Decades of progress at risk of being reversed

One of the features of the pandemic is the way in which particularly groups of people have been adversely impacted disproportionately in terms of their health, education, employment and earnings. The statistics show that if you are poor, in insecure work, do a job that can’t be done from home, have underlying health conditions, live in poor housing, rely on free school meals, do not have access to a computer and broadband, are black or Asian, then you are more likely to have experienced worse outcomes from the pandemic than others. But until recently there has been remarkably little comment about the negative impacts on one particular group: women.

That is beginning to change. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has issued a statement in advance of International Women’s Day 2021 outlining how women have borne the brunt of the labour market and caring impacts, and have been more likely to work in healthcare settings with higher risks of catching Covid itself. In the UK, the economist Vicky Pryce has, for some time, been speaking and writing about how the pandemic and its economic impacts risk reversing a long period of economic progress for women.

Angela Merkel has warned about the harmful impacts of the pandemic on women

Research by the Resolution Foundation has shown that those doing low-paid, insecure work, particularly in hospitality and retail have been more likely to have been furloughed or affected by job and earnings losses. Many of these jobs, particularly in retail, will not return. A high proportion of these jobs are done by women. Single parent households, predominantly led by women, have also experienced the most significant impacts of children not being able to access free-school meals. Because the majority of childcare is undertaken by women, the impact of school closures is likely to have led more women than men to take time off work, or to experience the challenges of juggling working from home with home-schooling. The case for greater provision of affordable childcare, a measure on which the UK lags behind the OECD average, is more apparent now than ever. A study by the LSE predicts that some 150,000 childcare nursery places may disappear after the Covid crisis.

Whilst these are national issues where central Government has a role to play, it is notable that there is not generally a strong gender dimension to city and city region policies and programmes around economic growth, something that needs to change as places seek to build-back-better. I suggest five areas where more could be done.

First, expanding and improving childcare should be a priority, particularly if linked to initiatives to acheive better Early Years education and health outcomes for children. Cities can encourage take up of childcare providers and funded childcare, and work with providers to expand Early Years provision.

Second, there is scope for greater local action to support women in returning to good jobs after a period away from the labour market, whether as a result of childcare or unemployment. Some businesses, such as PWC, have successful returners schemes. More firms could be encouraged to do this, and there could be scope for local collaboration.

Third, there should be far more schemes to support in-work progression, to enable people to progress from low-paid, low-skilled insecure work to better jobs. These schemes should go hand-in-hand with initiatives by employers to tack some of the barriers to career progression, which include access to childcare and transport.

Fourth, there could be a focus on retraining in sectors where women are particularly under-represented. With increasingly rapid economic and technological change, there will be an increasing need to equip workers, and in some cases to retrain them, in digital and STEM skills. Women are currently underrepresented in these sectors, which not co-incidentally also face significant skill shortages.

Finally, there is a need for greater diversity in networks that provide economic leadership, such as chambers of commerce or economic partnerships. There is a strong body of research that shows that more diverse leadership teams are also more successful.

This is a huge issue, and a huge economic opportunity for places. As well as being fair and the right thing to do, helping women contribute to the economy to their full potential will be good for growth and productivity of our cities and regions.

Putting Children and Young People At the Heart of Our Towns and Cities

Anne Longfield has been a tireless, thoughtful and tenacious champion for children and young people. Yesterday was her last day in post as Children’s Commissioner for England, and, typically, it was the stories of children, many of them heartbreaking, some of them uplifting, that she used to sign off on. The day before, Tim Gill’s excellent new book, Urban Playground, dropped on my front porch. It builds on previous work, including Arup’s designing for urban childhoods, to make the case for designing cities with the needs of children in mind.

I have been thinking a lot recently about the position of children and young people in how we make policy for and design our towns and cities. I have witnessed with my own kids the experience of lockdown and school closures, and we have heard a lot bout the impact more widely. It is a topic I have always been passionate about. When I was at Leeds City Council I worked closely with colleagues to build on the existing Child Friendly Leeds ambition to ensure that putting children at the heart of the growth strategy was one of the main priorities for the city’s inclusive growth strategy. I built on this theme in a talk I gave in 2018 at an event organised by the five main built environment professional institutions in Yorkshire(slides are here).

Children and young people have suffered hugely during Covid, mainly to protect the health of older people. Their education and prospects have been impacted by school closures and online learning. This is widening the gap in educational opportunity and attainment between different places and communities, all exacerbated by a digital divide. As well as their formal education, the social development and mental health of young people has been damaged. A study released today shows that only one in three children in Bradford had sufficient exercise in the first lockdown, and a similar proportion rarely left the home. Child poverty was increasing before the pandemic, and as been worsened as a result of job and income losses during it. And children’s mental health has suffered. The statistics set out by Anne Longfield in her last speech as Children’s Commissioner are shocking: over 2 million children in families affected by severe poverty, domestic abuse, parental mental health issues, parental substance misuse, or where the child is a young carer or a parent is in prison; and 1.3 million children with significant mental health conditions (less than a quarter of these received NHS treatment in 2019/20). As kids missed free school meals, the issue of childhood hunger has become prominent thanks to Marcus Rashford’s campaign, building on the fantastic work of projects such as the Leeds Healthy Holidays scheme. Teenagers have lost important developmental experiences, and some have had to deal with the uncertainty around exams. For young adults, a rise in youth unemployment could have a long-term scaring effect on their careers and livelihoods for decades to come.

As towns and cities look to build back better, now is the time to put children at the heart of their plans for economic growth and recovery. Some large cities, particularly London, are seeing increased migration of families, what Richard Florida has called “accelerated family flight” fueled by the pandemic and the possibilities of living further away opened up by remote work. There is increasing recognition of the importance of good quality open space, of urban places that are walk-able and bike-able and enable interaction, and there is opportunity to reshape cities with the needs of children in mind. I suggest five calls to action.

First, increasing educational opportunity should be priority. As the Northern Powerhouse Partnership’s Educating the North report argues, improving schools and educational attainment (particularly among white working class boys) is essential to support levelling-up. This needs to start with early years provision; there is strong evidence that many children that lag behind in early years attainment do not catch up later as they progress through school. This will be essential in retaining and attracting families and skilled people in towns and cities. The London Challenge initiative, created in 2003 in response to poor schools in Inner London and associated family flight, led to huge improvements in schools and contributed to the regeneration of many areas. We need initiatives with a similar intent and cross sector backing in other places. At a time of rising youth unemployment, this should include strengthening links between schools, employers, FE and HE, and improving the transition of young people form school to further and higher education and apprenticeships. Universities have an important role in supporting school improvement and widening participation in higher education, including in bridging the UK’s huge divide between technical and higher education, and as the Universities for Nottingham initiative has shown, these roles can be strengthened through Civic University Agreements.

Second, we must ensure initiatives to improve public realm are child friendly and enable play and social interaction. As the role of city and town centres change, particularly with the shift to online retail, good quality public realm and green space is being seen as a catalyst for regeneration, for example through the schemes to create a new city centre park in Leeds, to reconnect Stockton town centre with the River Tees, or as part of the regeneration of Broadmarsh in Nottingham. But with some notable exceptions, such as city park in Bradford, or Kings Cross Central in London, new urban spaces are rarely designed with children or play in mind, and in some places rules prohibit play. That needs to change. Tim Gill’s new book, and Arup’s designing for urban childhoods document set out how. We should support projects to encourage play, such as Emma Bearman’s Playful Anywhere initiative. Better urban design and more play can be combined with support for families to encourage healthy eating and healthy lifestyles, an approach that has enabled Leeds become first UK city to reduce obesity in children living in the most deprived areas.

“Telling children and families to go out and take more exercise is all well and good if they have a nice garden or live near a park. If you live near busy roads, without a garden or safe place to exercise, then you are going to be reluctant to let your children go out to play” Prof John Wright.

Third, there should be a new deal for teenagers. We should do more to make public spaces more welcoming for teenagers. We desperately need to increase funding for youth services, which have suffered a 70% funding cut in less than a decade. There is a strong case for involving young people in shaping the vision and policies for how places will develop and change. For example, through the Leeds Station Challenge project we ran with local schools, we gained genuinely useful insight from young people on design issues. Places should think about creating structures to engage young people in influencing decision-making; Leeds is one of the few cities to have a children’s mayor; and Greater Manchester has a Youth Combined Authority.

Child-friendly interventions offer an opportunity to improve a city’s level of “childfriendliness”. The ideas presented in Arup’s Designing for Urban Childhoods report include small actions that can add up to high-impact change as part of a children’s infrastructure network.

Fourth, at a time when youth services, mental health services for young people, and benefits for people with children are under such financial strain, national government should redress the inter-generational fairness in fiscal spending. Child poverty has been increasing rapidly, with a reversal of many of huge advances made by Gordon Brown when Chancellor and PM in using the benefits system to help tackle child poverty. When I was at Leeds City Council I remember vividly a young person in the city talking to the Council’s State of the City meeting about the intense feeling of unfairness he felt around the cost of his bus fares to get to college when all pensioners benefit from free bus travel. Perhaps it is time for us to look at the generous benefits enjoyed by wealthy pensioners, and to rebalance some of this spending to support younger people

Finally, we need to seize the moment and, as Anne Longfield has urged government, to give children their “Nightingale moment” with a dedicated recovery package. The need to act is urgent. The future of our cities and towns depends on it.

Building Back Better: The Role of Cities and Innovation Districts

Image: (Plague in an Ancient City, Michiel Sweerts) City Journal

This article was published originally in May 2020 by the UK Innovation Districts Group. The original can be found here.

