Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • >>Thank you very much for coming along this evening to this event on The Long Legacy:

  • London 2062. UCL calls itself, or names itself, "London's global university". That might have

  • originally been a name coined to irritate the other University of London, however, I

  • think time has shown that [it] has a degree of resonance. And as a global university,

  • we have asked ourselves the question, what is the role of a leading university in the

  • world, and we feel that it's important that not only do we carry out world class research,

  • but that we actually integrate and cross tension the expertise we have in different disciplines

  • to try to find solutions to globally significant problems. So, as Vice-Provost for research,

  • my responsibility is to try to encourage colleagues to cross the traditional divide of different

  • disciplines to come up with solutions or possible solutions to major problems. And as a result,

  • what we've done at UCL is to create and define four grand challenges which focus on major

  • societal issues which the world faces. The first of these grand challenges is global

  • health: why is it that citizens of sub-saharan African countries are actually dying from

  • diseases that can be readily treated here at UCH or elsewhere? The second of our grand

  • challenges is sustainable cities, and that's born some of the activity that we'll talk

  • about tonight. Our third grand challenge is intercultural interaction, and our fourth

  • grand challenge is human wellbeing. Now these grand challenges are being evolved over the

  • last couple of years and continue to do so but tonight we are focusing on the cities

  • problem, and in the sustainable cities equation and studies that we've been carrying out at

  • UCL focused on a variety of things, for instance, recently in May we published a commission

  • with the Lancet on 'healthy cities' -- what is it that one has to do to ensure that cities

  • around the world are healthy places and engender healthy lives for their citizens? But tonight

  • we focus on the analysis of colleagues at UCL and outside UCL that have been working

  • in the last year or so on aspects related to London and the future of London. And we

  • titled that project 'London 2062', a fifty-year view forward as to what are the challenges,

  • what are the issues that this wonderful metropolitan city face, and how is it that we could start

  • thinking now in a way that will avoid and alleviate some of the challenges and the negatives

  • which could occur, and obviously, what is it that we need to do to conserve the positive

  • features of London. And I think in the summer, we've all seen some of the fabulous things

  • that bring London to life and what makes London a special place, and I think it's really exciting

  • to talk about tonight how it is we can capture, grow that and actually have this long legacy

  • fifty years after the Olympics. So I'm delighted this evening that we have a number of colleagues

  • who have been involved with the thinking and the development of this analysis, and we'll

  • be hearing from three of them this evening. Later on in the year, or maybe at the beginning

  • of 2013, we will be publishing a book which captures the ideas of a number of other colleagues

  • and which will be launching a little bit later on there. But I'd like to start this evening,

  • therefore, by asking my three colleagues to come and give some of their thoughts about

  • some of the issues, and after they've spoken, we'll be able to have a dialogue and discussion

  • with questions from the audience. So to start this evening, I'd like to introduce to you

  • Ben Harrison, who is the Director of Future of London, and has been involved in the discussions

  • throughout the last year or so, and is going to give us a synoptic overview of some of

  • the thinking which is being developed. So, Ben, can I pass it over to you? >>[Applause]

  • >>[Harrison] Can I just start by asking if you can all hear me all right? Is the mic

  • okay? It sounds like it is. Excellent. Thank you very much David and good evening ladies

  • and gentlemen. Before I start with what I have prepared to say tonight, I just also

  • want to thank Sarah Bell, Mark Tudor Jones, James Paskins and Ian Scott from UCL for offering

  • the invitation to Future of London to come and get involved in this programme of work.

  • It's been a fantastically interesting one and we specifically were involved in running

  • a series of seminars at the start of this year looking at a number of different related

  • disciplines and policy areas and I'm going to say a bit more about that in a moment.

  • Before I do that, though, I just want to take the opportunity to give a bit of an introduction

  • to Future of London. We're a relatively young organisation and I'm conscious that our involvement

  • in this year may very well be the first time that you come across us as an organisation.

  • So, I'll do a brief run through of that, and then following that, I will give a brief overview,

  • as David mentioned, of some of the areas where we were able to find that consensus from our

  • events and the contributions that were made within them and then some key points of difference

  • going forward about London's future over the next 50 years. So, to begin, what is Future

  • of London? Well, as our strapline says, we're an independent, not for profit, policy network

  • focused on the big challenges facing regeneration, housing and development practitioners in London.

  • What does that mean specifically? Well, we are a membership organisation bringing together

  • London boroughs, registered providers and housing associations, the GLA, TFL and overall

  • we have three main programs of activity. The first is focused on developing the next generation

  • of regeneration leaders in London. We run a training and development program called

  • The Future London Leaders and that identifies individuals whom across our membership who

  • tend to be between five an seven years in their career and provides a range of development

  • and networking opportunities for them. We're into the fourth round of that program. It's

  • been hugely successful and is a very popular part of our program, and we're about to launch

  • the next round next month. We also offer our members various forums to share best practice

  • and innovative thinking across the London Practitioner Network. We're very conscious

  • that despite being a global city, actually a lot of what goes on in London can be surprisingly

  • parochial and building relationships across borough boundaries and between organisations

  • is something which we believe is absolutely vital if we're going to learn the lessons

  • from the various programs of regeneration underway across the capital. And finally,

  • we also produce various outputs from a research and policy point of view but really with a

  • specific focus on pieces of work that will be of practical assistance and are really

  • focused on delivery. Hopefully you've seen a few copies of reports that we've launched

  • over the past 12 months this evening. They've tended to focus on the implementation of various

  • pieces of government legislation, most notably the green deal, and how that can work in London,

  • and we've just published a report recently on flows of overseas investment into the London

  • property market, what that's doing to house prices and what it means going forward for

  • housing policy. So, to deliver this work we engage in a range of partnerships, working

  • with a diverse groups of organisations from UCL to the Joseph Rowntree Organisation, major

  • house builders and big city law firms to deliver a vibrant program as I say with a number of

  • different component parts. Our membership for 2012 is here. We're just about finalised

  • that for 2013, and if you are interested in getting involved in our network, then please

  • do visit our website, it's futureoflondon.org.uk. And there's various different ways that you

  • can become individually involved or as an organisation. So, that's the mini sales pitch

  • over. Turning to think about London 2062 and the seminar series that we collaborated with

  • Sarah, Mark and colleagues on in the spring of this year. The seminar series itself consisted

  • of four sessions. We welcomed a total of over 100 participants, drawn both from the academic

  • community but also from our practitioner network. Each was designed to explore a specific topic,

  • energy housing, transport and the economy, looking ahead over a 50 year timeline, and

  • alongside these events you'll have no doubt seen that colleagues at UCL and ourselves

  • have published a range of think pieces, articles and essays and as David has mentioned there

  • is a more substantial output coming next year. In terms of the sessions themselves and what

  • we -- the themes that emerged from them were, clearly we set our contributors a very large

  • and probably unfair challenge, to conceive of what London is going to be like over a

  • 50 year timeline. It's not a usual task that you present to people that you're inviting

  • to come and speak at an event. And I guess perhaps reflecting the pre-Olympic double

  • dip recession gloom that pervaded over London at that time, it's fair to say that we heard

  • some fairly terrifying projections of what London's going to like in 50 years time: overcrowded

  • and bursting at the seams, subject to the mal-effect of large temperature increases

  • and rising sea levels as a result of global climate change, more unequal than ever and

  • with an economy unable to compete with rising global megacities in the east. Of course,

  • others were simply holding out the hope that the hoverboards that we were promised by the

  • year 2000 would have materialised by then. By and large, it was a pessimistic set of

  • contributions that we received from a number of individuals. Having said that, though,

  • there were definite areas of consensus and disagreement both between and within the practitioner

  • and academic groups that we talked to and who presented to us. And I'd just now like

  • to highlight a few of these, perhaps to inform some of the discussion that we're going to

  • have later on in the evening. So, first of all, to look at where there was a degree of

  • consensus amongst our contributors. When taking into account a rather unscientific show of

  • hands in the seminar looking at specifically the economy, but also taken with the general

  • nature and tone of contributions throughout the series, it seemed pretty clear that most

  • people are of the view that London will continue to be an unequal place and actually will become

  • more unequal over the next 50 years as things stand. Many were concerned about a gap between

