Why Birmingham’s 2022 Commonwealth Games was all about getting about An American Perspective, by Jon Bibbins A native Virginian here, reporting from Birmingham, England not Birmingham, Alabama. The 2022 Commonwealth Games were a smashing success! I was blown away by the world-class quality of the event. ‘Brum’ transformed itself with a spectrum of colour splashed […]
Create Streets’ director, Nicholas Boys Smith, reflects on our recent Restitch summit A few weeks’ ago with our friends at Onward, we ran the Restitch Summit in London and Halifax. It came at a crucial time. Political debate is fractious and mistrustful. Social fabric is fraying. Connections to people and place that have evolved over […]
Transport for New Homes, an organisation that advocates for creating new homes designed around walking, cycling and public transport, have released a scathing report on the state of new housing developments in England declaring most unfit in our quest towards carbon net zero. It was not hugely surprising that most of the brownfield housing sites […]
The press has reported recently that residents in Poundbury want to install upvc windows rather than wooden ones because they are “greener.” But the idea that upvc windows are “greener” than wooden ones is for the birds. Sustainability works at three levels. Firstly, manufacturing. Wooden windows can readily be created from sustainable forests. Upvc ones are 43% oil and […]
After all the hot take in the first 24 hours, here’s a more considered take from Toby Lloyd, the Chair of the Create Streets Foundation’s No Place Left Behind Commission.” The sceptical take on last week’s long awaited Levelling Up White Paper it is that it’s largely a rehash of existing policies and initiatives, loosely bound […]
Bristol’s former mayor and former RIBA President, George Ferguson, asks if Bristol is returning to the age of destructive planning. Bristol’s history, special character and environment are under assault from more damaging development than we have experienced in the past 50 years, but we are in danger of sleep walking through it. Soon after I […]
Do filmmakers and set designers understand architecture better than architects? My study of the 11 Star Wars films released over 44 years suggests that they do. I examined 12 Star Wars locations (some cities, some villages, some spaceships, some individual buildings). I categorised them as either: ‘Good.’ The home of innocents, harmless but kind planet-dwellers, […]
Create Streets Head of Research Ben Southwood explains why street votes goes with the grain of British care for place and neighbourhood. Place is emotional and rightly so. Britons are conservative about their neighbourhoods. They take pride in them. They wish them to remain green and pleasant. Many planning reformers have failed because they misunderstood […]
London YIMBY’s John Myers explains how localism can be harnessed to deliver more homes. The current planning system is not popular. Residents who would be happy to support improvement of their area are often frustrated when their wishes are overridden. Councils feel that they lack powers and resources to do the best for their communities. […]
Create Streets deputy director David Milner explains how policies that enable a gentle intensification of our towns and cities is the best way to reduce the carbon emissions of transport. Transport is the UK’s worst emissions offender (27% of CO2 emissions) and an enormous consumer of energy produced in this country. It was a surprise […]