The Covid-19 crisis poses big questions for cities. Throughout history people, businesses, knowledge producing organisations such as universities, cultural bodies and professional institutions, and investors have been attracted to cities because of the concentrations, diversity and flows of ideas and opportunities they provide, enabled by density, access to a large workforce via the public transport network, and close networks of face-to-face collaboration. These trends have led to the emergence of innovation districts in city centres and well-connected nodes in the UK as well as globally. These very factors that have underpinned the success of cities are now challenged by a new, dangerous, communicable disease, physical and social distancing, and the experience of mass working from home. Why locate and force people to commute to and cluster in urban centres when there is the risk of disease and we can work from our homes?

But cities will bounce back, and their role in providing the right places and networks to support innovation and growth will be more important now than ever for six reasons.

First, it is in cities where we have the best prospects for the rapid innovation needed to tackle societal and health challenges. We need rapid innovation to tackle the crisis and its implications. Cities and innovation districts can connect innovators, entrepreneurs, the health and social care system and other providers of public services to work together to tackle societal and health challenges. The focus could be on products and services which would realistically and significantly meet a societal need that has emerged or increased due to the Covid-19 pandemic, or the need of an industry that has been severely impacted and disrupted. This could be in the field of healthcare, public health, community support, online and home delivery. This could be part of a wider mission-orientated approach to supporting innovation-driven economic growth. A £20 million competition has been launched by Innovate UK to support firms responding to new and urgent needs as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Second, now is an opportunity to use our cities and innovation districts as test-beds. The real world will look and operate differently as we move out of lockdown into a test-trace-isolate phase. We will need to rapidly change the way we manage transport systems, buildings and urban logistics. For example, cities are reallocating road-space from cars to pedestrians and cyclists, and the Government have announced a trial of drone delivery of medical supplies. There may be new use cases and increased demand for autonomous transport, for example the type of driverless pods that have been trialled at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Research by Arup for Nesta has looked at how cities can develop tools for testing innovation in the real world. Once we move into the economic recovery phase, test-beds can have a continued role.

Third, building ecosystems for innovation-led entrepreneurship can be part of the recovery plan. Our cities will need to shape and help deliver a major economic stimulus package of regeneration, infrastructure, housing and economic growth projects to kickstart economic recovery. Think a modern-day Marshall plan to put in place the building blocks for a more productive future economy. This needs to encompass soft infrastructure as well as physical projects. Cities should get behind innovative start-ups and scale-ups. These high growth businesses, which make a huge contribution to the economy through their investment in people, technology and innovation, are likely to find securing finance harder. Cities and Government should back innovation districts as projects that can kickstart and sustain the right type of future growth.

Fourth, collaboration in cities will become more, not less important, and we need to design and curate our physical spaces accordingly. Firms and organisations are already reflecting on what they have learned in recent weeks to consider the future for their offices and estates. Whilst there is scope for them to have less office space, they are also experiencing the inefficiencies of mass working from home, the challenges in collaborating across disciplines and organisations, the difficulties in building the relationships and implicit trust that come from face-to-face discussions, the sheer time and energy required to run a Zoom meeting compared to a physical one, the loneliness and lack of fun and enjoyment. This experience will re-enforce the need for firms to have the right office space in urban areas. They may need less of it, and its primary function may shift towards supporting collaboration and away from providing banks of desks. People will want to interact, to share ideas, and to share each other’s company in urban spaces between the buildings. Offices, campuses and urban spaces may be reconfigured around a primary function of supporting collaboration and interaction, away from providing desk capacity.

Fifth, inclusive growth will become an even more important policy priority. This crisis is going to lead to a huge shake-out in the labour market. Entrepreneurship could offer a new career path for people who have lost their jobs. There will be a need and an opportunity for many people to gain new skills as employment in some sectors decreases, and opportunities are created in others. The organisations involved in innovation districts have a role to play here in supporting people to adapt and rebuild their careers. We need to use this opportunity to consider how we value, pay and offer better security key workers in sectors such as health, social care, retail, deliveries and hospitality. We should consider how we can reshape the labour market in these sectors, many of which have to date been associated with low wage, low skilled, and insecure work.

The Centre for Progressive Policy has predicted that places with weaker economies will be hit hardest. Some of these cities and towns could create their own innovation districts, or projects to support people to start and scale up innovative and creative firms. There is an opportunity to strengthen and the role of healthcare providers as anchor institutions for growth. We can build on the community led and volunteer networks that have been established to support our neighbours, or vulnerable or lonely people. We need to consider the intergenerational dimension. Older people are most vulnerable to this disease and will suffer most from shielding, but younger people are seeing their education, careers and livelihoods being damaged significantly. We need a model that supports and values older people (there is an opportunity here for innovation districts as is being demonstrated by Newcastle’s National Innovation Centre for Ageing) as well as creating a more resilient and sustainable model of growth to benefit future generations.

Finally, history has shown us cities adapt and change in response to health risks and shocks. As Ed Glaeser has written, cities and pandemics have a long history. Throughout history, cities and towns have needed to strike a balancing act between providing the densities that support the collaboration, knowledge and innovation needed to accelerate economic growth, whilst also addressing the public health risks that density creates. In 1854 John Snow meticulously mapped the London cholera outbreak, identifying the source (a water pump). The Victorians built sanitation systems and hospitals and made health breakthroughs. Florence Nightingale advised on the design of the new Leeds General Infirmary that was opened in 1869. Liverpool created the first public baths of any city, and the world’s first school of tropical medicine. In what is today the London Knowledge Quarter hormones, vitamins and the structure of DNA were discovered. We are now going to need to adapt our cities once again.

After 9/11 many commentators predicted fundamental changes in urban areas, for example a shift away from tall buildings, and global travel. Instead we adapted our cities and transport networks with security measures to respond to the new normal.

With the growth of the internet and global communications, many predicted the death of cities and densities. In reality, as the economy has become more specialised, knowledge based and focused on intangibles, face-to-face proximity has become more, not less important. This will continue. Smart people will still want to work alongside other smart people, and collaborate, compare and compete in the spaces between the buildings. Knowledge producing firms and institutions will still want to be close to each other and have access to a skilled and creative workforce across a wide area. All of this will need to be supported by the right supply and curation of commercial space and formal and informal public and social spaces, and the right networks between corporates, start-ups and scale-ups, universities and major cultural institutions, investors, and city governments.

Whilst our towns and cities will be different as a result of this crisis, they will be central to the huge economic recovery effort needed. As Ed Glaeser has argued, “We have built our modern world around proximity, and Covid-19 has made the costs of that closeness painfully obvious. We can either reorient ourselves around distance or recommit ourselves to waging war against density’s greatest enemy: contagious disease.”

The challenges are significant. We have some difficult days ahead. Cities can shape and support the recovery, and build better, fairer, more resilient, sustainable and productive economies, and innovation districts have a huge role to play.

Cities Can and Will Bounce Back

This is the transcript of a talk I gave as part of the Northlands 2 event on 7th July 2020 organised by the ODI Leeds, in conjunction with the Embassy for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. I was asked to consider the future of social interactions in cities in the context of Covid and physical distancing. The ODI Leeds, no doubt using clever AI, transcribed my talk, and I have only done some very minor tidying up of the text, and added a few links.

Data has always played a role in enabling cities public health challenges. John Snow’s meticulous mapping of London’s 1854 Cholera outbreak identified the water pump that was the source, paving the way for huge improvements in sanitation.

Introduction

The COVID-19 crisis poses huge questions for cities. Throughout history people, businesses, knowledge-producing organisations such as universities, professional institutions, R&D intensive business and investors have been attracted to cities because of the concentrations, the densities and the flows of knowledge, ideas and opportunities that urban areas create. The close networks of face to face collaboration have enabled this, but all of this is now challenged by a new dangerous communicable disease.

The requirement for physical and social distancing and the experience of mass working from home poses huge questions for the future of cities, city centres, transport networks, the office. Why force people to locate and coalesce in dense urban centers? Why force them to use public transport to get there when there’s a risk of disease and they can work from their own home. But I believe that cities can and will must bounce back. Because it is in cities that we can drive the productivity, the innovation and the creativity needed to build a stronger economy for the future and to do so sustainably and inclusively.

The intangible economy, and importance of face-to-face contact and density

So why is density and face-to- face contact so important? With the advent of the Internet, email, and advanced communications, lots of people predicted the death of city. We would no longer have to come together. We could all work from home remotely. But actually the opposite has happened as the economy has become more complex and more knowledge-intensive, face-to-face contact has become more not less important.

There is a number of reasons for this and they’re not new. As humans, we are hardwired to tell stories, to build trust, to build relationships, and to do so face-to-face. In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari tells the importance of how in the cognitive revolution people telling stories, and gossiping enabled humans to cooperate and organize in ever larger numbers and to develop new technologies and new systems of organizing society.

And that process has accelerated in recent years, particularly with the emergence of the intangible economy, which Stian Westlake and Jonathan Haskel have written about. Competitive advantage is no longer primarily gained from natural resources, and fixed capital assets such as factories, machinery, plant, premises. Increasingly in the modern economy, competitive advantage comes from intangibles such as knowledge, creativity, software, and data. That makes those knowledge

spillovers really important and knowledge spillovers happen best when people can meet face-to-face. Look at Arup’s office in Leeds, it was built in the 1830s as a flax mill. It then became a warehouse for storing goods that were transported by the waterways, and now it houses a number of professional services firms. It is almost built embodiment of the growth of the intangible economy.