  • those at the bottom and the top of the income scales continuing to increase, particularly

  • a disparity between inner and outer London also becoming wider. Secondly, when considering

  • energy policy, all four of our sector specialists highlighted the Danish model of decentralised

  • energy as a key example that London should look to follow in the years ahead, and with

  • colleagues both within the GLI and in our borough members already pursuing schemes in

  • this regard, there was certainly some degree of optimism that progress in this area will

  • be possible and that this will be a very important component part of London meeting its carbon

  • reduction commitment by 2062. Third, the successful delivery of Crossrail is clearly vital to

  • the development of London. But we should also be actively considering what comes next in

  • terms of major investment in London's transport, and there was a sense that perhaps more thought

  • needs to be given to the period between 2020 and 2040 in terms of what that investment's

  • going to look like and how transport can meet the needs of a changing London economy over

  • that time. And fourth and finally, it was widely recognised that tough decisions are

  • going to be needed to improve London's energy efficiency and reduce its carbon output of

  • its built environment. Specific policy initiatives like the green deal are thought to be good

  • places to start but clearly there are significant financial and delivery hurdles that need to

  • be cleared if London is to meet, if these schemes are to be widely taken up and their

  • benefits felt across London, and given that the proportion of the built environment that

  • is still goign to be in use in London in 50 years time is so high, it really does need

  • to be a major priority for London in the years ahead. And then turning to some of the areas

  • where there was more disagreement or uncertainty around where London will be in the next 50

  • years: much discussion was had over whether we need a new economic model in light of the

  • recent financial crisis and whether the old way of assessing and looking at London's economy

  • was somehow no longer fit for purpose. On the other hand, many of our contributors that

  • actually to throw the baby out with the bathwater and not play to London's existing strengths

  • would be a huge mistake, and I think finding a resolution within those two points of view

  • was probably beyond the two hours that we had to debate it, but it's something which

  • is going to be developing over the coming years, and really, I think, a key point of

  • focus for Future of London going forward is thinking well, if we are serious about developing

  • a more poli-centric London economy with a diverse set of sectors stretching beyond financial

  • services by taking advantage of the opportunities of the digital economy, what does that really

  • look like, and what as practitioners do we need to do to achieve it? Secondly, a clear

  • area of uncertainty was around what if any new powers London should seek from central

  • government? Clearly we have in power at the moment a government that is serious about

  • devolving power to a local area since the events were held, we've obviously seen city

  • deals and a significant devolution of power to Leeds and Manchester and Newcastle and

  • the local deals it's true did bring additional powers to the mayorality in London and increased

  • the scope of mayoral involvement in housing development and other areas. But I think a

  • key question for the next two to three years will really be well, should London be looking

  • for a new settlement to deliver growth in the period ahead, and is it right that London,

  • for instance, takes control fully of the business rate, which has been long on the agenda or

  • other pot of money that could potentially be used to boost investment in the capital,

  • not without controversy, not without extremely complicated areas, but nevertheless, with

  • Boris Johnson probably never being more powerful than he is right now, you would imagine right

  • now that the scope for him to go back to David Cameron and demand a better settlement for

  • London will be one to look out for. Thirdly, and perhaps most controversially of all, the

  • future of aviation policy in London was a big feature of our transport session. Do we

  • expand our existing airport transport incrementally, build a new airport, essentially for Europe

  • in the Thames Estuary, or actually do nothing and take the view that London's priorities

  • should lie elsewhere and that the costs of increasing air travel in London to perhaps

  • some of our other aims in the capital would be too great and therefore not worth doing.

  • Clearly, it's a hot topic politically, so hot in fact that it's been well and truly

  • kicked into the lawn grass for this parliament with none of the major parties that keen to

  • engage with it, nevertheless, the issue's going to continue to dominate public debate

  • and it's not an issue that can be put off forever and whichever way it goes, it's going

  • to have major implications for the future direction of development in the capital, geographically,

  • environmentally and socially. And fourth and finally, and extremely importantly, how can

  • London deliver the number and types of new homes it requires to meet the needs of a population

  • that's projected to grow significantly over the decades ahead, while also ensuring that

  • access to this housing is widened. There is consensus across the practitioner network

  • in London that some of the old models for delivering housing and in particular, affordable

  • housing, are now dead in the water, we are very unlikely to see a return to the levels

  • of public subsidy for affordable housing in London that we've seen prior to 2010 and therefore

  • a new model of investment is required. Quite what that's going to look like is not clear

  • right now, but we have probably a two year window before 2015 to really think about what

  • that should look like for London and be proactive about it, so I think that's going to be a

  • key priority in the years ahead, we'll have very long lasting impacts looking forward

  • to 2062. So, those are some themes and questions emerging form the 2062 event series, and I

  • hope it can inform and spark some discussion later on this evening. They're by no means

  • comprehensive, but each will have a bearing on the kind of city we inhabit over the coming

  • decades. Future of London will certainly be interrogating these issues in more detail

  • over the coming months, and in doing so, we look forward to continuing our partnership

  • with UCL and as I mentioned earlier in the evening, if you do want to know more about

  • Future of London or become actively engaged in some of our projects or programmes, please

  • do look at the website or catch myself later on this evening and I look forward to answering

  • your questions as and when we move to that part. I'll hand over to Ben now. >>So, there

  • we have a synoptic quick whistle stop tour through some of the topics that have been

  • discussed. Next, we're going to hear from Ben Campkin who is Senior Lecturer in the

  • Bartlett School here at UCL and Director of the UCL Urban Laboratory, so some aspects

  • of the urban regeneration challenges, focusing now on a little specific window following

  • up that more general oversight. So, Ben, over to you.

  • >>[Campkin] That was already set up, I just wanted to slow us down. Thank you very much

  • and thank you for inviting me to speak this evening and to be part of the London 2062

  • project. I think it's been a really excellent initiative so thanks to the colleagues for

  • organising it, both in UCL and in Future of London. We've had some really stimulating

  • conversations, and I think it's really important to have these conversations between academic

  • researchers and practitioners and policy-makers around these really important questions. I've

  • been involved with two London 2062 events. I did two different talks. And I seem to have

  • spent both of them trying to avoid talking about the long distance future in different

  • ways, trying to avoid this idea of future-gazing, but what I wanted to do today was really think

  • through some of the ideas that came out of the London 2062 housing workshop that I participated

  • in in relation -- and not all of those ideas were specifically about housing, some of them

  • were about wider regeneration issues, and to think about those in relation to the Olympic

  • legacy. I should say also that this comes partly out of my own research interest in

  • regeneration and the history of regeneration. Also the sorts of discussions that we've been

  • having at the Urban Laboratory at UCL, which is an interdisciplinary centre for thinking

  • about cities and urbanisation that goes across UCL, so there are ideas in here that come

  • from discussions with colleagues recently as well. In terms of regeneration, I wanted

  • just to start by saying 50 years is not a long time. If we look back at London 50 years

  • ago, there's a notable correlation between the areas we see here, identified in the most

  • recent London Plan's opportunity areas and the areas that were identified in the 1943

  • County of London plan as opportunity areas. So this tells us something. These areas that

  • are now designated for future growth are likely to still be growing and opportunity areas

  • in 50 years time. And the built environment typically changes at a very slow rate. An

  • estimated 75% of London's building stock will be the same in 2062. This was one of the figures

  • that stuck in my mind from the discussions in the workshops that we had. But as well

  • as built form, the underlying characteristics of different forms of urbanisation obviously

  • have long term consequences, and where those are flawed, they could work precisely against

  • the values of equality, diversity, social inclusivity that we talk about when we talk

  • about the current aims of regeneration in London. So, the kinds of structures of urbanisation

  • can cause intractable problems as well as improvements for the future. And other points,

  • I think, that came out of the workshops to me was that our evaluations of the success

  • or failure of different regeneration projects and the places that are their focus tend to

  • be obfuscated by powerful rhetoric by political ideology, and as the political landscape changes,

  • one generation's utopian schemes become the ruinous backdrop for the next one's vision

  • of a better future. The large scale physical transformation of the Olympic Park is obviously

  • a very specific kind of urbanisation that's taken place very quickly under special circumstances,

  • through massive public funding by the UK's largest ever compulsory public purchase order

  • and the ability, to use the ODA's phrase, to lock down the site temporarily to get this

  • done. And the area's immediate future will be governed by a very particular and exceptional

  • kind of body, the Mayoral Development Corporation, which is given special powers. So I think

  • how that body represents the community's interests is obviously a key issue looking forward to

  • the next 50 years. The games have obviously provided an extraordinary global spectacle.

