Memorandum by Ken Worpole Esq (UWP 23)
THE PROPOSED URBAN WHITE PAPER
Urban regeneration in the UK was initially a
response to riots in Toxteth, Brixton and other inner urban areas
at the beginning of the 1980's. Its principal dynamic remains
a fear of violent and destructive social upheaval which might
result from too great a perception of injustice and inequality
in Britain's towns and cities. So unless urban policy takes issues
of social inclusion as core issues, it is likely to fail to achieve
the broader targets of general urban well-being, security and
prosperity.
The success of cities has always depended upon
their ability to offer economic opportunities to all sections
of society, as well as opportunities for self-expression and mutual
aid. In the USA many historic cities are being vacated by businesses,
which are seeking to locate at new sites of strategic communications
importance—now called edge cities—leaving behind emptying
shells of increasing social and racial inequality. Britain cannot
afford to allow its historic cities to follow a similar path.
Their economic prosperity, as well as their social and cultural
vitality, need to be supported and enhanced, with a particular
emphasis on creating opportunities for meaningful employment and
livelihood. In this, UK cities may learn more from their European
counterparts than from urban strategies in the USA.
Of the many priorities for consideration in
the Urban White Paper I would like to highlight the following
three:
(a) Increasing the local circulation of goods
and services, and strengthening neighbourhood and micro-economies;
(b) Encouraging better waste management,
re-cycling and energy-efficient habitats and lifestyles;
(c ) Urban parks and social renewal—and
new thinking about cemeteries.
(a) Increasing the local circulation
of goods and services
Many commentators have noted that "objective"
indicators of poverty never tell the full story of urban vitality—and
that other factors make a crucial difference between whether a
community or neighbourhood is in decline and lacks the resources
within itself to seek forms of social renewal, or on the other
hand is actively engaged in supporting change and renewed prosperity.
Urban areas which still seem to be failing are often geographically
and economically isolated from the central business district and
other clusters of economic activity, have very low rates of self-employment
or family businesses, and large numbers of households where nobody
is in employment. They are also likely to be a monoculture of
housing type and tenure. Such difficulties are often compounded
by the fact that in such areas paid work is given to outsiders.
This was the case at Broadwater Farm Estate in North London where
there was local considerable resentment that even maintenance
on the estate was done by workers from far away, a case still
common in the repair and maintenance of public housing in London.
Similarly, many of the highest paid public sector workers and
urban regeneration specialists who work in a borough like Hackney,
where I have lived for over 30 years, live outside the borough,
and so their salaries are largely spent outside the local economy.
So attention should be paid to a "balance
of payments" approach to urban economies, particularly where
there are large leakages, and such money and jobs as there are
constantly flow out. This is not an argument for protectionism
but for information which might lead to a fuller understanding
of how urban economies and micro-economies work as a first step
in strengthening and consolidating them. We might also learn from
particular areas, often with a high ethnic minority population,
where there is much more self-employment, family employment and
networks of mutual aid organisations which help create forms of
economic exchange. Such areas often exhibit a greater social and
cultural vitality because of the richness of the networks in them.
This is why urban policy should pay more attention
to the way in which welfare spending and economic development
should be more closely tied together to create opportunities for
sustainable economic growth, supporting the growth of local businesses
as much as trying to secure inward investment.
(b) Encouraging better waste management
As the Urban Task Force Report (1999) notes
on page 36, "British towns and cities under-perform in respect
of waste management. They currently re-cycle only 5-7 per cent
of their household waste, compared to 30-50 per cent across Europe
and the USA." Not only is there a real potential to create
new jobs in the waste economy, but these jobs have a high local
character to them, often arising out of community-based networks,
and also it is clear that re-cycling brings with it not only greater
environmental sustainability but often significant attitudinal
changes to social and environmental issues as well. For pollution
and environmental degradation are essentially public issues, affecting
everybody, and bring into question the balance between the individual
right to act without constraint, and the collective right to long
term well-being. Environmentalism is becoming a serious driver
for economic innovation and social change, but towns and cities
in the UK often lag far behind their continental European counterparts
in meeting these new challenges.
We should also note that innovation in waste
management and re-cycling puts the individual household at the
centre of waste management and greater resource efficiency, but
again there is so far little recognition of this in the design
of new homes or the adaptation of existing buildings and residences.
The private motor car has dominated the design and management
for cities for nearly 100 years, often at the expense of other
design imperatives for greater sociability and connectivity, and
in future it is to be hoped that other, more sustainable, urban
goals will be given as much attention as the needs of the private
motorist. The walkability and spatial permeability of cities can
be an important factor in their economic and cultural attractiveness.
(c ) Urban parks and social renewal—and
new thinking about cemeteries
Britain's large number of urban parks have always
played a vital role in the social and cultural life of cities,
and where properly managed and maintained, have continued to be
a vital resource for local people. Parks attract the use and loyalty
of people of all different backgrounds, ages and interests, making
them one of the most resilient and popular cultural forms in the
urban fabric. Not only are they often used intensively, and for
a wide variety of reasons—recreational and reflective, by
individuals as well as by organised groups—but parks also
provide topographical character and identity to particular urban
areas and spatial configurations. I completely support the findings
of the Environmental, Transport and Regional Affairs Select Committee
report on "Town and Country Parks" and its principal
recommendation that the government establishes an "Urban
Parks and Green Spaces Agency" with dedicated funds to promote
the improvement and better management of urban parks.
One feels obliged also to mention the need for
new thinking about the provision of cemeteries or burial space
in cities. Cemeteries have always been a focal point of meaning
and history in cities, but today few towns and cities have burial
space left, and as a result people are often buried at some distance
from the community in which they may have lived. Inner city cemeteries,
now full, are often left to vandalism and neglect because they
no longer possesses any economic rationale, and high land values
inhibit the development of new burial grounds. But something vital
is lost in this scenario, and the city loses one of its principal
historic and cultural features. New thinking about the design
and provision of burial space in the city is urgently needed.
January 2000
BACKGROUND REFERENCES
FOR THIS
MEMORANDUM
Melissa Benn, Livelihood: work in the new urban
economy, Comedia/Demos 1998.
Raj Patel, Making Difference Matter: ethnic
minority cultures and city vitality, Comedia/Demos 1998.
Robin Murray, Creating Wealth from Waste, Demos
1999.
Ian Christie & Roger Levett, Towards the
Ecopolis: sustainable development and urban governance, Comedia/Demos
1999.
Ken Worpole and Liz Greenhalgh, The Richness
of Cities: Urban Policy in a New Landscape, Comedia/Demos 1999.
Ken Worpole, The Cemetery in the City, Comedia,
1997.
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