Innovation, knowledge spillovers and related economic diversity

Bruce Katz and Julie Wagner have written about Innovation Districts about how people innovate today, and how people no longer want to drive to their out-of-town office park where they keep their ideas secret within their buildings. He says instead they want to share ideas in the hyper caffeinated spaces between the buildings in urban areas. They want to collaborate, they want to compare, and they want to compete alongside each other. Smart people want to work close to other smart people. Employers and businesses want to be near knowledge intensive knowledge producing functions such as universities and teaching hospitals, and they want access to a skilled and creative workforce from across a wide area. At Arup we have told the UK story of Innovation Districts.

We see this in Leeds City centre where the knowledge intensive business services sector – KIBS for short – have grown rapidly and over 50% of the jobs in Leeds City Centre are in those KIBS functions compared to only 25% across Leeds City Region as a whole. Leeds City Centre has experienced very rapid growth in those and really important high productivity KIBS jobs over recent years, including compared to other core cities.

The transport network has been critical around this. It supports those densities. It allows firms to access those skilled people from a wide hinterland, and it enables people to access more productive jobs; to be able to move job without moving house. That’s why we’ve seen such huge increases over recent decades in rail use into Leeds Station. It’s the busiest station in the North of England. It’s now used by over 30 million people a year and that has grown rapidly over recent years, and that growth continued through previous recessions.

The nature of clustering has changed as well. We’ve moved on from the very specialist clustering that Alfred Marshall wrote about to a concept of related diversity, that Jane Jacobs wrote about, where what matters, particularly in cities, is not necessarily deep domain expertise and concentrations in one particular sectir, but it’s about a mashup and integration of different areas of expertise.

We see this, increasingly, in Leeds. The economic success of Leeds in recent decades has been built on the back of financial and professional services. And those remain really important parts of the Leeds economy. But in recent years and up until Covid, we’ve seen rapid growth in sectors such as software, radio and TV production and broadcasting, data and technology, professional and scientific sectors, medical technologies, and the creative industries. And that diversity and those inter-relationships between those sectors has become really important. We see that as a professional services firm located in Leeds. For example, when we needed to solve the structural engineering challenges of the Grade I listed Temple Works building in Holbeck, we did so by sending drones and robots into the building. We used a gaming engine to build a VR model bringing together a number of different technologies and disciplines: traditional engineering, architecture, software and gaming, immersive tech and robotics. And that convergence is happening across the economy as a whole, and cities bring those different functions together.

The role of the office

Cities also and business parks also provide the office. And there’s been a lot written in recent weeks about the potential death of the office. There’s a risk that WFH working from home becomes the new normal. The FD has got an eye on how they can reduce property costs, employers mindful of life-work balance, are seeing a new future where people work from home much more. And, as Leanne Tritton has said, the property sector has been surprisingly quiet, indeed I would say spineless and supine in fighting back for the future of the office in the face of such fundamental questioning of one of its core products.

But I think our experience as an employer, and I think the experience of many others that I talked to, is that the inefficiencies and the problems of mass working from home are becoming increasingly apparent. Lucy Kellaway has written about how we will all miss the office if it dies, about the importance of the office as a place to learn, as a place to collaborate, as a place to have a separate identity from your home life, and as a place that’s important for workers mental health. We are seeing, as indeed many others have seen, that those things are really suffering in the context of mass working from home.

I think that offices will remain really important. The office will be back because the advantages of working alongside colleagues and collaborating with others in cities and business parks are so great. It’s time for the property sector and cities to start fighting the corner for the office. Its function might change in the future. It may be less around providing banks of desks more around providing space to collaborate to innovate and to build relationships.

Innovators, entrepreneurs and a 21st century equivalent of the moonshoot

The third reason why face-to-face contact and cities are so important is it is in cities where we have the best prospects of achieving the rapid innovation to address some of the big societal, economic and environmental challenges that we face both here in Leeds, in the UK and globally. And those challenges have been brought to the fore as a consequence of Covid. And the need, and potentially the ability to innovate rapidly is also come to prominence. Look at the huge acceleration in progress in vaccine development, the transition to remote healthcare provision, the use of drone technology for deliveries, or the accelerated reallocation of road space from cars to pedestrians and cyclists. The crisis has shown we can innovate rapidly across the public, private and voluntary sectors. And it is in cities where the institutions and the talented people to enable us to do that are brought together. There’s a real focus an in the government’s R&D road map published in the last few days on a mission-focused approach to industrial strategy. What will be our equivalent of the moon shoot to provide that call to arms, that guiding force, that catalyst for collaboration to drive innovation?

Cities also are the home to innovation districts where knowledge producing organizations such as universities, such as hospitals, cultural organisations, enlightened developers who are willing to take a long term view, entrepreneurs, investors and firms that undertake R&D are coming together in city centers or in well connected urban nodes. And the out-of-town office park, the science park also remains important, and many of them are also retrofitting themselves and to become perhaps a bit more like city centers with public transport connections and a more diverse mix of users. We’re seeing the rise of innovation districts globally and also here in the UK. In Leeds there’s a fantastic opportunity around the redevelopment of the LGI to bring together the Leeds Teaching Hospital Trust, some of our universities, our businesses spaces and entrepreneurs in the city.

Cities as sustainable and inclusive locations for growth

Cities are also really crucial to our ability to not only kick-start the economy post-Covid and to create jobs – which will be really important – but in the perhaps overused phrase, to “build back better,” to put in place the foundations for a more sustainable, more productive and more resilient economy for the future. It is in cities where we can really drive innovation and productivity. And we can do so sustainably, at the right density served by public transport, and inclusively creating jobs that are accessible physically, but hopefully also in terms of skills for people, who live in close proximity, or with good accessibility to where those jobs can be created.

So cities are so crucial to our economic future. They’re so crucial to the COVID-19 recovery. They’re so crucial to how we can build back better for the longer term and I think the disadvantages of remote working are becoming so apparent that in the future we will see an increased focus on how we design cities to enable collaboration, to enable interaction and to enable us to create and startup and scale up the high growth businesses, the new products and processes that we need to be competitive. The future of cities is not going to be about retail. It needs to be around knowledge intensive jobs and production.

Cities and Public Health

I’ll end with a historical perspective, because cities and pandemics have a long history. Michael Pye in his book “The Edge of the World” about the North Sea and how that drove innovation, art, civilization and urbanism, wrote about how it was in response to pandemics that social organisation, regulation, and city planning was introduced laying the foundations for the success of cities like Antwerp and then Amsterdam.

And data has been always important in terms of how cities have been able to respond to public health crises. In 1854, John Snow painstakingly and meticulously mapped the cholera outbreak in London, identified the water pump that was the source of that outbreak, and in doing so led to the introduction of sanitation of clean water and the incredible engineering feats by Bazalgette in building the sewage system. In 1842 the Leeds Improvement Act focused on improving the health, the well being, the cleanliness of the people of Leeds and in 1869 George Gilbert Scott built the new Leeds General Infirmary and was advised by a nurse and a social reformer called Florence Nightingale.

So public health and city planning and governance have always been inter-linked. Indeed, the growth of enlightened 19th century city government in the UK was inextricably linked with the desire to improve the health and well being and sanitation of our cities. But over time, the health system and how we plan and govern cities became disconnected. The health system became fragmented across acute care, social care, public health and primary care, and became centralised nationally. It was only recently when Public Health was brought back into local government. But as the UK’s government’s response to COVID-19 has shown: the relationship between how we plan and manage public health at a national level and at a local level has become problematic; it’s become, to some extent, dysfunctional. And data or a lack of data and a lack of open data has been a big part of that. I know one of the strap lines for ODI Leeds is “open data saves lives”. Well the experience of the past few weeks has shown how cities and local authorities not having ready access to the data they need may well have cost lives.

So cities have been able to adapt and change to public health crises in the past, and they can do so in the future As Ed Glaeser has written, “we’ve built the modern world around proximity. And COVID-19 has made the costs of that closeness painfully obvious. We can either re-orientate ourselves around distance, or we can recommit ourselves to waging war against density’s greatest enemy: contagious disease.”

In my view we can, we must and we will win that war. We will adapt our cities to enable them to thrive again. And that is so important because it is in our urban areas that are so crucial to our economic future.

Response the the Spending Review 2020: five things the UK Government should do to build back better

This article was published originally on my LinkedIn feed on 25 November 2020.

As the Chancellor said today in announcing the Spending Review, the health emergency is not yet over, and the economic emergency has only just begun. There is an urgent need to kickstart the economic recovery, create jobs in the short-term whilst building the foundations to create a more productive, competitive, sustainable and inclusive economy over the long-term. There is much to welcome in the Chancellor’s announcements today. There is now a need to build on this investment to create a coherent longer-term plan to build back better. Central to the Government’s mission is to deliver on the promise of levelling-up. There are five calls to action for what should be done next.

First, there should be a clear cross-government plan to make levelling-up a reality. The £4bn levelling up fund is good news for towns and cities, particularly for those hit hard by Covid-19 restrictions. We will have to wait and see for the detail. Mayors, combined authorities and councils need to have have an important role in working with MPs on the plans for how it is spent. To maximise its impact local places will need to bring forward coherent investment plans that cut across topics such as transport, housing, innovation, business growth, skills and regeneration. As Baroness Valentine argued recently, Government should coordinate policy and investment here across different departments. There is the potential to build a national consensus around the levelling-up agenda, bringing together national and local government, business, and community groups. We are seeing interesting international examples, such as New Zealand’s Building Nations initiative to develop a national plan for infrastructure.

