The Spirit of Cities

The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age Daniel A. Bell & Avner de-Shalit

Israeli academic Avner de-Shalit gave a talk on his new book, the Spirit of Cities, at the RSA. Based on at the idea that the spirit or ethos of a city can be captured, the book covers nine modern cities through a series of interviews. They didn't cover London because he said there isn't one ethos, rather several competing ones, which seems to negate their theory somewhat. In the talk, he didn't address either the changing nature of cities and peoples either. Indeed, his characterisation of a top-down authoritarian Berlin didn't ring true to me, or to a German friend who has lived there. What the book appears to boil down to is a series of subjective anecdotes that aren't necessarily that reflective of the lived experience for many (although I imagine the authors would claim they are). Still, it's always nice to hear folks talk about cities.....

HS2 - the right line?

Mark Bostock, a former ARUP consultant who advised on the Channel Tunnel rail link (now HS1), gave an interesting talk at the LSE today. He claims the government is proposing the wrong route for Britain's second high speed rail. Lack of linkages with the national rail network and other transport modes (crucially air travel at the Heathrow international hub) means the potential economic benefits may never be realised, he says. A link with Heathrow, for example, could shift some of the short haul flights onto high speed rail, freeing up slots for medium and long haul travel, allowing the airport to go for business in emerging markets that currently they are losing to hubs with more space such as Amsterdam and Dubai (although I'm not sure how many short haul flights leave from Heathrow that could viably be switched to train). Not to mention easing economic imbalances by better connecting the rest of the country to opportunities - typical of the joined up way engineers see the world.

ARUP funded its own proposal for a (marginally) cheaper solution which links HS2 to Heathrow, Birmingham airport and through HS1 to Europe. He said Arup’s preferred option was supported by the conservatives in opposition, and now is supported by Labour in opposition. When in power, transport ministers come and go (at least five in the life of the HS2 proposal, the longest of which lasted 15 months) and politicians tend to go with the mandarins suggestions, he says. The Old Oak Common interchange appears to have been part of the HS2 proposals from the outset.

What Scottish National Planning could do for England

I just spent a few days on placement with the Scottish Government's Directorate for the Built Environment, just before David Cameron made a visit to a Scottish porridge factory (whose tartan tablecloths and napkins he embraced amid some skepticism - see picture). Planning in Scotland is entirely devolved to the SNP-led government, which in 2007 became the biggest party in the Scottish government for the first time, becoming a majority government in 2011.

I had always considered the Scottish Nationalist Party left wing, in keeping with Scotland's traditional leftist sentiments and because so much of the nationalist sentiment I grew up with was formed in opposition to Maggie Thatcher, who in popular mythology at least neglected and abused Scotland because she knew no-one ever votes Tory there. However, perhaps the SNP is not so different from nationalist parties elsewhere (who tend to be right wing) after all....

One thing struck me during two days at the heart of Scottish planning. I've spent the past few years studying changes to the planning system in England, or the government's localism agenda. But guess what? The SNP got there first. Scottish planners told of how the previous Labour administration wanted their hands in every pie, but the SNP is keen for planning decisions to be made at as local a level as possible, even before austerity culled staff numbers.

Before the SNP, there were 19 categories under which local authorities had to refer decisions to a higher authority. This meant that a single building on the green belt was flagged to the government's attention, or around 300 cases a year. Only one in a hundred was called in by ministers, meaning they rather than the local authority made the decision, showing a lot of time was wasted in duplicated effort. The SNP only wants to know about developments of strategic national importance, bringing the case load for national government down to 31 per year. (There are three categories for referral: 1) local authority interest and significantly contrary to development plans; 2) objection by a significant government agency such as Scottish National Heritage or Historic Scotland or 3) open cast coal development within 500 metres of a settlement.) Most decisions are left to local authorities, and even when the decisions are called in, ministers rarely go against the competent authority (one case).