  • The Olympic Park exists as an image itself but it's also a place of image-making, and

  • this image of this transformation, this transformed park has been circulated around the world.

  • But within this, any sense of perhaps the specifics of Stratford and what Stratford

  • needs, what the local area needs has perhaps been temporarily lost. So we need to now go

  • back to that discussion about regeneration in a very specific part of London with a very

  • specific history and specific community, and obviously the narrative through which the

  • regeneration has taken place has been about a place of poverty, a place of industrial

  • contamination that has literally been regenerated, that it's been cleansed somehow, reconfigured

  • as a place of cultural capital, as a place of consumerism, and the Olympics is a kind

  • of stepping stone on this yellow brick road towards tech city, in the long term regeneration

  • plan. We could debate the direct and abstract value of the Games themselves endlessly, but

  • I don't think that's really the purpose of tonight. What I would like to do is for us

  • to focus constructively on a discussion about what are the values that should underpin regeneration

  • going forward for the next 50 years. The justification has been that the Olympics will accelerate

  • the regeneration of this part of London for the benefit of the local community, so that's

  • what we should try to keep the focus on over the next 50 years. And politicians have already

  • been -- and the media, as I've been watching on the news -- have already been claiming

  • the regeneration of east London, but that seems kind of incongruous when you actually

  • go and walk around Stratford and you walk down Stratford High Street and there's still

  • this -- there's a disconnect, and I know there is a plan to regenerate Stratford High St,

  • but the fact that it's happened in the reversed order of the Park first, does leave this disconnect,

  • and one can't help feeling a sense of isolated Olympic Park, a kind of Vegas-like experience

  • as you walk around it. This island within the urban fabric, which isn't yet integrated

  • into its context, and that's obviously the challenge for the next 50 years -- the worrying

  • image that comes to mind is of Canary Wharf and the boundaries of Canary Wharf, that when

  • you walk from Canary Wharf to Poplar there's this sudden transition and it's still not

  • integrated. So that's a kind of warning that we have to have in mind when we think about

  • integrating this new site within the fabric of the city. So just to go back to that idea

  • of the transformation, the literal regeneration, the cleaning up of the soil, which has obviously

  • been a key part of the discourse about the transformation of the area. This is an image

  • taken by Mike Wells on the website gamesmonitor of some of the earth waiting to be cleaned

  • in these big washing machines. For me, this was one of the most striking images of the

  • redevelopment process. The soil waiting to be cleansed. You know, this is historically,

  • regeneration in London has always been propelled by these narratives of dirt and disorder and

  • the need for it to be cleansed. And in this case, it's about the bioremediation of the

  • soil, so there's a kind of pseudo-scientific justification for regeneration going on there,

  • which I think is interesting. And it also fits into a longer tradition of the east end

  • being described as the kind of dirty other to the west end of London. But what's striking

  • is that although public health narratives and narratives of cleansing have always driven

  • regeneration, in this case, unlike the social values and public health initiatives that

  • underpinned urban change in the mid-20th century, with the expansion of the welfare estate,

  • somehow this public health narrative is not quite connected, it's part of the discourse,

  • but actually the idea of making the area economically productive again seems to be the key driver,

  • so that's something that I want to come back to later on. I want now just to think about

  • this concept of regeneration. You don't get much more literal images of regeneration than

  • this. This word has been critiqued a lot recently by urban researchers. For example, Michael

  • Edwards, who's at UCL in the planning school, who may be in the audience somewhere, I cant

  • see, writes of it as a "slippery word" that's "used to legitimise almost every construction

  • project". Another academic working in architecture writes that "Property development is not the

  • same thing as regeneration." -- I think these are key things to bear in mind Another academic,

  • Robert Furbey, talks about the longer history of this metaphor as a very "ancient term"

  • that has these kind of religious and spiritual and biological connotations. In the modern

  • period, it also has this conservative idea of personal transformation and empowerment

  • as well, so I think it's important to bear these different ideas of regeneration in mind

  • when we think about it and to try to be quite precise about what we mean by it. And in London,

  • the concept has been in use in relation to urban development since the mid-20s, sorry

  • the mid-20th century, but since the 80s it's become very prevalent. It's in the County

  • of London plan. It's likely to still be around in 2062, but in the intervening period between

  • the '40s and now, the meaning has changed quite radically. So, in the County of London

  • plan, there's a sense that the city might regenerate itself. There's a sense that where

  • the city doesn't regenerate itself, that's where it needs major restructuring and renewal,

  • which is quite similar to an American academic Jane Jacob's idea of regeneration, which is

  • more about incremental change from the bottom up. In the 40s also in London, it's about

  • focusing on the improvement of living conditions for those living in poverty. Since then, regeneration

  • has continued to accrue different meanings as a multi-layered metaphor, and although,

  • if the rhetoric of regeneration is now balanced between economic and social values, in practice

  • it seems to focus overridingly on economic growth, and regeneration will be successful,

  • I read in a major newspaper finance section yesterday, in the Olympic case, if in the

  • longer term we see increasing overseas wealth flowing into the area and rich west Londoners

  • moving east. Okay, this is like a fairly straightforward idea of regeneration as gentrification by

  • bringing in outsiders. But regeneration in the Olympic context also proceeds through

  • this idea of trickle down wealth through providing benefits for local communities, but this is

  • something that we need to think about more carefully over the next 50 years. The GLA

  • have recently said, in relation to creative cities regeneration, that actually there isn't

  • any evidence of trickle down effects to local communities, the communities that are in regeneration

  • at the start of regeneration processes. So this is something we definitely need to invest

  • research into, and many urban studies scholars have in fact suggested that current regeneration

  • strategies actively disadvantage and displace rather than improve the lives of those in

  • whose name they proceed, so according to them, London in 2062 won't be a city necessarily

  • of greater equality of wealth, but will be one of polarisation. We saw this in Ben's

  • talk just now. A greater polarisation of wealth but also of health and wellbeing. Okay, so,

  • from the workshop, this rather bleak list of issues came up that I just wanted to quickly

  • run through, that we might expect to see. So, increased displacement of local communities

  • and the destruction of the very kind of mixed communities that we talk about when we talk

  • about the aims of regeneration. The destruction of the idea of London as a tolerant city.

  • The reinforcement of this general trend of excluding low income households from living

  • in central London, increasing inequalities to access to housing, this debate about affordable

  • housing is really key. Continued decline and fragmentation of the affordable housing stock.

  • This incredibly complex market already of social housing providers being very much pressured

  • by the government to act in particular ways, perhaps we need to go back to an earlier idea

  • of socially registered landlords or explore new models. Also the polarisation of the city

  • through intensive pockets of investment and disinvestment, and the loss of public space

  • to privately managed estates with detrimental consequences on citizenship and the sense

  • of community and belonging in the city. So these are all points that came up and obviously

  • these are all big issues. I'm not going to wrap them up neatly now, but I want to outline

  • five, if you like, grand challenges for regeneration practice moving forward. And there are colleagues

  • who would argue now that actually regeneration is a redundant concept, we need to resist

  • regeneration because regeneration equates to gentrification. But I would like to think

  • that perhaps we can develop new models of ethical regeneration, and this is what I've

  • been discussing with colleagues recently. So, just to run through those: I think we

  • need to move to a more incremental -- these might sound naive and oversimplifying issues,

  • but I think we need to actually go back to basic what are the ethics of good regeneration?

  • So, incremental and contextual urbanisation. It seems quite shocking that despite rhetoric

  • otherwise, we are still pursuing urbanisation of the city through tabula rasa, through clean

  • sweep urbanism, and since the mid 1970s, state-led regeneration has given away to a more market

  • led laissez fare approach, but we're still pursuing this large scale clean slate urbanism,

  • and in spite of the value attached to heritage and diversity, our large scale redevelopment

  • projects in working class areas are particularly characterised by this approach, and break

  • up communities, and this goes against one of the key ideas that came up for me in the

  • London 2062 project, was that to face these difficult challenges in the future we need

  • strong and resilient communities -- so why are we breaking up these communities now.