Second, the National Infrastructure Strategy (NIS) is welcome; now implement it. The NIS rightly identifies the need to focus and prioritise infrastructure investment to drive productivity growth of our main regional cities. This would enable more people to move job without move house, firms to access a skilled workforce across a wider area and to connect to innovators and markets. We need investment to strengthen the role of city centres as hubs for knowledge intensive jobs. Our recent work has predicted the huge productivity and economic boost will get from workers returning to offices in city centres, and how city and town centres and workspaces can be reshaped post-Covid to support the economy. We need to integrate at a local level investment plans for different infrastructure projects. This should include government working with metro mayors and councils to agree investments to get our cities, local transport networks, people and businesses ready for major schemes such as HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), such as the coherent growth strategy around the proposed NPR station in Bradford City Centre that Arup have produced. The investment in housing growth announced today emphasises the need for Homes England, Combined Authorities and councils to continue to be proactive in working with developers to bring a pipeline of quality housing schemes forward.

Third, we need to reboot the Industrial Strategy, and empower local areas to build on our strengths in science, technology and innovation to accelerate growth. The commitment to increase and rebalance R&D spend, the new UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the new hospital building programmes, investments in universities, and initiatives to improve skills training, apprenticeships, and the new work programme all need to be brought together. This can best be done by combining a clear national route-map with greater devolution. Government at all levels should get behind plans for innovation districts and real-world testbeds. There should be a concerted approach on strengthening the capability of the UK supply chain in 5G and green industries. A cross-government initiative should build partnerships with places to support innovators and entrepreneurs to solve big societal challenges such as climate change, supporting an ageing population, and harnessing new technologies. The rapid innovation around vaccine development has shown what is possible.

Fourth, realise the potential of the transition to Net Zero as a catalyst for economic growth. The National Infrastructure Strategy provides further detail of the investments that can support the Government’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. There is huge potential for investment in off-shore wind, the hydrogen economy, carbon capture and storage, electric vehicles, building retrofit, small modular reactors, heat networks and carbon sequestration to benefit UK businesses. This will create opportunities for towns and cities across the UK, for example through our work on the Grimsby Town Deal and Humber Local Industrial Strategy we are showing how a green revolution can be a model for places. A concerted effort is needed to support innovation and boost the capabilities of UK businesses and supply chains to realise the opportunities, and to reskill people to access green jobs.

Finally, we must continue to reform the approach to decision-making and project financing and delivery. The importance of the proposed changes to the Treasury Green Book today are not to be understated, and are in line with Arup’s suggestions made earlier in the year. They will make the appraisal process focussed more on the “why?” not just the “what?” of infrastructure, take into account spatial impacts, issues such as climate change, and to consider better the benefits from large transformational projects such as HS2 and NPR. But there also need to be change in the culture and structure of decision-making, which is currently too centralised in Whitehall and fragmented across different government departments. Greater devolution of budgets, decision-making, and additional fiscal powers to enable local areas to capture the benefits of infrastructure investment are all needed. The Government’s commitment today to implementing new devolution deals and city and growth deals is to be welcomed, but more could be done. There are some good proposals in the National Infrastructure Strategy for improving the way private investment can be leveraged, including reviewing regulatory regimes and energy pricing. The creation of a National Infrastructure Bank, located in the north, is a positive step. The proposals for accelerating the planning and construction of infrastructure projects under “project speed” are good, and the sector will need to innovate to deliver on this important objective.

In summary, whilst there is much to be welcomed in today’s announcement, there is now a need to develop a clear, coherent and compelling plans for levelling-up and to build back better. There should be a strong focus on joining-up policy and investment across Government departments and by working with and through more empowered city region and local government. There has been important progress to reform the approach to decision-making, investment and project implementation, but there is more to do. There have been positive steps today to support levelling-up, but the Spending Review is only for one year, so some of the necessary long-term decisions remain to be taken. The UK has underinvested in its infrastructure for too long. It is only through sustained investment and further reform of decision-making, including devolution, that the Government will be able to realise its big priorities.

2021: what now for UK towns and cities?

2020 was been a tough and tumultuous year, one that has been dominated by COVID-19, with potentially profound implications for towns and cities in the UK. Despite the current pressures and lockdown at the start of the new year, as things improve the focus of city leaders will return to recovery and rebuilding. I suggest ten calls to action for 2021.

1. Tackling poverty should be a major priority. Poverty, already a huge issue in the UK pre-pandemic, has increased. Because of insecure jobs and work that cannot be done from home, underlying health issues that affect people living in poverty more than others, and crowded housing, it has been the poorest who have been hit hardest by the pandemic. According to JRF around 2.4 million people experienced destitution in 2019, a 54% increase since 2017. The causes of poverty and complex, and the solutions need to be coherent and multi-faceted.

2. Creating large numbers of good jobs, and helping people access them must be a top priority. The Yorkshire Post’s Mark Casci has argued we need an economic stimulus package of FDR proportions. Too many of the new jobs created since the last recession were low-paid, low-skilled and insecure. Creating better jobs will require a concerted focus on raising productivity. The unacceptable underbelly of the UK economy has been exposed by the major Covid outbreak in Leicester where working conditions in the fast fashion industry were to blame. The UK’s paltry sick pay has been a major disincentive to people to isolate when necessary. Job creation measures will need to go hand-in-hand with more investment and more local control over training and adult education initiatives, supporting people to retrain, to get back into work, and to progress into better jobs. There should be a focus on young people; the evidence is that a spell of unemployment when someone is young has a long-term scarring impact on their future prospects and career. There should be initiatives to support women to get quality jobs. As research by Vicky pryce has shown, women have been more affected than men by unemployment and underemployment related to the pandemic. There is a real risk that the big recent advances in womens’ employment and wages will be reversed.

3. Responding to rapid changes in technology and patterns of consumption is a major challenge. The rise of remote work, the shift from bricks to clicks in retail, and increased online delivery of public services and learning were already happening before Covid, and have been accelerated since. The implications for towns and cities are huge. Radical interventions will be needed to adapt the traditional high street or town centre, and to repurpose retail property assets. The changing relationship between where people live and where they work raises big questions about the future of offices, will impact people’s housing aspirations (larger homes with private outside space / bigger gardens), and open up opportunities for some places to attract jobs and skilled workers from higher cost locations. Use of new technology, such as 5G, advanced logistics, and smart mobility can open up new opportunities. Public sector buildings, from universities, healthcare, libraries, and local government can be equipped to enable a hybrid of in-person and on-line access to services. Cities, towns, developers and public sector bodies need to understand these trends, implications and possibilities, and plan, invest and change accordingly.

4. Levelling up should centre stage. There is a need to define more clearly what levelling up means. As David Smith has argued it should encompass disparities in economic performance within as well as between regions. This should not be at the expense of more successful cities (the aim is not to level-down). Well targeted investment in infrastructure, housing, and regeneration has an important role to play. The reform of the HM Tresuary Green Book is positive, but as we explored in a recent roundtable reforms in the culture and structure of decision-making are also essential. Changing working practices could open up opportunities for regional cities offering good access to London as well as their own strengths, and for towns from where a daily commute is not viable but a less frequent one is as my colleague Matt Dillon suggests. My own view is that there are three priorities for levelling-up: using the ambition of moving to net zero carbon emissions to create good quality green jobs; increasing and refocusing investment in science and technology, focusing it closer to the firms and entrepreneurs to achieve commercial pull-through (doing the D, not just the R); and regeneration of towns and cities (particularly centres and major employment location) to enable them to respond to economic change.

5. Leading the fightback of city centres and the office sector. Several commentators have pronounced the death of the office. Some workers have preferred the flexibility that comes from working from home, and they do not miss the commute or presenteeism. But over time the disadvantages have become clear to many: the sense of isolation; the inefficiency of communicating online instead of face-to-face; the lack of chance conversations to talk an issue through or share tacit knowledge; the difficulty in forging collaboration across teams; Zoom fatigue; the loss of sense of community; the challenges in building and maintaining relationships and networks based on trust that are so important to enable innovation and entrepreneurship. For many the future will be a hybrid of working from the office and WFH. But the office, and large concentrations of skilled workers and knowledge producing organisations in city centres and other major employment locations will have an important role. But as Leanne Triton has said, who is fighting for the future of the office and our cities? In the face of such widespread questioning of their core product, it is time for the property sector and cities to step-up and articulate the benefits of face-to-face collaboration in offices, and in the spaces between the buildings. Through our Making Place report we have explored how workspaces and city centres can be adapted to support knowledge spillovers, to attract people back, and build long term economic resilience.

6. Integrating policy on health and wealth. Health and the economy are inextricably linked, not a trade-off. The countries that have done best in controlling the virus have had the best economic resilience during the pandemic. In the UK, the best way of enabling a strong economic recovery will be by controlling the spread of the new Covid strain, fixing test, trace and isolate, and accelerating the vaccine rollout. The Northern Health Science Alliance have shown there is a clear link between the North’s poorer health and poorer productivity. The NHS can be an anchor institution in towns and cities, and health services have an important role to play in economic and wider recovery. My colleague Jerome Frost has made the case for how new healthcare facilities can play a major role in regeneration and economic growth, for example the redevelopment of the Leeds General Infirmary will anchor a major innovation district. We can build on the community led and volunteer networks that have been established to support our neighbours, including elderly or vulnerable people.

7. Backing innovators and entrepreneurs (and universities). We have seen remarkably rapid innovation to tackle the challenges posed by Covid. This includes the creation of RNA messenger vaccines, that will transform the way we respond to future disease threats, as well as the way so many organisations have transformed the way they operate. Innovation districts in cities can help drive the economic recovery, boosting productivity and inclusive growth. It is in cities and urban areas where we have the best prospects for innovation to tackle major societal and health challenges, and there is real potential to use a mission-orientated approach to industrial strategy as a catalyst. Now is an opportunity to use our towns and cities as real-world testbeds to trial and demonstrate new technologies and their use cases. Building ecosystems for innovation-led growth – entrepreneurs, corporates, universities, investors and the public sector – should be part of city recovery plans, see for example the Leeds City Region MIT REAP initiative. The Scale-Up Institute have set out the important role fast-growing firms can play. University finances have been hit hard by Covid. Universities need to articulate and prioritise more strongly their civic role (alongside their teaching and research roles) supporting the economy and communities. Civic University Agreements, such as the Universities for Nottingham initiative, can be powerful tools.

