Regeneration - time to think differently
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This slideshow is a 'provocation' intended as a discussion starter. It was created for a roundtable event organised by New Start magazine, Shared Intelligence and Urbed to debate the need for a 'manifesto' for regeneration: an agenda for the new UK government in 2010 that could help to create thriving, confident cities and communities for the next decade and beyond.
![> ≠∞ [we can’t go on like this]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/provocationjd-100209154541-phpapp02/85/regeneration-time-to-think-differently-1-320.jpg)
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Regeneration - time to think differently
- 1. > ≠∞ [we can’t go on like this]
- 2. We need something different, but… … are we looking in the right places?
- 3. It’s Google, but not as we know it
- 4. Constant change can be sustainable…
- 5. … but only when it has roots, purpose and meaning
- 6. … and we will have to find different ways of getting there
- 7. Challenges for 2010 and beyond: Worthwhile work Rooted regeneration Citizen responsibility The soul of the city
- 8. An agenda for a new government… Build resilience Nurture community anchors Localise finance Devolve power
- 9. > ≠ [the same road won’t lead us home]
Editor's Notes
- Slide 1. The idea that we can infinitely add more to what we currently have underpins most ‘regeneration’ strategies. Produce more cars every year; build more roads for them to travel on; build and rent out more office space; build more city centre apartments; create more shopping centres. Economic and placemaking strategies frequently fail to recognise limits to environmental resources, consumer demand, and communities’ capacity to withstand disruption. It’s an approach that values excess above sufficiency, sees waste as an economic good and reduces human wellbeing and life satisfaction to a byproduct of economic activity.
- Slide 2: Our response to the financial crisis of 2008 was to prop up what we had. The banking system now is not fundamentally different to that of 2006. The construction and development industries haven’t changed their offers. Government has not taken the opportunity to move the markets in different, environmentally sustainable directions. Do the old institutions offer the hope or probability of new thinking?
- Slide 3: To create new ideas, is it sensible to start in the old places? Was Google invented in a reference library and if it had been, what would it look like?
- Slide 4: We need to think in terms of the natural lifespan of ideas, economies, and institutions. A process of growing, flourishing, maturing, expiring and recreating is something that adds vitality and vigour to our social, physical and economic fabric. Shouldn’t we think of regeneration as the process of nurturing and assisting that constant change?
- Slide 5: There’s a difference between that organic, assisted process and the directed, programme-driven forms of regeneration we’ve seen in the last three decades. The role of institutions should become one of nurturing and supporting what already exists and enabling it to grow, not one of constantly imposing grand strategies and plans.
- Slide 6: That means rethinking our approach to funding programmes, targets and accountability and creating new, hybrid organisations that bring together those who have a common interest in improving places and communities. Nobody has a monopoly of ideas and nobody should have a monopoly of implementation.
- Slide 7: For the parties fighting the coming election, some questions: how will they enable the creation of worthwhile work that earns a decent income and achieves social good? How will they allow projects to become rooted in communities and grow at a pace those communities can sustain? How will they encourage citizens to take responsibility for their own lives without crude stick-and-carrot mechanisms? How will they enable cities to develop their own distinctiveness and become accountable to the citizens, not to the government?
- Slide 8: Four steps towards a new view of regeneration: Resilience occurs more readily when people have autonomy and shared objectives. Our civic and community institutions have withered and need reinvigorating. Anchor organisations at neighbourhood level can connect with local people and are more able to fulfil their aspirations and deal with their frustrations. Their independence and sustainability is vital. But they take many years to mature and cannot be forced. Local financial resources are more likely to be responsive to the needs of local businesses and the investment opportunities within the locality. Why not restructure the nationalised banks as local community investment banks? Talk of localism is nothing if there aren’t local powers to go with it. Why not allow cities and city-regions revenue-raising powers and remove costly and time-consuming national appeal processes wherever possible?
- We need a new sense of home: places and communities that we value, feel safe in and where we share a sense of ownership with those around us. Most of the programmes and solutions of the last few decades have failed to achieve this, or have begun promisingly but fizzled out. It’s time to trust people to do this themselves.