Planning for affluence and abundant wealth. Or not?

My latest engagement in London has brought me from Hammersmith in West London in spring to Victoria in the heart of Central London this autumn, both very affluent areas, the former more residential than the latter. Working on spatial planning in Inner London very much reflects the economic prosperity of southern  England, where private affluence and wealth is abundant.

During the summer I passed through a majority of the towns and cities along the south coast by bike during three weekends, from Margate in Kent to Penzance in Cornwall, with Sidwell Street in Exeter an unexpected surprise. 

Plan for the future, not the present 

Having been through more than half the streets of Central London (zone 1: 50 km2) and most towns along the south coast, this gave me a new perspective on spatial planning, urban design, public realm, transport and urban policy. With vast amount of private and public money invested in towns and cities, too much is maybe going to waste. Either because the short term solution is not a long term answer. Or because planners and decision makers fail to recognise that past problems and future challenges are not equal. Or that they fail to plan for an economy that fluctuates in cycles, with prosperity followed by austerity and vice versa. Planning for a stable economy too often misses opportunities, either because prosperity is returning or prosperity is veining, but plans are reactive rather than proactive.

Give distinct identity to a place 

What makes Exeter's Sidwell Street such a delight is partly its built heritage, with many quality buildings in a wide variety of styles, from different periods and different decades of the 20th century. In other words, neither uniform, stunning or dreary, 18th, 19th or 20th century architecture. But the public realm of the street has received a stunning contemporary makeover, bringing together the various styles and materials of the buildings. I saw it at night, after light rain, when large numbers of first year students where going from venue to venue during first week of term. There were also buses going in either directions on a rather narrow carriageway, with the pavements on either sides being wider and having low curbs. 

Some problems are better left unresolved 

Certain challenges and issues are sometimes better left unresolved as they may go away in time. One is cars, congestion and car parking, an obsession of post-WWII planning. Another is demolishing or merging small dwellings to cater for larger inner city households. But people are able to adapt to their physical surroundings or move elsewhere. And maybe this is what spatial planning should allow for more frequently, rather than incite very expensive physical remodelling of cities to cater for challenges and issues that may pass a generation into the future. That leaves the problem of knowing what issues to deal with and what challenges to leave unresolved. But only a higher power knows the answer to that. 

People move on, and urban life too 

Observing city life in London, one is struck by the share complexity of how separate communities go about their daily life, but not necessarily ever being in contact with one another. The communities can be either social, ethnic, cultural, demographic, economic, age etc or a multitude of some of these, and sometimes live entirely parallel lives from cradle to grave, within the same or adjacent areas. 

Similarly, planning for urban life has never been easy, as a lot of post-war planning has proved. People change, circumstances change and society change. Not least is that very evident in London and along the south coast, where former lively communities have vanished, or new communities have established. Not least new ethnic communities have sprung up, challenging the established order. But this multitude of communities is maybe less evident in the physical fabric of most of London and along most of the south coast. 

Mini-Manhattans need to be the centre of things

Croydon, the regional centre of South East London has been a disaster in making for over half a century and it is hard to see how current and future plans can ever deliver the necessary change. Planning and delivering a high rise town centre is maybe as difficult as planning and delivering a multi-level town centre. And high rise living is maybe more appropriate in the centre of a very large and very accessible area, not in the outer suburbs of large cities. Similarly, high rise living and high rise offices may only work with extreme quality in the public realm. But that is only possible where finance is abundant. And in London there are maybe too many competing town centres for that to ever happen in Croydon. Maybe it would have been better for Croydon to plan a four to eight storey town centre, with normal streets, pavements and curb side parking, challenging enough in the outer suburbs of London.

My house in South London, halfway between Brixton, Peckham, Dulwich and Camberwell, on a small hill with views northwards of London from Richmond in the west to Canary Wharf in the east, during a (past) winter day. 

Public Realm Strategy for Victoria
The subject of my engagement at Westminster was preparing a public realm strategy for Victoria Opportunity Area, an area stretching from Parliament Square to Victoria Coach Station, including Victoria Street and Victoria Station. It included 3D illustrations of streets, parks, squares, trees and buildings, half a dozen thematic concept diagrams, a dozen diagrams of existing situation and detailed policies and analysis for nine prioritised areas.

The Victoria area is primarily the area on either side of Victoria Street, a rather narrow street with tall post-war buildings, some of them already replaced once since the WWII. Victoria Street runs a kilometre from Parliament Square in the north east to Victoria Station in the south west. The area is bound by Buckingham Palace and St James Park to the north, Millbank to the east and Pimlico to the south, both bordering the Thames, and Belgravia, Sloane Square and Kings Road to the West. The area consists mostly of private and government offices, bordering mostly private residential areas to the south and west.