8. Putting children and young people at the heart of the recovery. Children and young people have suffered hugely during Covid, mainly to protect the health of older people. Their education and prospects are again being impacted by school closures and online learning. This is widening the gap in educational opportunity and attainment between different places and communities. As well as their formal education, the social development and mental health of young people has been damaged. Child poverty is increasing, as highlighted by the fantastic work to tackle hunger as a result of kids missing free school meals, such as the Leeds Healthy Holidays scheme, and more recently Marcus Rashford’s campaign. The Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield has urged government to give children their “Nightingale moment” with a dedicated recovery package, including a stronger welfare safety net and better mental health support in schools. Improving schools and educational attainment (particularly amongst white working class boys) is essential to support levelling-up. By designing for urban childhoods, we can ensure initiatives to improve public realm and make towns and cities more walkable and bikeable are child friendly. We should also do more to make public spaces more welcoming for teenagers.

9. Improving public realm. Good quality public and green space, and streets and routes that are safe and attractive for walking and cycling have been valued more highly by people. Walking, for too long overlooked as an important mode of transport (with huge economic, health and social benefits), is having a revival, and there is much more towns and cities can do to make themselves more walkable. Attractive public spaces combined with the right mix of uses can help support the social interactions that are so important to the economy, and are necessary to help attract people back into city and town centres and open up sites for development. As has been shown at the University of Sheffield campus, good quality urban lighting can transform the attractiveness of spaces at night-time, Several cities, such as Cardiff, have put in place temporary or pop-up measures to improve public spaces, as a first stage towards a longer-term more permanent set of enhancements. The concept of the 15 minute city can help revive town centres and neighbourhood centres, and improve access to services and economic opportunities for people. As a priority cities should seek to reconnect residential neighbourhoods with high levels of deprivation to nearby city centres, tackling the severance caused by major roads and infrastructure.

10. Reforming the UK state through devolution. The Covid crisis has shown the weaknesses of the UK’s machinery of government with its over centralised, fragmented, short-termist decision-making, far-removed from communities. City Region / County Region devolution deals, elected Mayors, and Combined Authorities have an important role to play. But so do local councils. Time and time again Government have relied on unwieldly, remote delivery models, overlooking the expertise and relationships of local authorities and their partners. Compare the track record of the national test and trace system with the painstaking and meticulous work of councils in preventing and limiting infections. See for example the Economist piece about Calderdale in West Yorkshire, or note Chris Whitty’s comments about how Bradford “has shown superb leadership in reducing the spread of Covid by working across agencies and with communities. Local Government has once again shown itself to be the UK’s 4th emergency service, despite being hit harder by a decade of austerity than any other part of the public sector. It is time for all political parties in the UK to take local government seriously. It is also time for Government to provide a long-term, sustainable package of funding and / or fundraising powers for councils to help them recover from the financial shock of Covid, and to help tackle major challenges such as economic recovery, or reforming social care.

Whilst we have difficult days ahead, with vaccines there is light at the end of the tunnel. Our urban areas are being impacted by rapid change and face significant challenges that have been increased by Covid, but they also have the concentrations of dynamic businesses, skilled and creative people, innovative organisations, and the leadership needed to drive economic recovery and build a stronger, more resilient economy for the future.

What does the general election mean for UK cities and towns?

The hex-map of the 2019 UK General Election results produced by the ODI Leeds

The outcome of the general election has big implications for policy affecting the UK’s towns and cities. There has been much comment about the success of the Conservatives in winning seats that were previously part of Labour’s red wall in the towns of the Midlands and North, and it is clear this is shifting the focus for UK urban policy.

Place Matters

Any policy response to the challenge of “left behind places” needs to start from an understanding of economic geography. Whereas in the past the economic roles and competitiveness of places derived from location and fixed physical assets, today intangibles such as knowledge, skills, and creativity matter. Economic competitiveness and success is becoming increasingly concentrated in London and its surrounding regions, and in a small number of centres of the core cities, with a hollowing out of the economy elsewhere. Smaller towns lack the critical mass of innovative firms and workers needed to continuously re-invent themselves. Some towns and communities have become trapped in vicious circle of low skills, low pay, and poor quality, insecure jobs. In many places wages are at below 2008 levels in real-terms. A decade of austerity and the shift from bricks to clicks in retail has hastened the decline of the high streets of these places. As Paul Krugman has argued, these are long-run structural trends which will be difficult to shift. That does not mean we should not try, but it is not going to be easy.

Economic Growth and Productivity

Accelerating weak economic growth and productivity growth (which has flatlined since 2008) should be a priority for the Government as David Smith has argued. Ultimately our ability to raise living standards and invest in public services will depend on increasing the output per worker. In an excellent recent paper, Stian Westlake and Sam Bowman have set out a case and framework for reviving economic thinking on the right (although many of their ideas are also relevant to a centre-left agenda). There is an opportunity for places to develop bold Local Industrial Strategies, and for Government to back these with a greater sense of ambition and more investment. The shape of the Shared Prosperity Fund, which will replace EU Structural Funds, will also be important. Expect to see more cities and towns developing practical initiatives around inclusive growth to seek to support people to benefit from and contribute to the economy to their full potential.

Levelling Up Devolution

The devolution agenda – which was kicked into the long grass under Theresa May – is now back on. The Government has set out an ambition to “level-up” powers for cities and city regions: all places that want devolution should be able to have it based on the existing powers of the metro-mayors, and places with metro mayors currently should gain additional powers (including some fiscal powers) in line with London. A Devolution White Paper provides the opportunity for cities and city regions to shape the agenda. As the recent City Leaders Survey (produced by Arup and Centre for Cities) showed, city leaders believe the lack of access to funding and resources is hampering the achievements of their major priorities, and many of them feel unsupported by national government.

Places without devolution deals currently need to think about how they get their governance, partnership and organisational structures devolution-ready, building capacity, and working differently across geographic boundaries. The public finances will remain constrained, and local authority budgets will remain under pressure. There is a case for greater fiscal powers to enable local councils raise their own investment, and as Andrew Carter of Centre for Cities has argued, to radically reshape Whitehall, devolving significant budgets and capacity to local areas.

Stronger Towns

Significant government investment will be channelled into towns through the Stronger Towns Fund, and the Future High Streets Fund. It remains to be seen whether the proposals that come forward are mere sticking plasters, or whether they can fundamentally change the competitive position of towns. Arup helped develop the proposals that led to the Grimsby Town Deal, and in Carlisle which formed part of the Borderlands Growth Deal, both of which are examples of bold proposals to reshape town centres and reposition places economically. To make a difference we will need to create more and better jobs in towns, help people access opportunities through better skills and transport links, change the role of town centres, and improve the residential offer of towns to attract and retain skilled people.

What about the major cities and London?

Whilst it may not be popular, it is city centres that are major drivers of economic growth. The centres of major cities provide the right mix and concentration of innovators, entrepreneurs, knowledge creators (across universities and large and small firms), access to skilled workers, and the supporting leisure and cultural offer to enable smart people and organisations to share and commercialise ideas. As Tom Forth has said, the problem is not that our city centres are too strong at the expense of surrounding towns, but in many cases they are not strong enough to support a successful economy in their surrounding areas (towns surrounding economically weaker cities generally have poorer job prospects). Our second tier cities outside the South East underperform compared to European competitors. Most of our city centres have acute shortages of available Grade A office space. One of the more thoughtful policy proposals in the election campaign was for a new City Centre Productivity Fund.

The focus on rebalancing the economy and investment across the UK poses risks for London, as set out by Ben Rogers of Centre for London. Clearly greater devolution, investment in infrastructure, skills, and housing are important issues for London too. London will need to make its case for investment based on its economic importance to the UK, including its role in an interconnected UK economy (not just in providing fiscal transfers), as well as the real issues of poverty and affordability in the capital.

Infrastructure

We are likely to see significant investment in infrastructure. Whilst we await the outcome of the Oakervee Review into HS2, the Government has committed to pushing forward with Northern Powerhouse Rail. In addition to these national projects, expect to see better links within city regions going up the agenda, particularly those connecting towns with nearby cities. The political challenge with infrastructure projects is the long timescales, hence the importance of the work of the National Infrastructure Commission. Expect to also see a focus on smaller projects with shorter term delivery horizons, such as tackling pinch-points on the road network, new stations, and park and rides. One way the Government could make a big short-to-medium term impact is by giving cities more control over the bus network.

The issues cities face around economic growth, electric vehicles, climate change and resilience will require them to develop more joined-up strategies for infrastructure and utilities, working across different infrastructure providers, investors and regulators. The Government is committed to rolling out 5G networks and full-fibre connectivity, and this will also require cities and city regions to have coherent strategies for digital infrastructure, and how they intend to use it to drive better outcomes for people and businesses. Greater Manchester are working on a coherent infrastructure and digital framework. There is also an opportunity for cities to use their infrastructure to create real-world testbeds for innovation.

Climate Change

The Government has committed to a target of the UK being zero carbon by 2050, and cities will have an important role to play in this transition. Climate change is going up the agenda for city leaders. Clean growth, and low carbon and renewable energy are important elements of the economic strategy set out by the NP11 Group of LEPs. Expect to see cities developing bold plans for decarbonising their energy and transport systems and building stock, as well as improving resilience to severe weather.