  • Secondly, we need to think and work on mechanisms for preserving affordability in regeneration

  • zones, so as we improve the physical character of the city and change its socioeconomic composition,

  • we need to develop ways of preserving affordability for a wide group of people and prioritising,

  • bringing back social value from increased land values and for a greater number of people.

  • And this obviously requires radical shifts in our thinking and imagination. There are

  • not easy ways of answering this problem, but if we really believe in diversity, then gentrification,

  • which was a term coined at this university by Ruth Glass in the Geography department

  • in 1964, is not the way forward. So, thirdly, we need to try and develop ways of tackling

  • ways of the housing crisis that are evidence based, so working on the housing crisis in

  • a way which is not subject to the ebbs and flows of politics and changing in political

  • policy, that actually, over the next 50 years, in the Olympic boroughs, housing is a key

  • issue. Over 100,000 people in the three boroughs waiting list. Overcrowding, poor quality and

  • design, unregulated private rental market, poor connectivity, poor communal areas, and

  • a massive shortfall in affordable housing and family housing, and a lack of onus which

  • is only getting worse of developers to actually provide affordable housing. So how can we

  • move away from a politicised, polarised debate about affordable housing towards a more evidence-based

  • approach focused on need. And then fourthly, how do we -- this is a question that came

  • up recently at UCL, with the publication of the Healthy Cities pamphlet that David referred

  • to earlier, which I recommend you read -- but how can we reconnect the regeneration in more

  • meaningful ways to the public health agenda, getting back to an idea of regeneration as

  • primarily about and driven by public health needs. I think this is really key. And then,

  • fifthly, how can we move towards a more community-led and open and honest discourse that accompanies

  • regeneration. I think a lot of those -- a lot of communities affected by regeneration

  • have become very sceptical about what it means and about the consultation processes that

  • they've been subjected to, which they felt to be tokenistic, and a lot of the actual

  • imaging practices and representational practices that we use within regeneration make people

  • suspicious because they are used to deceive and coerce rather than aid the process of

  • connecting communities to the research agenda in meaningful ways, so I think this another

  • key area that we should be thinking about. I realise that they're very big issues and

  • questions, and we were asked to be provocative so I'm not going to apologise for that, but

  • I look forward to hearing your thoughts on these things, and I probably should leave

  • it there, so thank you. >>[Applause] >>[Vice-Provost] Ben, thank you very much for those thoughts

  • and stimulating questions. Now I'll turn to the final speaker in this part of the evening,

  • Janice Morphet, who has been or is a Visiting Professor here again at the Bartlett, but

  • also has been or is still on the planning committee for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

  • So, I'm not quite sure what she's been up to lately, but I'm sure you've been quite

  • busy, and perhaps we should congratulate you, you can take all the credit for the Olympics

  • while you're here, but we'll hear your thoughts about some aspects of the future for London.

  • >>[Morphet] Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody. I'm in a slightly difficult position

  • because I'm still associated with the Olympics, so I can't say much about that because I'm

  • still involved until the end of the month. But I thought coming at the end, it's a rather

  • privileged position, because we've had these discussions, we've had the sessions to think

  • about that, and we've had the summation this evening, so what I'm going to try to do is

  • perhaps something slightly different. I'm going to take us, I hope you'll come with

  • me, anyway, to 2062, when I'm going to see where we are and take a look back to see what's

  • happened, what has come about -- have any of these things actually occurred. So, here

  • we are in 2062. And thinking about this 100 years ago, in 1962, the swinging '60s in London

  • were just about to begin. London was the centre of world news, front covers of international

  • magazines and the world's media were very curious about what was going on in London

  • at the time. London was loosening its belt, and it opened up a huge period of creativity

  • and change that started the separation of London from the rest of the country. Was this

  • where the seeds of change for the creation of the London city state were sewn? London

  • was, and wanted to be different. The real turning point came in 1999. Devolution in

  • Scotland and Wales and the powers given to the Mayor of London started an irrevocable

  • process of separation. When Scotland voted for independence in 2014, the transition to

  • the federal state of Great Britain began in earnest. Then, as now, it was the role of

  • England that seemed to be the big issue. And it is hard to look back now from 2062 without

  • remembering those intense debates about the establishment and location of the English

  • parliament. The main concern was about where it would sit, and when Manchester was chosen,

  • it seemed to galvanise London's position as an international outward global city and as

  • a separate part of the UK. Even 50 years ago, in 2012, the Mayor of London had more powers

  • than any other elected politician in the UK apart form the Prime Minister. So, looking

  • back, what led to the creation of the London city state after the referendum in Scotland?

  • And what difference has it made? Well, firstly, the UK referendum to leave the European Union

  • put London at odds with London, and it found that it had more in common with Scotland,

  • Wales and Northern Ireland. The federal structure of Great Britain, as it was devolved, immediately

  • demonstrated that the leadership vision agenda for England was different from the drive and

  • determination of London and its people. London was already separate in its governance, so

  • why not take the next step? Manchester was always interested in running the rest of the

  • country. >>[Laughter] Apologies to any Mancunians. When the Blair government set up Manchester

  • as the second England growth poll after 1997, not many people noticed that way in which

  • it was consistently privileged through government decisions made by both Labour and Coalition

  • governments: devolved spending, new local authority arrangements, and eventually, transferring

  • taxation and civil servants to the Greater Manchester Authority showed the government's

  • intent. And if you think those last two things are rather strange, they're already happening,

  • so that's not prediction, that's fact. So when it was proposed in 2016 that the government

  • of England should move to Manchester, London wanted the UK government to stay in London.

  • The separation was needed to enforce some independence on England, but London feared

  • it might follow. In the end, the establishment of the English parliament in Manchester and

  • the associated move of some civil servants, created a much smaller governance machine

  • in London, and so, as many civil servants faced with a move to Manchester, opted out

  • through retirement and stayed in London, particularly as pensions could no longer be guaranteed,

  • it also led to a reduction of the UK government as well. However, the effects of this change

  • in the seat of government for England could only be anticipated as being more important

  • at the time given the amount of debate they engendered. What has proved more critical

  • to London's position is the creation of the United States of Europe, the US of E in 2057,

  • 100 years after the EU was formed in 1957. Any doubters on this, read Mr Mr Barroso's

  • speech yesterday. Since the UK/EU in-out referendum in 2018, the potential for different relationships

  • between the nations in the UK and the EU has emerged. The decision of the UK to opt out

  • and the subsequent decisions of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to opt back in to the

  • EU created a way for London to rejoin the EU, and supported its transition to the United

  • States of Europe. This has been a difficult path to take, not least for London's economy,

  • and through the transfer to the euro, but without this, London was faced with a major

  • threat to its international position. Yet despite these changes in government structure

  • and institutions, is London any different from the way it was 50 years ago for ordinary

  • Londoners? Firstly, there are more Londoners. London has continued to grow, not just in

  • the centre, but also in those high-priced housing areas of Barking, Romford and Dagenham.

  • That's accompanied the east London airport expansions (plural). Of course, it would be

  • difficult to accommodate so many people if there were still private cars, but the decision

  • to abolish the use of cars in zones 1 and 2 in London has meant more bikes and buses

  • which have now become the predominant mode of transport. It is rare to see a petrol filling

  • station or car park within these areas now (Zones 1 and 2), most having been redeveloped

  • for housing in the 2020s and 2030s. It has also opened the streets to more walking and

  • running, which most people do everyday. Much of London's housing looks the same, but the

  • major housing retrofitting program, which began after the nuclear energy crisis in the

  • 2020s, has also had a major effect, and I suppose you know that we have a real difficulty

  • about replacing our nuclear energy just at the minute, and this might well happen. London

  • is no longer dependent on external energy supplies, and those long held objections to

  • local energy stations have been tempered by the domestic energy production modules that

  • most buildings now have. London now has more parks, green space and wildlife than many

  • rural areas. Our streets and roads have been planted with trees and shrubs in place of

  • the cars and the traffic signs. A dramatic reduction in food consumption in the 2020s,

  • when high sugar, fatty and processed foods were banned, has had the same effect on health

  • as earlier bans on tobacco and alcohol. And only today, New York has banned large sized

  • fizzy drinks, so, not so off the wall. London may be a larger and denser city, but it's

  • now more self sustaining than its ever been. So, what next for London? Well, 2062 held

  • a new swinging 60s era. Many of today's active people were born in the 1960s, so I'm assuming

  • people are going to live and be active until they're 100. So, being 100 years old is going

  • to be the new 60 or the new 70 and are the product of the swinging 60s generation. And

  • after all, Boris did say that the Olympic Games was going to create another generation,

  • didn't he? So what has London learned in this last century? Well, it's learned that change

  • is inevitable, but London's energy to lead its own future is not diminished. London is

  • now at the heart of the United States of Europe and a leading member of the federated state

  • of Great Britain. Only the problem of England remains, but that isn't a problem for London.

