylor Rebecca Taylor Sandy Taylor Nicholas Temple Ivan Tennant Alison Tero Prof Mark Tewdwr-Jones Gary Thomason Alan Thompson David Thompson Dr Emine Thompson Robert Thompson Dale Thomson Dr Ying Ying Tian Greg Tillotson Niall Tipping Damian Tissier Andrea Titterington Ian Tod Steve Tolson Paul Tostevin Robert Townshend Rob Tranmer Stephen Tucker Richard Tuffrey Neil Tully Jeffrey Tumlin Stuart Turner Roger Tustain Nick Tyler CBE Julia Unwin Dr Debabardhan Upadhyaya Richard Upton Giulia Vallone Hans van Bommel Honoré van Rijswijk Mattjis Van Ruijven Atam Verdi Jonathan Vining Andy von Bradsky Prof Lorna Walker Thomas Walker Julia Wallace Ann Wallis Russell Wallis Andy Ward Nathan Ward Ralph Ward Paul Warner Elanor Warwick David Waterhouse Camilla Ween Oliver Weindling Dr Michael Wells Jan-Willem Wesselink Allison Westray Chapman Pam Wharfe Peter Wheelhouse Victoria Whenray Lindsey Whitelaw Mike Wilkins Stephen Willacy Martin Williams Peter Williams Patricia Willoughby Marcus Wilshere Richard Wolfströme David Woods Nick Woolley Gary Worsfold John Worthington MBE Tony Wyatt Louise Wyman Wei Yang Stephen Yarwood Gary Young Rob Young Paul Zara Parsa Zarian Jack Zheng Qu

Khalifa Abubakar Alexandros Achniotis Jan Ackenhausen Alexander Alexiou Amer Alwarea Patrick Andison Ben Angus Jennifer Angus Alexandre Araujo Kinda Ayoub Nouha Ayoub Cory Babb Alexander Baker Claudia Balseca Simon Banfield Phillippa Banister Sangeetha Banner Laura Bartle Sarah Birt Vasiliki Bourli Masie Bowes Michael Bredin John Burns Yesica Caballero Baillie Card Rodrigo Cardoso Harriet Carter Nairita Chakraborty Victor Chamberlain Roland Chanin-Morris Leo Cheung Simon Chinn Katherine Clegg Daniel Cooper Dr João Cortesão Aaron Coulter James Cox Rebecca Cox Robert Cox Charles Critchell Victoria Crozet Hugh D’Alton Lilly Dai Dan Daley Nicholas Daruwalla Hanaa Dasan Aurelio David Aaron Davis Kate Dawson Vito De Bellis Anna de Torróntegui Amy Dickens Ina Dimireva Louise Dredge Akrem el Athram Stephanie Ete Alexander Evans Alexander Farr Tobias Fett Thomas Findlay Alisha Fisher Diana Fjodorova Andrea Forsberg Nicolas Francis Alex Frankcombe Matthew Gamboa Jorge Gerini Andrzej Gierak Ross Gilbert Nicholas Goddard Jose Gomez Sanchez James Goodsell Katsushi Goto Ian Gracie Zarreen Hadadi Ali Haddad Jamie Harrison-Grundy Rosie Haslem Ines Hassen Andrew Hedger Simon Hicks Alan Higgins

Sarah Hill Dominik Hoehn Thomas Homfray Hasanul Hoque Patrick Hourmant Lewis Hubbard Elinor Huggett Saskia Huizinga Rachel Hutchinson Emma Hutton Thomas Hyde Loukia Iliopoulou Martha Isaacs Fred Jerrome Jennifer Johnson Jacob Kalmakoff Foteini Kanellopoulou Gauri Kangai Georgios Kapraras Charlotte Kemp David Kemp Robert Kerr Isobel Knapp Anna Kravec Melissa Lacide Rachel Lambert Christian Lapper Catherine Larmouth Yeonhwa Lee Mark Leitner-Murphy Mark Lever Ruperto Lira Philip Liu Iacovos Loizou Stephen Lovejoy Tierney Lovell Laetitia Lucy Ava Lynam Danielle MacCarthy Richard MacCowan Giacomo Magnani Claire Malaika Tunnacliffe Theo Malzieu Nick Mann Patricia Martin del Guayo John Mason Laura Mazzeo Isabel McCagg Kathryn McCain Hector Mendoza Shawn Meyers Darcy Millar Cris Mitry Jose Monroy Tristan More Antonia Morgan Jelly Moring Clémence Morlet Alistair Neame Maria Newstrom Dan Chinh Nguyen Pauline Niesseron Bobby Nisha Szymon Nogalski Eoin O’Connor Alex O’Hare Sean O’Leary Louise Oppe Louisa Orchard Eleana Orr Floriane Ortega Edoardo Parenti Sejal Patel Fred Paxton Victoria Payne Claudia Penaran da-Fuentes Francesca Perry Diana Phiri Anna Pichugina Mailys Pineau Victoria Pinoncely

Julie Plichon Bright Pryde Longning Qi Mura Quigley Cristina Racsko Emma Rainoldi Dinar Ramadhani Ziad Rayya Ronald Riviere Jonah Rudlin Mar Lluch Salvador Jessica Sammut Renelle Sarjeant Ross Schaffer Alexei Schwab Yahya Yasser Mohamed Shaker Jonathan Sheldon Hannah Shoebottom Simeon Shtebunaev Roxana Slavcheva Emilia Smeds Andy Smith Henry Smith Bethania Soriano Emma Spierin Helen Spriggs Matthew Spurway Mark Stewart Catherine Street Ran Suk Rebecca Sumerling Lucy Sykes Bea Symington Tracey Taylor Katharine Thomas Gavin Thomson Kieran Toms Chloe Treger Giacomo Vecia Mariangela Veronesi Ding Wang George Weeks Frederik Weissenborn Robert Wellburn Roger White Tim White Niall Williams Derek Wilson Evelyn Wong Mengqian Wu Mirjam Wurtz David Yates Szu-an Yu

HONORARY ACADEMICIANS Prof Wulf Daseking Jan Gehl George Ferguson CBE Christer Larsson Manuel Salgado

IN-RESIDENCE David Rudlin AoU Artist Frank McDonald AoU Writer Ian McMillan Poet

Academicians and Young Urbanists

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For over 25 years, Space Syntax has pioneered a science-based and human-focused approach to urban planning and design. Our principal objective has been, and continues to be, the enhancement of life in buildings and urban places.

It drives everything we do.

Founded on an employee-owned, open source and open access business model, we apply, develop and disseminate the Space Syntax approach through a set of six, complementary activity streams.

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Our design and advisory work is supported by inhouse research and software development, which is then made available to others through training and partnering arrangements.

We plan to grow each of these activity streams in the future, creating centres of excellence to transform the way buildings and urban places are made. Where 20th century cities were cardependent and sprawling, our vision of the future city is a life-enhancing place of great streets, open spaces and urban buildings.

Connected places built on connected practice.

create space : create value

www.spacesyntax.com