Research and Development

As has been advocated by Neil O’Brien MP, the CBI, and the University of Sheffield’s Prof Richard Jones, increasing R&D spend to the OECD average of 2.4%, spreading it more evenly across the UK, and targeting it more closely at translational activity focused on commercial pull-through of research has an important role to play. This can be best achieved through greater devolution of R&D spend to places as I have argued. There is a need to make R&D relevant to SME firms, particularly manufacturers, who need to drive up their productivity through continuous product and process improvement. 

Eds and Meds

There is likely to be a stronger focus on the role of universities in driving growth. Universities will be strengthening their civic roles, developing civic agreements. Their role in transferring knowledge will be measured under the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF). Lord Jim O’Neil spoke earlier this week about the concept of a MIT of the North, as advocated by the UK 2070 Commission, and previously Respublica. There is a case for getting behind Innovation Districts as growth projects in cities. In the US Higher Education has been the major factor in the revival of some small towns. With some major hospital building projects announced in UK cities, there is also potential to look more closely at the role of the health sector as a catalyst for growth and regeneration, as well as anchor institutions that can drive better local outcomes through their approach to recruitment, training and procurement.

Housing

With former Homes England Chair Sir Edward Lister now in Number Ten as the PM’s Chief Strategic Advisor, and with increasing awareness of the impact of constrained housing supply on social mobility, expect to see an increasing proactive role of Homes England in seeking to accelerate housing delivery. However, because of a focus on addressing areas with the greatest housing affordability pressures, the majority of recent Homes England investment has been in the South of England. There is an opportunity elsewhere to focus on interventions that improve the quality of the residential offer, helping regenerate town and parts of cities to provide a suitable range, quality, and price of housing in a wider context of quality of place. Local authorities will continue to campaign for  the removal of the borrowing cap on the Housing Revenue Account to enable them to increase delivery of council housing.

Education and Skills

As well as a north-south divide in economic performance and infrastructure, the north also lags behind London and other regions in educational attainment and skills levels. It remains to be seen whether the Government take forward the recommendations of the Northern Powerhouse Partnerships very good Educating the North report. Fiona Spellman, of the excellent education innovation charity, Shine, has suggested a non-partisan, cross-sector initiative here. The impact of economic and technological change on existing workers is leading to an increased focus on adult education. Expect to see more calls for devolution of the adult education budget, and proposals to create a new Adult Education Service.

Getting Brexit Done

Finally, whilst we will leave the EU on 31^st January 2020, it remains to be seen what the shape of our future trading relationship with the EU will look like. This is a big topic, which will have major implications for our towns and cities.

Conclusion

These are interesting and formative times for UK urban policy, and there is a real need for council and combined authority leaders, business and think-tanks to shape the agenda, to respond to the changing policy context, and to develop the projects and proposals to drive our urban areas forward in the post Brexit era.

The MIT of the North? Building an innovation-driven economy

At a time of rapid economic and technological change, the places that will be successful in the knowledge economy are those that can create and commercialise innovation. The opportunity is to spin out and diffuse research and knowledge from universities and other knowledge intensive anchor institutions (such as teaching hospitals or major cultural bodies). By doing so places can support the start-up and scaling-up of more of the fast-growing, innovation-driven, high-export firms that are so important to more rapid productivity growth.

One of the causes of the relative economic underperformance of many of the UK’s cities and city regions outside the London-Oxford-Cambridge “Golden Triangle” is that, despite having strong universities and some real success stories, they have yet to build an innovation-led-economy with sufficient strength, coherence and critical mass.

Greater Boston, Massachusetts has built one of the world’s most dynamic and successful economies based on innovation, anchored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other world class universities. The UK 2070 Commission has set out a vision to build a “MIT of the North” to build on the strong base of universities in the north of England.

Why is the Greater Boston economy so successful and how does MIT act as such a significant economic catalyst? There are lessons for all parts of the UK. MIT, through their Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Programme (REAP) framework, have identified the components of a successful ecosystem for innovation-led growth. A strong based of research intensive universities is important. There needs to be sufficient number of entrepreneurs with the right skills and culture (and MIT believe strongly entrepreneurship can be taught) to spin-out, start and scale up innovative firms. A strong group of corporates undertaking innovation and supporting and advising smaller firms is necessary. The availability of risk capital and the engagement of angel investors (who provide mentoring, advice as well as finance) to entrepreneurs is a major factor. Government (local and national) has a major role to play in creating the right policy frameworks, infrastructure, and data. Finally, these actors need to work together to ensure there is the right engagement and support between them to create a successful ecosystem that is more than the sum of its constituent parts.

There are four important implications here for UK cities and regions.

First, a place-based approach is important. The MIT story demonstrates the importance of the components for an innovation coming together in a place. The modern economy relies on intangible assets and networks such as knowledge, research and development, creativity, software, data, and talent. Interconnected industries a growing feature with the boundaries between sectors such as finance, digital, services, design, engineering, health and so on becoming increasingly blurred. This means that knowledge-spillovers are critical to economic competitiveness of places. These knowledge transfers can be maximised in cities and connected districts which can support a critical mass and high densities of face-to-face contacts between knowledge intensive firms, workers, and institutions. Firms value urban locations with to a wide pool of skilled and creative workers. However, most policy and funding decisions for innovation in the UK are taken at national level and in silos relating to specific sectors. There is a need to build on the Local Industrial Strategies to move to a more place-based approach with greater devolution of funding.

Second, innovation districts are emerging as economic powerhouses in city centres and hyper-connected urban districts are emerging as the places that can help UK cities create, scale-up and attract the fast-growing firms, new products and processes which will drive more productive and inclusive economic growth. The geography of innovation and the economy is changing. Knowledge intensive jobs are moving back into urban area areas where skilled and creative workers, innovative firms, researchers from universities and other institutions, healthcare clinicians, investors and entrepreneurs are sharing knowledge and ideas in collaborative spaces and networks. Cities, universities and other anchor institutions for innovation are seeking to support and capitalise on this trend through bold investments to create new campuses, business space, and public realm. These are the science parks of the 21st century, regeneration hotspots, magnets for inward investment, and places that can change our economy. It is important that the UK supports this development of innovation districts with more investment.

Main features of UK Innovation Districts (source: Arup)

Third, there needs to be a stronger focus on building the networks for collaboration to develop more successful innovation-driven entrepreneurial ecosystems. This includes creating accelerator programmes to ensure entrepreneurs can access the research, mentoring and advice to commercialise ideas (or fail fast), and the investment, markets and premises they need to succeed. There is scope to build on the work of the Scale-Up Institute to provide more support to fast-growing scale-up firms. In some places there is a need to improve access to risk capital through initiatives such as NorthInvest which is building a network of angel investors and connecting them to start-ups. Universities are increasingly considering how they can play a stronger positive catalytic role in growing the economy as part of a wider civic role as explored by the Civic University Commission. This could include increasing entrepreneurial education and staff and student entrepreneurship and industry collaboration. Firms respond to future profit, market and growth opportunities where there is societal need. There is potential for places to stimulate and bring together innovation activity around missions, aimed at solving societal challenges, as recommended by the UCL Commission for a Mission-orientated Approach to Industrial Strategy.

Fourth, we need to tackle the significant regional imbalances in R&D funding as part of the Government’s aim to increase R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP. Tom Forth has identified the role public sector R&D investment has in stimulating private sector R&D activity, highlighting the regional disparities in this investment.

As Roger Marsh, Chair of the NP11 group of Local Enterprise Partnerships said recently, creating ideas costs money, it is only by commercialising those ideas that we can make money and create wealth. We need more places in the UK to build strong innovation-driven and entrepreneurial economies. That will require a place-based approach, more support for the development of innovation districts, a stronger focus on building the networks for collaboration between innovators, entrepreneurs and other actors in the ecosystem, and it needs a concerted effort to increase, and tackle the imbalances in, R&D.

Note: This article has been submitted as part of Arup’s evidence to the UK2070 Commission, and has informed the Commission’s 2nd Report, Moving Up The Gears – Seven National Priorities for Action which makes a series of detailed recommendations intended to rebalance the UK economy, whilst sustaining the performance of London and the South East. In particular see section 4: A Network of UK Centres of Excellence.

 

Meeting the Smart City challenge in an era of global change

This is the text of the keynote presentation I gave at the University of Leeds Business School Festival of Ideas on 28th February 2018.

Introduction

Thank you for all making the journey to be here today, battling the snow and the ceaseless Siberian wind – “The Beast from the East”. Many of us working on the cities agenda are at this time also feeling buffeted by the winds of economic and technological change, which are causing huge disruption, and creating huge risks as well as new possibilities for our cities.

In this talk I will try to answer the question of what are the main trends and drivers for change affecting our cities in the UK, particularly our Core Cities (our second tier cities), recognising London has a different position amongst cities in the world?

I will talk about what does this mean for the ‘Smart Cities’ agenda in a city such as Leeds

I will argue that:

a) We need a new definition of ‘Smart Cities’ which puts people, human capital and governance at its heart; and

b) We need to move away from a focus on the ‘what?’ of Smart Cities to the ‘why?’ and in particular. I will argue that in the past, the; what’ has generally been firms and people in the digital sector installing clever digital hardware. But in the future, it needs to be about how of: all of us shaping our cities need to embrace the digital and data agenda – a principle of; digital by default’ and how we need to focus on the economic and social outcomes that can be driven by technology and change.

I will talk about the drivers of change affecting cities such as Leeds today, and what I think we need to do to respond to them. But I will start by going back 140 years in the history of Leeds. Because the fact is that our cities have always been adapting, growing and innovating in the face of disruption.