  • Thank you. >>[Laughter, applause]. >>[Vice Provost] Wonderful, thank you very much. So,

  • we've seen two very contrasting views, really, almost a dystopic, nihilistic approach to

  • the future of London with increasing inequality and misery that Ben was almost anticipating

  • as the status quo continued, we've seen perhaps a utopian renaissance for the city-state.

  • And all of these options are available to us. So I think, with that and the overview

  • that we had from Ben, I'd throw the questioning open to the floor for further interrogation

  • of tonight's wonderful speakers. But before we do that, perhaps we could have a round

  • of applause for all three of them, because I think they've said really exciting things.

  • >>[Applause] >>[VP] So we have microphones being wielded by colleagues, so if there are

  • any questions, who would like to start. We have one at the front here, if you could run

  • down. >>[Audience member] Hello, John Danzig. I take everything with a pinch of salt because

  • I don't think futurists have been very successful in the past on predicting the future. In fact,

  • they've been abysmally wrong. But I do remember an Evening Standard mock up of London in about

  • 2060, it might have been 2100. And, it actually showed London absolutely covered in water.

  • We were all drowning. So I think all the plans are probably wrong. We need to be starting

  • a programme now of mass swimming lessons, and also we need to be building a lot of boats.

  • And all your plans are underwater. >>[VP] Okay, I think we can have some comments on

  • that. Projected sea level rises with climate change in the next 50-100 years: 10cm, or

  • something like that? >>[Campkin] The only comment I would make on that is that actually,

  • in one of the sessions, we did look at quite a lot of architectural representations of

  • the 50 year future. And a lot of them tended to be very dystopic, and to show the city

  • of London in ruins, and to show flooding and so on as a way of playing out the scenarios

  • of climate change and economic crisis as well. So it's, if you go into the architectural

  • school down the road in the Bartlett, that's what architects are speculating on at the

  • moment. >>[Morphet] Ah, we'll be drinking seawater in 50 years time. >>[VP] Desalinated,

  • I hope. >>[VP] No doubt climate change, very important factor. Sea level changes happening,

  • perhaps not right at the rate that may be shown in the Standard, although obviously,

  • exposure to surges and extreme events will become more problematic, and so the whole

  • issue of the next Thames barrier is an issue which has to be addressed, and also those

  • plans for housing to the east of the Thames barrier I think is also quite an interesting

  • area for consideration in the future as well. Thank you. A question over there, yes. >>[Audience

  • member] Thank you. Patrick Hughes, Director of Salient Work. I was hugely interested by

  • what you had to say. But there was one disappointment: the word London, of course, featured frequently

  • in what you had to say, but only one of you used the word Londoners, and that was once.

  • That was you, Janice. And I think, if I may say so, that there's a sense from what you've

  • said this evening, and I can't speak for the rest of your research, that you've fallen

  • into the trap of thinking more about the hardware than the software of the city. I think we

  • need to think more about Londoners and think of them as a unique resource and opportunity,

  • particularly in all their glorious diversity, which really, you haven't touched on at all,

  • and their useful energy, in other words, their fascinating cultural and population demographic.

  • Would you like to comment on that? >>[Morphet] I was trying to get at that by saying that

  • London was going to take charge of itself, and the decisions taken to ban cars and to

  • turn the city over to itself, and rethink about how it was using that city, was one

  • of the sort of themes that I was trying to explore, and I agree with you -- that the

  • diversity of London is its strength, but I wonder almost if we've moved beyond remarking

  • on it because it is so fundamental, it is what London is -- so there's no, how do we

  • find a new language about just accepting that and seeing that as an enormous strength, which

  • it is. And I think that strength is the thing that's going to drive London, and that's really

  • what I was trying to elaborate on. >>[Harrison] I would agree with you as well. I guess partially

  • picking up on some things Ben was saying about having a common definition or a new definition

  • of what we mean by urban regeneration. By the very nature of the work that we do at

  • Future of London, our major focus is on the built environment. Whether it's necessarily

  • fair to burden the word urban regeneration with also having to deal with other areas

  • of economic development or whether actually we're looking at a related and very important

  • set of issues and actually, given the state of public finances, probably something we're

  • going to need to focus on more in London and certainly the government is clearly focused

  • on it. But there's also no getting away from the fact that they are very difficult, often

  • not altogether tangible challenges as well, that often involve specific families with

  • long term worklessness issues, etc., which from the state's point of view are very difficult

  • to try to intervene, perhaps far more difficult to imagine intervening in than managing to

  • build some new infrastructure or some new houses. So I absolutely take the point and

  • it's surely something which we're going to hear more about in public policy debates going

  • forward. >>[VP] Ben, you mentioned the loss of the mixed community, that was one of the

  • threats you highlighted. >>[Campkin] I think I was talking a lot about Londoners but just

  • not using that word -- I was talking about the community and how diversity requires certain

  • parts of the city to be affordable and the dominant regeneration practices at the moment

  • do not work towards affordability being maintained over the long term, so I think that was a

  • key point that I wanted to raise, and also that regeneration should in fact be community

  • led, not just involving communities or consulting communities but actually the research has

  • shown that its successful if it's community-led rather than being imposed. >>[VP] We have

  • a question here. >>[Audience member] Ben stressed the problem of social divide: poor people

  • against rich people. But first of all, we have to understand, what are these poor people

  • going to be doing in London in 50 years time given the labour saving device, technology

  • and science, what's going to be their role? Will they be here in London, before you say

  • there's going to be a social divide -- will they be here in London, in a big city. Can

  • you share with us what you think they're going to be doing, poor people, in 50 years' time?

  • >>[Campkin] Sure, if you look at Henry Mayhew's mid-19th century London Life and the London

  • Poor, a lot of those jobs are still around in London, a lot of current service jobs would

  • be recognisable from that, so I'm sorry, but I don't believe that the jobs and the labour

  • is going to change that much. The city needs to be serviced. I think Dominique Laporte,

  • the French philosopher said "the city is a jewel fed by lonely operations", and it still

  • will be in 50 years' times. >>[Audience member] So, you envisage then, same employment situations...?

  • >>[Campkin] Not exactly the same, but I think there'll be -- 50 years is not that far ahead.

  • >>[Audience member] Basically the same, though? I mean you've got to have hotels, you've got

  • to have shops, you've got to have transport, people running the transport. I've been around

  • for 60 years as a worker and 20 years as a developing individual. I've worked for four

  • local authorities and I've been in planning, not your side of it, but legal planning. All

  • these things take time. Point 1 I would make is, add another 50 years because any redevelopment

  • in this huge city will be patchy. Your recent example of the Olympic games area is probably

  • a way ahead for clearing an area, but we haven't got too many areas like that to be cleared,

  • otherwise we've got to knock down stuff before you put stuff up, and that will take a lot

  • of time because a lot of opposition. Unless you say, we're going to take over -- I used

  • to live in Islington -- we're going to take over Islington and redevelop it, the state

  • is going to do it, because that's the only way you'll get something done in its entirety.

  • The rest of it will be biting into certain areas, developing those areas, another 5 or

  • 10 years later you'll do another one. You've got to add another 50 years to your plan,

  • but I do think that once you've decided on an area such as the one, well the Olympic

  • Games, the area progress was a little bit dodgy at one stage, and then somebody pressed

  • the lever, and it was moved up. Now you've got to face it, these things can go wrong.

