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Theme : cities
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My Back Yard is Your Back Yard
Peter Pan - sorry, Ruth Kelly, in her new role as Secretary of State for Communities, said yesterday that she wanted to ?root out? the social culture that sees people being ?protective of their own space?.I can?t help but wonder if this is a curious attitude for someone with responsibility for communities. It certainly sits a little uncomfortably with the tone of nearly every planning policy statement to emerge from the ODPM over the past couple of years. (And apparently her record in...
from : petebradwell
12th May 2006
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TELLY IS DEAD LONG LIVE STREET PARTIES
Bristol has been declared the Street Party capital of the UK- 25 in one neighbourhood in one summer alone. If you are inspired to do your own, then this ace new website created by Streets Alive!tells you how to do it- everything from sourcing bunting (yes a whole section just on bunting) to how to close your road. I?m thinking of hosting a street party on my estate in Waterloo. Neighbourliness has rocketed since Southwark Council began renovating it last September. We?ve all had plenty to...
from : melissamean
12th April 2006
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Save the 'Burbs
While politicians have focused on tackling the problems of our inner cities and many, including the Prince of Wales, have championed the rights of the countryside, suburbia has been neglected by policy makers. As reported in the Independent on Sunday, Demos is launching an action plan to save suburbia this week at Kingston University's Centre for Suburban Studies. You can also read all about it in the Daily Mail (not available online) and the Guardian. In an editorial, the Indy argues for a...
from : samhintonsmith
20th March 2006
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Surfer's Paradise
Rachel B and I spent time with Tom Hewitt who runs the Umthombo project, a charity/ think tank that aims to build relationships with street children in Durban. The organisation?s goal is to reunite street children with their family, and where this is not possible act as a friendly bridge to the local shelters. The plight of the street children in Durban is emblematic of wider socio-economic problems in the city and the local government is desperate to ?fix? the problem?the reason? Durban is...
from : charlieedwards
12th March 2006
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Innovator wanted: Competitive rates
It sounds a bit like officialdom's answer to the kind of future thinking project that Demos is running in Glasgow. We're asking people who live, work, study and play in the city - school kids, hairdressers, single mums, office workers and many more - to give us their vision of the city's future. You can find out more about Glasgow 2020 here.
from : samhintonsmith
12th January 2006
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Blink and you'll miss it
Mumbai rises out of the smog in the early morning. It?s easy to underestimate how quickly this city is changing. The city is the finance capital of India, but it could just as well be described as the entrepreneurial hub of Asia. As one local entrepreneur explained, ?we are like rats, able to survive in just about any environment, no matter how difficult?. Aside from the suffocating legal and business rules they regularly come up against, Indians are embracing globalisation in their own way....
from : charlieedwards
27th November 2005
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Have a cow
Pick Me Up (which Charlie and me help out with) has a great story this week about a group of friends who took a herd of cows to Toxteth in Liverpool to try and reconnect city dwellers with the land. It did much more than that though.Read the story.
from : paulmiller
16th September 2005
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Parties make People
1. Spaces that support sharing and exchange in cities are really important. 2. But most of our so called "public spaces" in cities aren't so hot at supporting sharing3. Nonetheless, there are lots of shared spaces in cities. We can find these if we follow people people to the places they go rather than waiting for them to role up and start mixing it in town squares etc.4. We have to learn the lessons that make sharing in these spaces work(be they Car Boot Sales, Supermarket Cafes or...
from : charlietims
15th September 2005
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Cracker Modern
You've heard of the new urbanism, now try the new ruralism. Florida development company St. Joe's is converting vast swathes of low value marsh land in the state's interior and branding the concept as RiverCamps. Designed to appeal to Florida's aging population, St. Joes is terraforming their land to produce a more habitable countryside with pleasing grasses, rolling hills and winding rivers...
from : petermacleod
22nd August 2005
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New Cities for Old
Demos Associate Richard Florida was a contributor to a really interesting edition of BBC Radio 4's Analysis last week. The subject was the supposed 'urban renaissance' going on in Britain's cities. By the way, the programme was presented by Diane Coyle who has an essay in our latest collection Network Logic.To read a transcript of the programme click here.To read Richard Florida's recent report published by Demos click here.
from : paulmiller
3rd May 2004
