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Making the Most of an Economic Crisis
Spot the value. Picture by S J PinkneyIt's a cliche that some people are at their best in a crisis. It misses both the damage that the crisis inflicts and the good that people may have been doing anyway. Nevertheless there's truth in it.The crisis...
Simple Steps Towards Local Prosperity
Travelling through the west country in 1720, Daniel Defoe was struck by the prosperity of the town of Totnes in Devon. He described how salmon would be trapped at the town’s mill on the river Dart, and driven into a net by a dog, enabling the...
Urban Economies in England: From Making Do to Making
A child learning geography in the 1960s would quickly associate a map of Britain with the stuff that was produced in different places.Here were the coal towns, in places like Barnsley, Easington in Durham or the south Wales Valleys. Here were...
Did Greed Kill the High Street?
Towards the end of his book on the death of the British high street, Bill Grimsey offers a neat summary of what he thinks has gone wrong. It is worth quoting in full. Greed, he says, ‘is the common thread that runs throughout this book. ...
Why Town Centers Need Their Libraries
Not just a library, but a place for people... My talk last week (blogged here) on moving from ‘me towns’ to ‘we towns’ struck a chord with a quite a few people. One point I made was about the value of public services in town centres – especially...
From 'Me' Towns to 'We' Towns
Be the change you want to see (click picture for slides)Lou Reed famously sang that there was only one good use for a small town. When you grow up in a small town you 'grow down' - 'you hate it and you know you'll have to leave'.But something...
Can nothing come of nothing in our cities?
Wind your way around the back streets of Sheffield city centre this week and amid the closed factories, peeling paint and piles of pallets you'll find a unique exhibition bringing together 50 ideas to improve the city. No shortage of ideas......
In praise of planners
Town planners, it seems, are the people everyone loves to hate. When was the last time you heard someone spontaneously eulogise their local planning department?It's time to put in a good word for these oft-maligned bureaucrats. This week I was at...
Seeds of Hope: Community Woodlands and Revitalization
At the beginning of this week I got to go to the Royal Horticultural Society's flower show at Hampton Court. For a newbie like me itwas an eye-opener: enough cut-glass accents to make me think I'd stepped into a BBC studio from the 1950s,...
How a city farm became the heart of a community
The art of green space: picture by Amy GroarkYou might wonder what an all weather football pitch has to do with a community green space project. But it’s one of the most popular features at Bristol’s Windmill Hill City Farm. Eric Booth, a...
Do we still believe in decent housing?
Peabody flats, Westminster: what chance of housing low-paid workers there now?The other day I was talking to the head of a successful housing association. He’d been a chief executive for many years, starting out as one of the wave of young...
A small celebration of street furniture
Speaking at a conference on ‘streetscapes’ last week, I issued a tongue-in-cheek manifesto: Just Say No to Benches and Bollards.My grouse wasn’t with street furniture in itself, but the thoughtless spending of public money on ill-considered public...