  • Look at what's happening in the west end, not in the west end, Tottenham Court Road

  • area. It was chaos for ages! Who suffers? Londoners. I'm a Londoner. So, you can't envisage

  • big developments without very careful planning. You've got 33 London boroughs, you've got

  • to knock their heads together, of the 33 town class, boroughs. You've got a heck of a problem

  • in getting a plan that really is meaningful. The plans that were created post-war have

  • taken ages to implement, all of the time because the war was still creaking at the edges. It

  • will take another 50 years and it's going to take big thinking redeveloped. Now if you

  • can knock that down, I'm interested. >>[VP] I don't think we're suggesting that we'll

  • have London redeveloped by 2062. Ben, you're engaged with a lot of authorities, perhaps

  • you'd like to comment on the challenges of the fragmentation in dealing with the boroughs

  • and so forth in developing cohering plans. >>[Harrison] Sure, I mean, I guess that's

  • a longstanding problem for London. It's not the case that boroughs don't work together

  • and don't work together with other agencies. But I would add to your point is that we are

  • entering into a period, or we're now in a period where the levels of public investment

  • that we've seen in these sorts of public investments just isn't going to be available. So never

  • mind anything on the scale of the Olympics -- even smaller regeneration schemes that

  • have received significant public subsidy, that's off the agenda for the foreseeable

  • future, so we need to find new models. As well as presenting a challenge, that is an

  • opportunity to find new models of conceiving of regeneration and of delivering it, but

  • I think we're probably quite a way off. There are specific instances within London where

  • public bodies have significant landholdings that are significant, that are suitable for

  • regeneration and can be used, but that's not necessarily the case across the piece, and

  • they're not necessarily in the part of London that you would seek to redevelop. So, I agree

  • with you, it's a very big challenge and it's not going to get easier any time soon, but

  • we do need to meet it. >>[VP] Janice? >>[Morphet] I think I, I want to say that I do agree with

  • one of the points that you made, and that was around public authorities building again.

  • We already have at least four London boroughs who set up housing companies, and the only

  • time in our history where we had huge numbers of houses or dwellings being built was actually

  • at the time when local authorities were building them. Even before RSLs or housing associations.

  • Now, I'm not sure that I agree with the point about there being no money, because if we

  • look at the powers in the 2012 Localism act, then local authorities and indeed all the

  • different accounting standards are changing, the ability for local authorities now to capitalise

  • development, set up development companies, capitalise on their own assets, now if you

  • can't do that in London, you can't do it anywhere. Lots of places across the country are doing

  • it, Liverpool in the northeast, so actually, London boroughs are sitting on huge assets,

  • which they don't need to sell, they need to capitalise, and if you look at the banks,

  • look at the city, they're sitting on piles of cash, pensions of cash, looking for safe

  • investment, pension investment. So I think until London boroughs really start building

  • again, not council houses, but housing for a mixture of tenures, I think that's going

  • to be the way of moving forward. And that's why I was suggesting looking at carparks,

  • looking at these kinds of sites now that we don't need so much. And there are still places

  • in London -- anyone been on a train through Willesden recently? I mean there's masses

  • of land in London that we just don't see. So that would be mine. >>[Audience member]

  • And I just wanted to build on some of the comments that came from the gentlemen in the

  • audience earlier around the lack of a focus around the demographic of London and Londoners

  • in some of your assessments of what London will look like. And one of the things that

  • I was surprised not to hear any of you mention, given the implications it has for the built

  • environment, for issues around affordability in the capital, and also for local authority

  • finance, is around the changing demographic towards older people within the city, and

  • when you're talking about getting regeneration back to something that isn't about moving

  • people who are viewed to be problematic out of a particular space, how do you imagine

  • that a London of 2062 is addressing that challenge and how that might impact on what the built

  • environment begins to look like. >>[VP] Well, I think Janice, you'd solved the problem by

  • making 100 the new 60. But perhaps you'd like to comment on that first. >>[Morphet] Well

  • I think, a) we probably are going to have to get off the idea of buying houses for a

  • bit, although I think we'll end up doing that until there's another -- until the treasury

  • can come up with new pension product, we're all stuck with buying houses if we can, as

  • our longer term nest egg for the future. Thinking about old people, thinking about affordability,

  • the only way to challenge the market is to create more units or more dwellings, and the

  • only organisations I can see who can really break the landhoarding tendencies of housing

  • developers with consents in land is actually the public sector who can put more -- as soon

  • as the public sector builds more, it reduces the value of the land that is generally hoarded

  • by developers, and I think that's what we've got to see. And I agree, we need other interventions,

  • we need to think differently. The current approach is clearly not sustainable in the

  • long term. >>[Audience member] [unintelligible beginning] In terms of the amount that we

  • need to build in order to bring down those values, we're talking about millions of homes

  • while we're building maybe 20,000 a year. >>[Morphet] No, I agree, we're not doing enough

  • now, I'm just saying, we've got to attack it in quite a different way, and if you go

  • back to think about how a million and over, however many homes we've been building, most

  • of those homes are being built by the public sector, not just in London but across England,

  • and to some extent, we've got to get back to that in different ways, and I can't wave

  • a wand and make it happen, but that's the only way you're going to increase the volume

  • and looking at other uses for buildings. >>[VP, interrupting audience member who is unintelligible]

  • We can't have a dialogue, we want to hear other voices. Ben, you mentioned the Healthy

  • Cities and the demographic and the age profile. Would you like to expand about how you think

  • that might be interesting? >>[Campkin] Just to say that, that issue came up in one of

  • the workshops that we ran and the need for better housing for the elderly, but also in

  • terms of a more active elderly population as well, so I think that's really important.

  • I just wanted to ask -- am I allowed to ask a question of Janice? In terms of thinking

  • about new models of affordability, one of the things that's come up in Urban Lab workshops

  • that we've been running and also Boris has been talking about, is community land trust,

  • and I was just wondering what you think of that model because it seems like a thing that

  • some people are positive about. >>[Morphet] I think it is, but I don't think it's -- I

  • think it's one contribution but I don't think it's going to reduce the volume required on

  • its own. So I'd support it wholeheartedly, but I don't think that's the only measure.

  • >[VP] Okay, we've got lots of other questions, this gentleman here. >>[Audience member] Paul

  • Rob, Birkbeck. Question for Ben Campkin, really. I don't disagree with your ethical principles

  • for regeneration, but I just wondered if you could say a little bit about how you think

  • those might be embedded in a regeneration schemes, given that if anything, the political

  • and economic tendency is for many of those issues not to be looked at. So for example

  • in relation to housing need, that's virtually a concept which is redundant as far as a lot

  • of local authorities are concerned because essentially, as you well know, when you look

  • at regeneration schemes that are being done, both in labour and conservative authorities

  • across London, the net effect of those regeneration schemes is invariably that either you get

  • no increase in social housing or you get actually a reduction in social housing as the old estates

  • get bulldozed and you get lots of private developments. So the question is really then,

  • how can one embed those ethical principles into the current political economic structures

  • given that they seem to be if anything going against those very laudable aims.>>[Campkin]

  • I agree, and there is no easy answer to that question. They are all almost all directly

  • opposed to the current trends, so this is the key question, but I think in terms of

  • setting a research agenda, these are issues that we should be dealing with. And I don't

  • think this was about a dystopic projection of the future, I think actually my assessment

  • was meant to be, it might sound pessimistic but it's actually realistic in terms of what's

  • happening now, in terms of what the research tells us. So it was not a dystopic projection

  • of the projection of the future. >>[VP] It's just the future is dystopic? >>[Harrison]

  • What I would add, and partially in response to Janice's point as well, I think ultimately

  • what's going to be needed certainly within local government is a culture shift in terms

  • of what boroughs are for, and certainly, I think an outcome from the localism act will

  • be that you'll see a divergence in approach across London. I mean that's not necessarily

  • something new, but it will probably be exacerbated, where some boroughs decide actually yes, it

  • is old, build houses, and we'll seek to do that and we've got the land to do it and we've

  • got the expertise to do or we'll bring someone in, and others will very much see that that's

  • not their role, and you just have to look at boroughs like Barnett and others who are

  • actually seeking to commission out services and actually see their role as being a much

  • more coordinating one, I suppose. So Ben's absolutely right, there are no easy answers,

  • and we're not going to get there very quickly, but you can see across London, areas of experimentation

  • where it's all behaving differently, and how successful or otherwise, how replicable those

  • models are going to be, we'll find out, I suppose. >>[VP] Gentleman at the back. >>[Audience

  • member] Hi, good evening, Gary Hayes. I'd like to ask the question about technology.