The Leeds Innovation District – creating a 21st century science park in Leeds City Centre 

The City of the Past

It is 1888 and a young man from France who had moved to Leeds created the world’s first moving image, filming traffic on Leeds Bridge. Louis Le Prince had moved to Leeds because of the city’s capabilities in engineering-he joined the firm Whitely Partners of Hunslet, manufacturers of values and computers – and in – what would be today called the “creative industries” – the Leeds Technical School of Art had been founded in 1871.

It was a time of great innovation and change. Four years earlier a Polish refugee opened a stall in Kirkgate Market in Leeds, and in 1894 he went into partnership with a cashier from local wholesale company. Their names were Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer, and their slogan was “don’t ask the price; it’s a penny”.

In the three previous decades a new railway station, Leeds Central, was opened joined by the LNWR and North-Eastern Railway, which would go on to become the busiest transport hub in the north of England.

Some of the world’s most prestigious and productive workspaces had been created, such as Temple Works, Tower works and Alf Cook’s Print Works, setting new standards in workplace and production design and technology, and the productivity and welfare of the workforce.

In 1874 the Yorkshire College of Science opened with the support of local industry, teaching experimental physics, mathematics, geology, chemistry, biology, textiles and engineering and in 1887 (a year before Le Prince’s breakthrough) the college merged with counterparts in Manchester and Liverpool to form the Victoria University, before gaining its royal charter as the University of Leeds in 1904.

Clothworkers Court was the first building of the Yorkshire College of Science (photo taken the day of my lecture, which was in the University of Leeds Great Hall in this building). 

The Leeds General Infirmary, which had been established in 1771 moved to its current site on Great George Street. The magnificent building was designed by George Gilbert Scott, who was advised by a nurse and social reformer called Florence Nightingale.

And in 1858 the new Leeds Town Hall was opened by Queen Victoria. It was the largest crowd to gather on the streets of Leeds, a record that stood for another 158 years until in 2015 an even larger crowd watched, at the same location, the start of the world’s largest annual sporting event, the Tour De France. The building of the Town Hall symbolised the rise in importance of the Leeds Corporation, building on its powers granted to it in the 1942 Leeds Improvement Act to regulate and invest in streets, lighting, sewerage, building regulations and street cleaning.

So why is this relevant to the issues our city faces today? Think about the issues and trends at the time: rapid technological change, innovation and interconnected industries, new communications systems, the role of education and colleges and universities, businesses investing in skills and in premises to boost their productivity; a city that was open to talent, to innovators and entrepreneurs from across the world; a focus on the health and well-being of the population; investment in infrastructure; and new forms of government and city leadership.

The City of Today – Drivers for Change

I believe there are seven main trends and drivers for change having cities such as Leeds today: rapid economic change; the growing importance of human capital – a skilled workforce; the trend of agglomeration (supported by connectivity); huge technological disruption; environmental shocks which make resilience a major issue; health and well-being; all of which have implications for city governance.

Economy

We are seeing the emergence of new sectors. Leeds made the transition from a predominantly manufacturing economy (although manufacturing remains a significant employer) to one where financial and services drove economic growth in the 1990s and the 2000s. But the city’s economy is changing again. Following a period of rapid private sector jobs growth between 2010-15 (including the fastest amongst any UK city 2014-15) in 2015-16, the last year for which statistics are available, there was a small decrease in private sector jobs in the city. If you get beneath the surface of the statistics for that year, there are some interesting dynamics. Manufacturing employment, in line with long-run trends, continued to fall. But there were also falls in employment in financial and professional services, the drivers of growth in the Leeds economy in recent decades. there was rapid growth in sectors such as digital, low carbon, medical devices, and the creative industries. The emergence of the creative and digital sector in our cities – what Doug McCwilliams has called the “Flat White Economy” has been phenomenal.

The geography of innovation is changing. Knowledge intensive jobs are coming back into our city centres. Many people predicted that technology would result in the death of cities; we would stay at home and work remotely. But as the economy has become more specialised and knowledge based, firms want to be located in city centres where there are high densities of face-to-face contact between people and knowledge producing firms and institutions (such as universities, hospitals and government). They want to be where skilled people can collaborate, compare and compete in close proximity to each other. As Bruce Katz has said, people are no longer driving to out-of-town office and science parks where they do research and development and keep their ideas secret within their buildings. They are coming into city centres (increasingly using public transport or walking and cycling) where they are sharing their ideas in the hyper-caffienated spaced between the buildings. These densities of activity are supported by rail and public transport networks which enable firms to access a skilled workforce across a wide area.

We are seeing the increasing importance of interconnected industries. Increasingly, successful cities are ones with diverse economies. Economic diversity builds resilience. In an era of great uncertainty it pays not to have all your economic eggs in a single basket. and as the boundaries between sectors become more blurred, it where different economic activities come together we are seeing innovation and growth, for example in Fintech, Manuservices, and Industry 4.0.

Interconnected Industries – it is where sectors come together is where we are seeing new high-growth economic activities emerge (diagram by Tom Bridges)

We also now have the productivity puzzle. Whilst job creation has been strong in Leeds, and in other major UK cities, in recent years. Productivity has flat-lined since the recession of 2008. There are many theories on why this is. The finger of blame has been pointed at: insufficient investment in R&D; poor education outcomes and a broken skills system; a failure to scale-up enough fast growth firms; the long-tail of small firms that are not productive enough; British managers – who like some British drivers – are not as good as they think they are; a failure to measure the modern economy accurately; poor infrastructure and sites and premisses. My own view, for what it is worth, is that the problem is not any one of these things; it is a combination of all of them.

We are also seeing a new urban divide. A divide between the successful global cities and everywhere else, between resurgent Core Cities – the main regional hubs – and smaller towns and cities which lack economic scale, diversity, and in some cases connectivity, and we are seeing widening inequalities within cities. Even within successful cities there are widespread and long-standing issues of deprivation. Poverty is no longer an issue synonymous with unemployment; it is now an issue affecting many working people. We have seen a rise in low paid jobs – for example there are 80,000 jobs in Leeds which pay less than the “Real Living Wage” (the level recommended by the Living Wage Foundation). Many of these roles are insecure, part-time with limited prospects of career progression.

We are seeing polarisation of the labour market with increases in low-paid, low-skilled occupations, increases in highly skilled professional roles, but jobs in intermediate level occupations not increasing to the same extent, and in some cases declining. The rungs on the ladder of career progression are moving further apart, or in some cases are being taken away all together.

Human Capital

Cities no longer gain competitive advantage from their location relative to natural resources. Their economic success depends on the skills, creativity and innovation of their workforce and institutions.

This means education and skills need to be central to any city economic strategy. This is particularly the case in the north of England, where even at nursery age educational attainment for our young people already lags behind their counterparts in London. That north-south divide in educational attainment, school performance and skill levels is repeated at every age and qualification level, and the gap is greater for people from deprived backgrounds. It is entirely right that city leaders in the North and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership are setting out proposals to improve schools and get our young people ready for the world of work.

Cities also need to focus on attracting and retaining a skilled workforce. In the 19th and for much of the 20th centuries the workforce followed the corporation; in the 21st century knowledge economy the corporation follows the skilled and creative workforce. This means a city’s quality of life, its cultural offer, and having housing supply of the right quantity, quality, and range become must-have features, not nice-to-haves, for economic growth.

Agglomeration and Connectivity

It also means successful cities need good connectivity. The transport network enables firms to access a skilled workforce, markets and knowledge producers, and it enables people to access jobs.

Some commentators have argued that the problem with second tier cities in the UK is that they are too small; they lack the scale and critical mass to be competitive on the global stage. I think there is some merit in that argument, but I also think that the main problem is not that are cities are not too small, they are not well-connected enough. Leeds to Manchester is the same distance as London’s Central line, but less than 1% of the population of either city commute to the other one. As my colleague Dave Newton has said, better rail links between the cities of the north and the midlands through HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail will mean that when people need to move job, they do not need to move house. It will create more powerful, resilient and coherent non-London economic zones.

Technological change

Our cities are seeing huge technological change. Rashik Parmar of IBM, and a Board Member of Leeds City Region LEP, has written about these trends. They include:

• Codified services – where what is done by people is replaced by software, and what is done from traditional bricks and mortar properties in cities (such as high street retail) is done online.
• Digitised assets and pattern augmentation – enabled by the use of sensors which generate real-time data (the internet of things). This is what enable Rolls Royce to sell “power by the hour” and is creating new insights on and ways of managing urban services.
• From data to value – the huge explosion in data (over 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last two years) which is creating new insights, better public services (for example more targeted healthcare – precision medicine – enabled by health informatics), new economic opportunities, but is also concentrating economic power in the hands of the firms with access to the most data.
• Distributed ledgers, or blockchain which has the potential to be a powerful general purpose technology with positive benefits far beyond Bitcoin.
• Automation & AI which will affect financial and professional services as well as manufacturing.
• 5G, which will create new low-latency, high bandwidth telecoms infrastructure which could underpin systems for autonomous vehicles and digital healthcare.

Resilience

Extreme weather as a result of climate change is creating economic shocks, as we experienced in Leeds as a result of the flooding from Storm Eva at Christmas 2015. We need to design and build our cities to adapt to a changing climate, ensuring green and blue infrastructure is not seen as the poor relation to traditional physical infrastructure.

In the context of volatility in energy prices (something we are seeing currently as a result of extreme cold weather), local renewable and distributed energy systems have a role to play in providing dependable local supply and tackling fuel poverty.

Cities also need to ensure that their leadership and institutions can respond well to man-made shocks. Witness the exceptional civic leadership in Manchester following the Arena bombing.