Interesting therefore that this localism agenda has been so enthusiastically adopted by the conservative-liberal government for England. Interesting too, that the SNP appears to stay true-er to its principles than Eric Pickles, who is keen on devolving decision making to the lowest possible level, except when he isn't (and especially when its a development he doesn't like in his own constituency).

Now that Cameron appears to be positively engaging with the debate in Scotland - talking about how the British government policy could be better geared towards helping the Scottish economy be stronger rather than imposing a top-down view of how Scotland should behave (and winging about contested statistics on how much Scotland costs) - it will be interesting to see how he squares up to Alex Salmond, with whom he might have more in common than anyone thinks......

Subprime, Segregation and food for thought

Subprime caused all kinds of pain. The costs of lending to people whose only chance of repayment was ever increasing house prices are still being paid today, years after the bubble burst. But even at the time I remember one commentator defending opening up the chance of home ownership to huge swathes of the population.

A snippet in an Economist article hailing the end of segregation in America's cities reminded me of this. Citing a report by the Manhattan Institute, a New York think tank, the magazine says American cities are more integrated than ever. "Only" 0.5 percent of America's 70,000 neighbourhoods are all white, and the proportion of black American living in "ghettos" has dropped from nearly half in the 1960s to about 20 percent. Anti-discrimination legislation, genrification, and access to credit (leading to depopulation of the ghettos) are behind the push towards integration. "The biggest drop in degregation over the past decade has been in places that had the most subprime lending," the report's author Jacob Vigdor is quoted as saying.

Visiting Maranello, the home of Ferrari, I remember reading a history of the company and its search for credit. Banks tend not to lend to the people who need it most, it said. We must hope that the era of tighter credit does not mean an end to opportunities for those with the most to gain.

London Buildings: An Architectural Tour

A friend gave me this delightful book, London Buildings: An Architectural Tour by Hannah Dipper and Robin Farquhar, to review. It celebrates an eclectic and personal selection of London charm with simple pen and ink drawings.

The book is unafraid to be totally subjective: it includes for example The Pump House in Battersea Park, where the authors were married. Famous (and sometimes unloved, often contraversial) places such as the Brunswick Centre, the Barbican, Vauxhall Bus Station, much of the Southbank and Centre Point feature, as do lesser known places such as Gasholder No. 8 in St Pancras (whose restoration is part of the Kings Cross redevelopment - but only after residents objected to its dismantling) and Maggie's Cancer Caring Centre (winner of the 2009 RIBA Stirling prize).

My friend was not impressed: why would anyone trek out to deepest East London to admire the Balfron Tower, or its more celebrated cousin, the Trellick Tower (pictured), in West London? Quite possibly many people wouldn't care that Erno Goldfinger was inspired by Le Corbusier's unbuilt scheme for Algiers - architecture fans excepted.

As for me, I'm a big fan of the urban landscape and would much prefer to take my camera to old canal-side warehouses than to the grand signature buildings photographed a million times. So I found this unusual selection quite inspiring. I would say there isn't enough regard for people who use these buildings. This probably wasn't the intention of the architect authors, but is what interests me. No matter how important architecturally, I'm unmoved by Brutalist fans who campaign for the Balfron Tower or Robin Hood Gardens with little concern for those who live in them: the buildings should first and foremost serve the residents, whose happiness (or otherwise) will be reflected in the surrounding public space. It is endlessly fascinating to me that the Kensington version is a place people aspire to live in (possibly because the right to buy scheme led to more home owners insisting on proper maintenance), but the Tower Hamlets scheme is sadder. There are lessons to be learnt there!

But back to the book. The drawings are light and beautiful and the presentation is simple and unpretentious. Perhaps it's not a book for the general public, but I loved it.

Emerging Trends in Real Estate

Istanbul and various cities in Germany show the most promise for development, according to a survey on Emerging Trends in Real Estate by the ULI and PWC, whose presentation I attended this morning. Financiers present were quite gloomy about 2012, although interestingly its government (EU and UK) regulation designed to curb risky behaviour by banks that seems more of a threat than the economy (providing that the euro doesn't go bust......).