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united kingdom

Regeneration will be community-led now. So what's the problem?

February 2, 2011 by julian dobson
with 465 views
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For many years regeneration experts railed at government for imposing bureaucratic targets, overbearing monitoring regimes and  box-ticking methodologies. Be careful what you wish for. The fairy godmother has arrived, and all those burdensome regulations have gone.With them has gone most of the money targeted at England’s poorest... [read more]

Plan B: personal carbon trading

September 14, 2009 by Rory Williams
with 170 views
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It's only three years to go to the end of the first period of the Kyoto Protocol, and countries are fishing around for ways to achieve what they have so far failed to do: reduce carbon emissions. The UK might make it personal:Proposals for personal carbon trading aim to cut emissions by giving every person in the country a quota of free... [read more]

Developing the UK National Ecosystem Assessment

September 14, 2009 by Ceri Margerison
with 117 views
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Last week the BES hosted a fascinating workshop on the development of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA), in conjunction with the UK Biodiversity Reseach Advisory Group (UK-BRAG). A morning of presentations and discussion were followed with lunch and an opportunity for networking, before break-out groups met to consider various... [read more]

What can we learn from this?

August 29, 2009 by Jason King
with 236 views
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News of the UK’s first living wall in Islington, North London which "...died just three years after it was built," has raced across the blogs, as people hover like vultures over what is at least the first visible major failure of a green wall. While it's pretty obvious that the project had some major issues - this is, as Mr. Obama... [read more]

U.K. Zoo’s Vertical Farming System

August 27, 2009 by The Dirt ASLA
with 717 views
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The Paignton Zoo in South Devon has implemented a new vertical farming system. According to Greener Buildings, Paignton Zoo is using the VertiCrop system developed by Valcent Products, which is capable of producing 11,000 heads of lettuce every month. ”Eventually the farm will have vertical plots of red chard, mizuna,... [read more]

New UK high-speed rail plan unveiled

August 26, 2009 by David Levinson
with 192 views
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From the BBC New UK high-speed rail plan unveiled The line would serve Birmingham and Manchester, getting passengers from Glasgow to London in just two hours and 16 minutes, the rail firm said. It rejected several alternative routes, including the east of England. Judging from the map (linked below), the architecture of the line is... [read more]

The Wire: is Speke really like Baltimore?

August 25, 2009 by Dermot Finch
with 146 views
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Loads of coverage today for Chris Grayling's talk about British inner cities and The Wire. In case you missed it, the Tory shadow home secretary said that our inner cities - like Speke in Liverpool, and Moss Side in Manchester - are now like the most dangerous drug-dealing, gun-toting streets in Baltimore. Here's Chris Grayling... [read more]

Metro mayors

July 23, 2009 by Dermot Finch
with 106 views
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The Centre for Cities is a big fan of directly-elected, metropolitan mayors. We've been saying for ages that our biggest city-regions like Greater Manchester need directly-elected "metro mayors", with real financial powers - including direct control over transport, housing and training budgets.The Government yesterday inched a... [read more]

Public sector cities

July 16, 2009 by Dermot Finch
with 117 views
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I was in Sheffield last weekend. The city centre skyline there is very public sector, with lots of buildings adorned with logos like UfI and Sheffield Hallam, alongside the massive DWP and DCSF base at Moorfoot (pictured). Sheffield has seen a 55% increase in public sector employment over the last decade - just one of the... [read more]

I'm sorry, Clay Shirky, nobody knows you around here

July 8, 2009 by julian dobson
with 231 views
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No matter how famous you are, it doesn't mean a thing if people haven't heard of you.That sounds like a contradiction in terms. But it isn't: it's just another of those reality checks, and it's closely linked to the last one. Yesterday I was chairing (and speaking at) an event for local government staff in Bradford. It was billed as a... [read more]

Regeneration is unfinished business

June 30, 2009 by Dermot Finch
with 258 views
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The Centre for Cities was quite busy today. We co-produced two reports on regeneration, launched together this morning in London: (1) We wrote Regeneration and the Recession - the latest report from the All Party Urban Development Group; and(2) My colleague, Catherine Glossop, wrote a chapter for Regeneration in a Downturn - a... [read more]