  • I sit in front of a computer 14-16 hours a day. What were we doing 50 years ago, and

  • in 50 years time, materials, energy, will be universal, we already have the solutions

  • so we can have as much energy as we want. The change in human performance will be significant,

  • with the growth of intelligence, artificial -- how do you see the city of the future?

  • >>[VP] Easy question. >>[Harrison] Easy question, yes. >>[Silence and laughter.] >>[VP] Well,

  • Janice, since you did speak of the future. >>[Morphet] I know, but I kind of avoided

  • technology because I think that's one of the most difficult areas to predict. If you think

  • back 50 years to the early 60s, then I think people were not even then much using phones,

  • landlines. I think it was very much a paper based, face to face working environment, and

  • then gradually it became more phone based, and then obviously to where we are. So I just

  • think it's quite difficult to predict how we're going to respond to devices, new devices

  • that are appearing almost weekly, that offer us new functionality. But it seems to me at

  • the moment that if you look at the amount of time that most people, lots of people in

  • business are now spending more time on Twitter, I was reading today (on Twitter) >>[Laughter]

  • than business people across Europe, than actually reading the Economist or Financial Times or

  • Wall Street Journal or whatever, so it seems to me that may go too far in one direction,

  • because although it's very social, it's also very isolating if you're constantly looking

  • at a screen. And I wonder if we'll come back to something that's a bit more personal, but

  • I think it's a difficult area to predict and I think that anything that we said today will

  • be wrong tomorrow. >>[VP] And Ben, if you've discovered courage? >>[Harrison] I have. I

  • guess what I would say, so the proposition that you put forward I suppose is one that

  • in various forms I guess we've heard a number of times in the past, and is actually used

  • to often say well, you won't need to live in cities anymore because technology will

  • allow you to do all the business that you need to do and actually have all the advantages

  • of living in a nice leafy countryside area and avoid the pollution and the congestion

  • and all the rest of it. And actually, all of the prevailing evidence says that that's

  • not the case, and the continual important of face to face interactions will remain and

  • the trust that they entail and the interactions between talented people that is currently

  • a hallmark of the London economy will continue to be important, even if we are spending 12-16

  • hours a day sitting in front of computer screens. >>[VP] Yes, I guess thanks to Janice's committee,

  • a lot of us were suggested that we work from home, and it was very fun for a bit, but I

  • also noticed a lot of colleagues couldn't wait to get back to have a chat over coffee

  • to talk about the Olympics. >>[Audience member] Alright, thank you, Steven Vauxhall from Regeneration

  • X, I'm an independent regeneration consultant. I wanted to bring up London's hinterland.

  • It's often said that London's economic footprint is much larger than its political boundaries,

  • so to what extent do you think the hinterland might change, and what extent does it have

  • to change for London to have all these changes that you're talking about, and also, connected

  • with that the point someone else made from the audience -- the rich are going to have

  • jobs, the poor are going to have job to serve the rich, what about the middle? Already the

  • middle has been hollowed out. >>[VP] Ben, you were talking about becoming a more unequal

  • society, which suggests there's lots of activity at the bottom and the top but the middle?

  • Do you have any thoughts on this. >>[Campkin] Well, I think London is a city where there

  • are polarisations all over the city, it's not so easy to describe it as a rich centre

  • and a poor outskirts. It's never been like that. So I think the polarisation will still

  • be dispersed around the city, and then in terms of the hinterland, one of the things

  • that came up in the workshop was the need to develop on the green belt and green corridors

  • or green wedges, so I guess that's a big debate which probably Janice will be able to say

  • something on, in terms of the immediate future. >>[Morphet] I mean, I think the movements

  • in London, the transport movements, Journey to Work, is not as clear, or is not as we

  • might think it is. If we think back 50 years ago, the sort of in-out movements, which we

  • think are typical, probably were, but if we think now, many of the movements are east-west

  • or lateral and actually in-out, so when years ago, I used to travel and work in Woking and

  • I live in Clapham Junction, so I was the only person getting on the train, and now masses

  • of people get on the train in Clapham Junction to go to Woking. If you go to Woking, which

  • is a place that used to have heavy commuting into London, actually now a much higher proportion

  • of people in Woking now work locally rather than travelling to London. Yes people do travel

  • in, but proportionally that is much more even than it was, say, 30 years ago. So in a way,

  • what might happen is that hinterlands become over time more self sufficient, but their

  • networks develop and they change the way they work. I think we also need to think about

  • the effect of Crossrail and what that will do. And the stealthy increase of orbital rail

  • is changing the way people are using London as well so you might argue that the real issue

  • is can the centre of London maintain its authoritative position when all these other things are happening.

  • So I think that's maybe an area where things will continue to change. >>[VP] Janice, I'll

  • just ask you a question. The London citystate, given its control over and no need for a green

  • belt because that's governed by England. So would we reach a situation where, in your

  • scenario, we had a gentrified city with leafy avenues where there were previously bus lanes

  • and so forth and shanty towns around Hartfordshire and St Aubins becomes the new sink space for

  • the [unintelligible] to be brought into London to support its affluent middle classes. >>[Morphet]

  • Well, Slough already has the most beds in sheds. You don't have to wait for the future

  • for that, sadly. I don't know. I think that places will, if we look at something like

  • functional economic areas and local enterprise partnerships are really going to work, and

  • I think they're going to be the new local authorities of the future, actually, but if

  • that is going to work then they're going to have potentially the same dynamics and the

  • same sort of -- I mean the whole of England is going to be covered with large-ish areas

  • which are going to be like Transport for London, and that's just about to happen in 2014. All

  • the areas outside London are just forming into those groups now by the end of this month.

  • I think one area where London is weaker is that it doesn't acutally look to see what's

  • happening elsewhere. It gets to its boundaries and it's a bit aloof from the rest but actually

  • the rest of England is getting organised and the question is what effect will that be for

  • London .>>[Audience member] Good evening, Paul Campy. I think Ben touched upon privately

  • managed land, sorry Ben Campkin, touched on privately managed land and with many of the

  • thorough-faires to the Olympic park actually being Westfield Stratford City where private

  • security roamed those thoroughfaires and where photography was not encouraged, shall we say,

  • do you think there's an inevitability that we'll have those sort of developments where

  • previously, perhaps, public land becomes privately managed, do you think that's inevitable and

  • do you think that's a good thing or a necessary thing for future regenerations? >>[Campkin]

  • Well, I wouldn't want to say it's inevitable, but it's definitely the trend, and it does

  • fundamentally change the character of what those spaces are and what relationship people

  • have to them and what powers they have to use them and to interact in those spaces,

  • so it's something that a lot of people are very critical of at the moment, so Anna Minton,

  • the journalist with her book Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the 21st Century City

  • writing about the securitisation of public space, so the turning of public spaces into

  • an image of public space, but are actually places that are highly controlled and ordered.

