URBLOG

Gap widening between ‘resurgent’ and ‘stuck cities’

 How Can Cities Thrive in the Changing Economy?

The Work Foundation today releases a league table of the productivity of different cities across the UK that reveals wide and growing disparities between ‘resurgent’ cities and those that appear to be ‘stuck’. Lack of vision and failure to collaborate with neighbours are considered significant waeknesses. Historic coastal towns fare particulary badly in this changing environment. Differences risk being exacerbated by the credit crunch as too many UK cities have built up a reliance on financial service jobs compared to their European counterparts, the How Can Cities Thrive in the Changing Economy? report warns.  

"Many refuse to recognise that their economic future relies on trade links with a neighbouring city that, despite being a historic rival, is now thriving. And they are often blighted by either chaotic or complacent leadership."

The great ecotown land grab

Glancey and Greer in The Guardian

Whatever the government says, they will need to be served by even more cars and - this being England - out-of-town supermarkets. In any case, how can a town be called "eco" when its existence requires the loss of green land and a spread of new homes away from established towns, as so many of these proposals do?

The renaissance is over

Dermot Finch of Centre for Cities speculates on a time of recession

"The slowdown will test Ministers' resolve on devolution. The Government will now need to deliver on its empowerment rhetoric, in a much tighter fiscal climate. Will Ministers agree to more financial powers for local government, or use the slowdown as an excuse not to devolve? "

See also 'The credit crunch and implications for the UK housing market'

SUCCESS AND THE CITY

Learning from International Urban Policy

Latest Policy Exchange report

"Collectively, the message from these cities is clear: the most successful have the powers and ambition to initiate change, the freedoms to think and be innovative with policy, and the mechanisms to hold local change to account. Giving cities powers alone, however, cannot buck geography. The most successful also benefit strongly from their location, size and accessibility, and these are sometimes difficult areas to bring within the bounds of policy."

DELIVERING URBAN HOMES

Government’s target of three million homes by 2020 is under threat

The latest report from the All Party Urban Development Group finds that councils need extra support from Whitehall – and especially from the newly created Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) – to deliver the additional homes needed in their areas.

“There can be no quick fix to sustainable urban regeneration and the report underlines the importance of long term solutions to the future of city living based around better use of public sector land, placemaking, the fostering of communities and delivery models that are not reliant on short annual profit horizons.”

DOUBLE TAKE in Leeds

Strangely Familiar: an exhibition of two photographers who have captured the transformation of Leeds over the last 40 years shows how the city's landscape has changed - from factories and mills to cappuccino bars.

Guardian article by Chris Arnot

Photo Gallery

Strangely Familiar, by Eric Jaquier and Peter Mitchell, is at the PSL Gallery, Leeds, from February 27 until April 26.

Eco-towns plans become less ambitious

   Urban myths? Plans for the prototype eco-towns have been scaled back, and local people are far from convinced. 'I am not sure that anyone actually knows what is meant by an 'ecotown', let alone a 'prototype ecotown'.

The regeneration game

Why cities' plans for renewal often sound strangely familiar

'Why do city councils have the same ideas about how to grow? One reason is that they have the same people advising them. '

'...it would be good if the government put some power back into the hands of the regeneratees themselves. '

Lord's debate Olympic legacy 17th January 2008

'Things imposed on people by central bodies or external agencies do not work, nor do the more cosmetic kinds of regeneration initiatives that we sometimes find. Local participation and ownership, the right kind of infrastructure, a good quality built environment, the best kind of public space; all of these help to build sustainable communities.' Bishop of Newcastle

Is it all coming together in Thames Gateway?

THAMES GATEWAY DELIVERY PLAN LAUNCHED

The government has announced, More than £9bn is to be spent on projects along the Thames estuary on Europe's largest regeneration project,

Lucy Reynolds asks: Is it too ambitious?

"Thames Gateway is clearly an ambitious project and is very challenging because there are a number of different sub-regions within it with different characters, and it is not helped by the fact that there is a plethora of agencies involved."

SHRINKING CITIES

The  Shrinking Cities exhibition is now in Manchester and Liverpool.

"Cities are shrinking all over the world!  Shrinking cities are a cultural challenge to us. In the Shrinking Cities project, architects, academics and artists investigate recent developments in Detroit, Ivanovo, Manchester / Liverpool and Halle / Leipzig ."