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‘Living in the city’– Whilst Ministers can’t see beyond 2015, city leadership teams need a vision to 2050

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Which comes first - smarter cities or smarter Ministers?

Which comes first – smarter cities or smarter Ministers?

The official statement of Brandon Lewis, Minister for Housing and Planning, following the award of the Wolfson Economics Prize on Garden Cities to David Rudlin and his colleagues, has already been remarked in this journal as over-hasty and ‘brutal‘. Indeed – it was disappointing, disingenuous and just plain odd!

“The proposal from Lord Wolfson’s competition is not government policy and will not be taken up”, says Lewis. Why would anyone have thought it was government policy? The Wolfson winner’s proposals, and those of many of the runner ups, are carefully constructed, thoughtful,  innovative, and visionary ‘ideas’. How could that be government policy?

This government isn’t into radical visionary ideas – especially this close to an election. Can local leadership teams, therefore, pick up the mantle?

One of the many stimulating features of Rudlin’s ‘Uxcester’ garden city proposals, is that it provides an approach to growing (up to forty) small-medium English cities over the long term. There has been an enduring struggle to come up with models of growth for these, often very dynamic, places.

My own work with ‘Regional Cities East’ and the ‘Growth Cities Network’ was, I hope, progressive and useful. But, medium-size cities have tended to be squeezed between the metropolitan models of London and the core cities; often patrician, complacent county-based administrative compromises; and the more rural, commuting agendas of (successful) market towns. Whilst Rudlin’s work might not be the whole answer, the garden cities principles and ethos explored by the submission is worthy of serious deliberation and piloting practice by ambitious ‘regional cities’ – together with their Local Authorities (LAs) and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs).

If Lewis had thought about his ministerial brief instead of rushing into political knee jerk dismissal, he might have recognised this. His commitment to ‘protecting the green belt from development as an important protection against urban sprawl’ is as simplistic and inadequate as his government’s housing delivery track record.

It is instructive to look at the pace and scale of urban development (what Lewis might term urban sprawl) over the last fifty years. In the 1961 census, ONS’s identification of major urban areas by size showed two with over 1 million population, a further three over 500,000, 11 over 250,000, and 51 over 100,000. In all, 67 settlements with a total population of 16.6m (or 248,000 per settlement).

The 2011 census built up area (BUA) hierarchy shows just 69 settlements with over 100,000 population, so very little change. However, we now have 4 BUAs with over 1m population, 7 over 500,000, and 18 over 250,000. In all, the 69 settlements support a population of 33.9million with an average settlement size of 492,000.

In summary, Britain’s major urban areas are already more than doubling in average size over a fifty year period. Why not sit down and talk about planning this in a better way for high growth potential medium size locations, and build on the process stimulated by Wolfson and URBED?

High growth potential locations are also explored in Grant Thornton’s (GTs) new ‘Where Growth Happens’ publication.  This constructs indices of growth, dynamism, economy, people and place. GT looks at both the characteristics of places ranked high on their indices, and the leadership required.

In aggregate, the characteristics are relatively well-known – knowledge-based, enterprising, diverse, balanced economies, well-connected etc – with empowered and empowering collective leadership. The indices produce economic geographies focused on major growth corridors and a diverse cohort of types of cities. In particular, growth potential is likely to be more realisable in six radial corridors around London; a Liverpool-Manchester-Leeds Trans-Pennine belt; the West Midlands conurbation; and a Nottingham-Sheffield corridor. GTs top ten cities (outside London) for both growth and dynamism include four core cities (five of the eight over the two indices) and six medium size cities (nine over the two indices – all except two of which were offered wave two city deals). In Rudlin’s ‘regional city’ terms, about half of his proto-Uxcesters are in these high potential geographies.

Other notable work of recent months includes the RSAs City Growth Commission and its focus on ‘metros’. Over the summer, the commission has published reports on infrastructure (July 2014), skills (July 2014), and financing (September 2014). Many of the Commission’s prescriptions resonate with the IPPR North’s ‘Decentralisation Decade’ also released this month. These pieces of work share analyses about the key drivers of growth that should be led sub-nationally (e.g. skills, transport and infrastructure, some aspects of development and regeneration). They also prescribe substantial,  if asymmetrical, political, and fiscal devolution (to ‘metro governance’ like Combined Authorities). New central-local relations should be founded on multi-annual settlements and partnership ‘pacts’. The asymmetrical character refers to a belief that London and Manchester, in particular, are more devolution-ready than some other areas.

Putting these pieces of work together produces a relatively consistent and clear sets of agendas for negotiation with an incoming government next year. Sub-national leadership teams should firm up the propositions  for their individual areas. Collectively, they should frame negotiating positions and processes that allow an asymmetry of measures and milestones.

As positive and encouraging as this work is, what the 2015-20 agendas still seem to lack is the type of rounded narrative feel of Rudlin’s ‘Garden City’ proposals. What types of cities will these newly empowered places be working towards? For another stimulating read, we should return to Government, and a piece of which Lewis is clearly unaware.

In June, the Office of Science published a foresight piece on ‘Living in the City’, looking forward to 2050. The authors outline the mega-trends of UK cities since the 1970s – deindustrialisation; inner city deprivation; countervailing gentrification; services industry growth; car based, often greenfield, corridor developments; remodelling industrial heritage for a post-industrial age; and increasing digital influence – including security and surveillance.

The paper then extrapolates these trends into four scenarios to 2050. The ‘high tech’ city will use technology and hydrogen-based fuel to increase people and goods movement within and between cities – with driverless cars and drones facilitating both horizontal and vertical urban growth. The ‘digital city’ substitutes movement for digital communications and experience. The ‘liveable city’ powers down carbon footprint by focusing on city life as predominantly being experienced within your local neighbourhood. The ‘fortress city’ is more dystopian, as gated communities segment urban living into privileged and less privileged enclaves.

Like the Garden Cities prize, Lewis doesn’t have to tell us ‘this is not government policy’, notwithstanding it is a government publication. We understand the difference between stimulating, deliberative exchange, public policy and practice!

This blog cannot do justice to this suite of valuable recent material on city growth and development. But hopefully it has whet the appetite, if such were needed, for LAs, LEPs and other partners to combine their very practical case building for enhanced decentralisation 2015-20, with some blue sky thinking about the types of places we are trying to fashion in the longer term.

That thinking will inevitably question the adequacy of the current agendas – of changes to LEP and LA institutional architecture; financing instruments and transactional ‘deals’; of the culture and norms of central-local relations. Is our 2015-20 agenda a credible waypoint on the journey to the 2050 cities we wish to see?

One litmus test of progress being made will be when Ministers do not feel bound to reject innovative, thoughtful proposals with the rapid brutality of the current Housing and Planning incumbent.


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