  • >>[Morphet] I think factually that you can't compare Stratford or the Olympic Park in games

  • mode to the rest of the time, and we'll have to see what it looks like next year when it's

  • opened on the first anniversary, but I would say that just on a factual point, that because

  • the park is in different boroughs, when we were looking at design standards on the committee

  • for roads, footpaths, cycleways, we made sure that each of the boroughs had their standards

  • adopted in each part of the park so that they can adopt them without any problem when they're

  • passed over. And I think "old style regeneration" or old style top-down UDC type of approaches

  • would have just done one standard across the piece and let them get on with it, whereas

  • we were very sensitive to thinking about the management afterwardsand realising that that

  • would be the case, so I think it's too early to say really. >>[Harrison] Just thinking,

  • picking up again on Janice's point earlier of London borough land holdings and also the

  • land that's now been transferred in the GLA. It's obviously the case that both boroughs

  • and the GLA have some influence over that, and if those are political decisions that

  • will be taken at that level and therefore there's no reason why it would necessarily

  • be the case, I would say. >>[VP] Sorry, I'm just showing my naivete by being shocked and

  • surprised that different boroughs have different standards on footpaths. >>[Morphet] Cycle

  • ways are the worst. >>[Audience member] A lot of what was said here assumes a certain

  • path of growth or land maintenance globally, talking about wealth that would allow regeneration

  • and population growth. I just wonder if we are daring to look far enough into the future,

  • 2062, you know in the 1930s the -- I don't think anyone would imagine that the British

  • empire would be gone only 20 years later, well, maybe there were signs, or that the

  • docklands would suddenly, within a decade or two, would disappear. And now that we see

  • the growth of Asia, the middle east, Africa, a lot of London's success is based on migration,

  • on international companies, it is possible, I mean maybe we're not stretching our imagination

  • enough, maybe in 50 years London will lose its significance in the global economy. >>[Morphet]

  • It could do. The points I was making about investment was not about global wealth but

  • the fact that there's already a certain asset value in London that can be utilised and resources

  • that can be deployed to utilise that. If you think about London globally then I think that,

  • I agree with what somebody else said, that it takes a long time to change, and we thought

  • that China was going to make the lead and still may they, but their growth rate has

  • come down, we've seen that this week, they're actually way lower than their target, we have

  • an uncertain leadership election, we don't know who's going to take over in China. So

  • global capital doesn't want to go to uncertainty and London has -- its problems in relation

  • to financial regulation seem to me more critical than anything else about threats from China.

  • It's the way it's actually managed itself. But if it can get through that then somewhere

  • in Europe is going to be that. And the issue about London being a capital city and having

  • that international role is not one that's shared by anywhere at all. It's not shared

  • by New York, for example, so it has a lot going for it. >>[VP] Ben, do you want to say

  • anything? [Harrison] I would echo what Janice said. I mean having said, we don't have to

  • look too far back into the past to a time when London's population was falling and you

  • would have struggled to predict that the role of London in the UK economy that it now takes,

  • so there is a point there that we don't want to become complacent about London's preeminence

  • on the global stage. I think there's also probably a point that picks up on some of

  • the things that Ben has said, or that we've all said really, that it is important and

  • it's likely to become more important that we remember who growth is for and make sure

  • that it's serving Londoners and, for example, the influx of overseas investment in London

  • properties is a fantastic example of that. It's heralded as a sign of success and of

  • buoyancy in the London housing market. But you don't have to look too hard at the housing

  • market to see that yes it may be buoyant but it's fundamentally dysfunctional and it's

  • not serving the interests of Londoners in many ways. So that's something which we must

  • continue to look at and is probably going to become more important. >>[VP] I said originally

  • when we started that UCL describes itself as London's global university. Experience

  • shows you can't have a global university in a city that isn't a global city. So, it's

  • part of our mission at UCL to do what we can to ensure that London sustains its prosperity

  • and its global position, because without that, we can't sustain our own global position.

  • So there's a degree of enlightened self-interest in trying to make sure that we don't -- it's

  • not futurology that we're trying to do, but what we're trying to do is to anticipate as

  • best as we can the challenges that our city faces and see what we can do to mitigate the

  • negative and accentuate the positive. I think we have time for probably one more question.

  • The lady there. >>[Audience member] Mary Conneely (?), very interested and as you keep talking

  • about a global city -- a global city needs to be well led. And I think my question to

  • the panel is about leadership and the governance of London. There are, Janice made some great

  • points about the issue about what kind of emerging city we want, where we close the

  • cars from Zone 1 and 2 -- how do we get to that ability to have that decision making.

  • One of the Bens talked about the idea that -- I think, sorry, it crossed over between

  • the two of you -- the question of capitalisation and realisation of assets. I've spent the

  • last two years working for the six host boroughs and as their chief adviser on employment and

  • skills. So there's a real issue about -- they had a single goal to coalesce around. That's

  • been taken apart, and the question of collaboration and moving forward, on how they go from being

  • the host boroughs to the growth boroughs is exercising minds, but some of the issues with

  • the way that London's governed at the moment, the role of the mayor actually dislocates

  • the boroughs a lot of the time, and the question of the localism agenda -- will it really allow

  • the boroughs to move that forward, or would that be seen as a threat to the mayor's powers?

  • I think there's a disconnect there and I'd like to hear from the panel on some of those

  • issues. >>[Ben] Happy to start, yes. I think you're right, there's huge tensions. London

  • in so many ways is unique to the rest of the country, but perhaps none more so than the

  • way it was -- the impact that the localism act and those reforms have played out, where

  • regional policy is being disbanded across the rest of the country but has actually been

  • strengthened here. I think the real concern which perhaps still exists amongst London

  • boroughs is that far from being an empowering agenda for them, they've had power taken away

  • from the top and that's gone up to the mayor, and then potentially, the empowerment of neighbourhoods

  • below them and actually it's made life much more difficult for London boroughs. I mean

  • whether that will actually be played out remains to be seen. On your point about how do we

  • get to Janice's utopian vision of a car free zone 1 and 2, and speaking personally that

  • seems to me to be a very pleasant set of circumstances to arrive at, there is of course a democratic

  • point within that in that people do like their cars [laughter], and it seems -- I was just

  • meeting with colleagues at Transport for London today and we all agree that there is a kind

  • of danger that in living the kinds of lifestyles that we do -- I don't drive, personally, you

  • can forget the fact that lots of people do depend on their cars in order to remain economically

  • active and so whether it's right that we'll have an all powerful mayor who can just decree

  • those kinds of things or not, I'm not 100% sure though I do personally probably share

  • your enthusiasm for the outcome. I guess I would reiterate just finally one of the points

  • I made in the presentation where I fully expect there to be another round of devolution to

  • London in some guise or another over the next period, probably leading up to the next general

  • election. Quite what form that will take I don't know, whether that will be the devolution

  • of particular revenue streams or funding pots, but it's -- I'd be very surprised if the mayor

  • doesn't want to try to capitalise on his popularity within the conservative party if nothing else

  • and try to push that forward. But those tensions, I would imagine, between borough leadership

  • and the mayor and other organisations will remain. >>[Morphet] Well I think you're going

  • to have to have mayoral candidates with big ideas. I think that's an important thing.

  • But London is already the least car dependent place in the country, and those figures were

  • published last week. And I think it's actually why older Londoners will live longer, because

  • they're used to walking, to using public transport to get to work, then they get their freedom

  • pass, there's a kind of culture of being on the move in London which I think distinguishes

  • it now from a lot of other cities where they are car dependent still even though there

  • is good public transport, so I think that's another issue. In terms of the boroughs, I

  • mean certainly the issue about amalgamating boroughs to kind of reduce the number has

  • been on the agenda at least since 1965 or 64, since we reorganised last time. And London

  • government is unique in the country as going so long without any kind of reform. Most other

  • places have been reformed at least twice in that period. Some people might say that's

  • because it works, I think the others might say well it's because it's politically so

  • difficult. I think the attempts to bring boroughs together to run services together has been

  • a stepping stone, or attempted stepping stone to see if that would work. I don't think it

  • will. I suspect the change will come from underneath and I'm fully expecting to have

  • a Holy Parish to London before too long, and parishes now have the same legal power as

  • local authorities and so, actually, you might get a different kind of change coming along

  • with local banishment and that's the the one I'd be looking out for. >>[VP] Do you want

  • to say anything about our St Pancras Parish? >>[Campkin] Erm, no, but just >>[Laughter]

  • my fellow panellists have given very eloquent answers to that question. My only experience

  • of dealing with the administrative boundaries in the city through my research is looking

  • at pest control and how pest control is quite radically different in the different boroughs

  • and pests are obviously a problem that should be dealt with centrally, it doesn't have respect

  • for boundaries. >>[VP] So if the fox can get over the border it's free. Okay, well, we've

  • had a chance to have a discussion on some of the points. There's so many more, I know.

  • Sorry if you haven't had a chance to ask your question. You will have a chance, however,

  • to catch the panellists. We are inviting you to withdraw to one of the great developments

  • of London in 1828, the Wilkins Building in the quadrangle across the street. There'll

  • be wine and refreshments available there, and hopefully our panel members will be able

  • to join us and you can collar them further. But in the mean time could I ask you to thank

  • our panel members for their contributions to this evening.

>>Thank you very much for coming along this evening to this event on The Long Legacy:

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it