This could have been the closing caption for a private "summit" on urban renewal held in London this week.
Sponsored by Eversheds and King Sturge, the event was a wake/brainstorm for an industry that has ground to a halt - but for the design and delivery of the 2012 Olympics and its East London after-burn. (my regeneration Bhagwan Jackie Sadek has also posted on it here.)
The last twenty years has delivered some remarkable urban regeneration schemes in the U.K. - like Tate Modern, the transformation of Shoreditch, regeneration of Canary Wharf in London Docklands, the arrival of Westfield shopping mall in West London and new waterfronts in the cities of Newcastle-Gateshead and Liverpool, not to mention the Scandi-style minimalist repaving of most U.K. city centres.
But the debt-fulled boom is over: bank lending is tighter, house-building has slowed, the mathematical equations of 'value uplift' have been wrecked by falling land values and the number of people in poverty in the U.K. has increased, when the very purpose of regeneration is to help poor people become more prosperous - or at least that's what it says in the manual.
Urban regeneration needs a new narrative. What might it be?
Well maybe...
...since in a speech this week called The Big Society, Conservative Party leader David Cameron laid out his thoughts on a new role for the state: directly agitating for, catalysing and galvanising social renewal.
Labour minister Tessa Jowell then unveiled public service partnerships, public management that champions co-operative working - call it The New Mutualism, the name of a key policy paper of over a decade ago:
We think mutuals have a much broader potential across the public sector, especially now where they can become an expression of the new national soul post-credit crunch.
What do these two statements suggest for the future of urban renewal?
- Economic change will be less reliant upon property developers, unless they are prepared to innovate by shifting to sustainable development or become increasingly transparent and flexible
- Local development will be more answerable to 'the people' - and we'll see less of a "massive- shopping-centre-with-a-town-attached" approach to urbanism
- 'Value' will be assessed on a broader basket of local currencies, over and above rental income
- More time, attention and pride is about to be invested in local councillors and planning officers,
- Small projects that trigger social renewal - rather than physical projects so big that they make the earth tilt - will come back in to vogue (cf City Challenge), and
- New, non-aligned organizations or aggregated civic organizations at the most local level are about to become flavour of the month, since they offer a bridge between citizens and state, can engender trust, express identity and promote the welfare of the larger community above parochial Nimbyism
The poster boys and girls of this new mutualist world will be the army of activists and entrepreneurs who lead their communities, believe in collaboration and the welfare of their larger community.
These need not be either anti-capitalists or anti-development - just people who understand that enterprise in all of its many forms - social, as well as mercantile - is a key route to progress.
In the United States, these figures are lionized - just listen to President Obama at a press conference in June celebrating the work in particular of innovative non-profits:
At the centre of this new narrative are two of the oldest characters in the book. First - the taxpayer. Second - the consumer.
But the new element is the collective. The new formation: the non-profit. The new cast member - the social entrepreneur.
Either this is the dawn of a glorious new age of the social economy, political cynicism or the last bout of communal generosity as a post-industrial nation takes to the lifeboat.
What I do know is that I am yet to speak to a pension fund manager who is in the least bit interested in sharing an algorithm on life-cycle costs or dreaming up a vanilla-wrapped product that capitalizes upon social, as well as land, power, skills, knowledge and data assets.
I assume that's because the financial returns don't fit in to client demand, the terms of managers' annual bonuses and no bright spark has yet to work out a marketable link between carbon credits and the financing of urban renewal.
What I also know is that some - if not all - of this was the elephant in the room at the event this week: part of the paradigm shift that everyone cites, but an equity revolution that no-one really quite dares engage.
Images courtesy of fliegender.