Health and well-being

In an ageing society, health and well-being is a huge agenda for cities. People are living longer, but often increased longevity goes hand-in-hand with increases in serious long-term health conditions. As Leeds is demonstrating through the work of its Health and Well-being Board, and the Leeds Academic Health Partnership, it is at city and city region level where we can best integrate health and social care, and take action to tackle health inequalities.

 

Government and City Leadership

As the New Local Government Network have argued in their recent report, Culture Shock, city governments have been for some time moving away from traditional models of top-down control. In an era of austerity there is a danger of a “Market” culture taking route focused on aggressive competition, profitability, and a narrow focus on achieving goals. This runs the risk of Councils hitting their targets but missing the point of the wider economic and social outcomes they are seeking to achieve. Instead, NLGN argue for a more collaborative, clan-based approach whereby Council’s set out clear visions for change, and build coalitions and capacity across different institutions to deliver such change. This is very much in line with the concept of Civic Enterprise which Leeds helped develop through the Commission on the Future of Local Government.

Models of City Government (from NLGN Cutlure Shock report)

The City of the Future

Whilst many of these trends create threats and uncertainties, they also provide exciting opportunities. I believe cities need focus on how they, their people, places, communities, firms and institutions, can adapt and become resilient to these changes, whilst grasping the opportunities. In particular they should seek to:

• Building diverse, resilient economies, focusing on long-term productivity growth (not short-term job creation),  innovation and interconnected industries, and creating places and new city districts that are attractive to innovators and entrepeneurs (creating the science parks of the 21st century);
• Generating more inclusive growth, seeking to tackle poverty (including low pay) and improve social mobility through a new model of economic growth;
• Connectivity to better link people to jobs, firms to markets, and employers to their workforce, supporting higher densities of jobs and homes, and by shaping the new future of urban mobility;
• Growing human capital by improving education, attracting and retaining a skilled workforce, putting children at the heart of city growth strategies, and making the workforce of today and the future more resilient to technological change;
• Embracing technological change, using data and digital infrastructure and services to innovate in public service delivery, and developing the concept of the city as a platform for technological innovation, based on common standards, open systems and open data (in contrast to technology provider-led models of the past);
• Tackling health inequalities, integrating health and social care, using data to join up and provide new insights to healthcare (for example, the Leeds Care Record) and using social innovation (such as the Neighbourhood Networks in Leeds) to tackle isolation and loneliness.
• Increasing resilience, by tackling climate change, improving energy security by embracing renewable and distributed energy, protecting our cities from the effects of extreme weather, and by ensuring city institutions and leadership can respond effectively to natural and man-made shocks.
• Developing new models of city governance, which are collaborative and creative and enterprising, where elected city leaders, Councils and Combined Authorities are empowered through devolution and have a positive impact disproportionate to their size through their ability to work with and through others, mobilising the organisations across the public, private and community sectors which collectively have the power to make a real difference.

 

 

Conclusion

If we are going to grasp these opportunities, and withstand the threats we need to move to a new definition of smart cities, where we are at the forefront of economic change, where we back innovators and entrepreneurs, we tackle inequality, we create the spaces for innovation and productive growth, not just those for consumption. Where we invest in human capital, particularly in our children, and in making our workforce resilient. Where digital and data is mainstreamed in everything we do – we need to be digital by default. Where we are better connected and have a transport system which supports density and places for people not just for cars. Where we shake off the legacy of the Motorway City of the 70s and become the railway and mass transit city, and the city for walking and cycling for 2020s and 2030s. Where we can help solve the challenge of health, social care, well-being and the crises of loneliness and air quality. Where our city is resilient to the impacts of climate change, and plays it part in tackling it. And we need new forms of governance that are agile, collaborative and creative.

The Leeds economy has in the past reinvented itself successfully. No other UK city has made such a large shift from a production based economy at the start of the 20th century to a knowledge economy at the start of the 21st century.

Leeds: A century of Economic Change (diagram by Leeds City Region, adapted from analysis by Centre for Cities)

The wheel of economic change is now turning again. The foundations of our recent economic success, financial and professional services, are being disrupted by digital change. Automation will replace what people do currently. But new opportunities and new industries are developing.

Leeds: a city of innovation (diagram by Tom Bridges)

Leeds has many attributes and a great capacity for innovation. But the competition is not standing still, and the pace of change is not slowing. I believe that it is only by replicating the boldness and foresight of our city leaders, reformers and entrepreneurs in the 19^th century that we will succeed in the middle and later parts of the 21^st century.

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles – the Implications for Cities and Transport Systems

Earlier this week we convened a group of transport and cities experts and decision makers to discuss advances being made with Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) and their implications for our cities. The group, which met at Arup in Leeds, was represented by number of sectors including transport technology, planning of major infrastructure projects, regeneration, commercial property, legal, civic advocacy, academic research, and transport planning. Thanks to all who participated.

The UK Autodrive Trials

UK Autodrive is an ambitious three-year project that is trialling the use of connected and self-driving Vehicles on the streets of Milton Keynes and Coventry. It is involving trials of road-based cars, as well as 40 pavement-based low speed ‘pod’ vehicles. Arup are part of the UK Autodrive consortium along with other sector leading organisations.

Ralph Wilson and John Miles, Arup and UK Autodrive, described the trials that are being undertaken in Coventry and Milton Keynes.

One of the connected and autonomous low speed pedestrian based pods being trialed by UK Autodrive

The Big Questions

As well as testing the technology and how Autonomous Vehicle (AV) systems are operated, the trials are exploring questions such as:

• How will AVs affect congestion?
• Can they improve city centre spaces?
• What do the public think?

The group discussed these issues and then considered wider questions such as:

• What are the implications for public transport?
• Will we still need large car parks in city centres and at major railway stations?
• Will it become easier for people to access jobs, boosting social inclusion?
• What are the legal issues?
• What are the economic questions?
• What might be the human factors and public perceptions?
• What is the role for city digital infrastructure?

Congestion and road space

Proponents of AVs make the case that they will reduce congestion because they use road space more efficiently. However, others argue that this will be offset by privately owned AVs returning empty to their owner’s home once they have dropped them off at work.

Much will depend on whether people will use shared ‘car club’ systems, the extent to which they will share journeys, and the provision of parking near to, but not necessarily in, city centres and employment hubs.

More efficient use of road space could lead to increases in, or more intensive use of, capacity. AVs use road space more efficiently meaning additional lanes, or wider pavements could be created. Experience tells us that increased road capacity, in time, fills up with increased traffic. However, there will be potential to incorporate dynamic pricing, which already exists in Singapore for example, to help spread peaks in demand.

The use of low speed autonomous pods on pavements and in public spaces could enable cities to expand their pedestrianised precincts. There is also potential for them to play a role in “last mile delivery” as part of more sustainable urban logistics systems. 

Implications for city and infrastructure planning

Because AVs will be able to drop people off at their destination and then drive away to park somewhere else or to pick up another passenger, the need for city centre parking could be reduced. This would allow existing car parks to be redeveloped for more productive uses, enabling the densification of city centres and supporting economic clustering. However, existing property investors, including local authorities, in car parks will need to revise their business models. It should also be noted that better rail, bus and mass transit links also support densification of cities.

We need to future-proof the planning major rail stations. For the masterplan for Leeds Station (already the busiest transport hub in the north of England) incorporating HS2, decisions need to be taken soon about the scheme. However, HS2 to Leeds will not be operational until 2033, and is an infrastructure project for the long term, and we don’t yet know what the long term implications of AVs will be. The plans will need to be flexible. A large car park at the station which is planned today and may be used in the early years of the scheme, may not be required over the longer term, then offering an opportunity for redevelopment.

There is a need for cities to think about how the next generation of digital infrastructure, such as 5G, can support AV systems. AVs will need to verify their position relative to other vehicles and street infrastructure in real-time, and 5G low latency, high bandwidth, small cell digital communication systems may be needed. Systems will need to be open enough to allow different vehicles to communicate as part of them, but need to be secure enough to not be hacked.

Public Transport Systems

There was interest in the potential of AVs, including low speed pods, to widen access to public transport hubs such as stations and park and ride sites. This could feed more people into the system and allow more efficient public transport networks focused on core routes. Uber is already making transport more demand responsive, and AVs could be a further step.

There could also be benefits for social inclusion. AVs could help people without private cars to access jobs and services more easily. They may also increase mobility for people with disabilities (Guide Dogs for the Blind are participants in the Milton Keynes trial). Much will depend on the operating models for AV systems, price points, and the role of comercial providers and potentially the public sector in providing AVs.

Human Factors

Professor Natasha Merat of the Institute of Transport Studies, University of Leeds provided an overview of her research, including using their Virtuosity simulator, into potential behaviours of AV users, and public attitudes. Whilst fully autonomous vehicles could have significant safety benefits, the research indicates that semi-autonomous vehicles pose risks due to drivers over-relying on the autonomous controls.

The interactions between AVs and pedestrians and cyclists pose interesting issues. How do we overcome the lack of eye contact or helpful hand gestures that exist currently between users of streets? There may be a need to delineate parts of public spaces where low speed pods have priority, and accepted norms and protocols will need to evolve.

The initial research on public attitudes to AVs is that many people do not have firm views for or against, but are open-minded. The opportunity for the industry and policy makers is to shape how attitudes develop in hopefully a well-informed way.

Conclusion

CAVs have the potential to transform our cities and our transport network. The technology is advancing rapidly. AVs are already on our roads and streets as part of the trials by the UK Autodrive consortium. Now is the time for city leaders, policy makers and planners to consider the possibilities created by CAVs, and also the risks and limitations, and to set the agenda for how we can mobilise this new technology to reshape our cities for the better.