Failed by his friends

When New Labour asked Lord Rogers to plan our cities' future, his report was shelved. Now he has published a new set of findings. But where is the will to match his vision?

Published in the Evening Standard 24 November 2005

Dedicated fans of Sex and the City knew the moment the series was over. It was when Miranda, the 18-hour a day lawyer and full-time urban creature, announced she was leaving Manhattan and heading out – to Brooklyn, where she and Steve could raise their young son. They needed more space and above all a garden, and that meant leaving the centre of town. Most viewers probably sympathised, but they couldn't help but feel a twinge of melancholy. If Miranda was shipping out, the rest of the girls wouldn't be far behind: there might still be Sex, but there'd be no more City.

It was Miranda I was thinking of when I read the latest report by Richard Rogers, the uber-architect, friend of John Prescott and adviser to Ken Livingstone. In 1998, the Deputy Prime Minister asked Rogers to come up with a plan for Britain's cities, which he duly did. Now, seven years on and entirely under his own steam, Rogers has reunited the 1998 Urban Task Force to update their findings. The one that made headlines is that “Middle class families are moving out of towns and cities in search of better schools, less congestion and a safer environment.”

Think of it as the Miranda manoeuvre: people with children quitting the city life for the suburbs or beyond. I made something like that move myself when children entered the picture, shifting from Kings Cross to Stoke Newington. It wasn't exactly a voyage into the countryside, but the motives were the same as Miranda's: a thirst for less concrete and more green.

I had that down as a natural stage in the life cycle, just part of growing up. Living in the centre of town was fine when you could stay up all night; as a parent it made less sense. So it didn't surprise me to see Rogers report that only 28% of people in inner London are aged 45 or over – much lower than the 40% figure for the country as a whole.

In other words, if this is just an age thing, I'm not as worried as Rogers seems to think we should be. If it was about class, that would be much more alarming – suggesting an inner city that's hollowed out, left only for the poor. That kind of class divide soon translates into a racial one, with whites fleeing the city, leaving non-whites behind.

That may be happening in some of England's cities (though the evidence is mixed), but it doesn't seem to be the story in London. Here there are plenty of central areas densely packed with middle-class folk: just think of Islington, Battersea or Clapham. Indeed, thanks to gentrification, those areas are more middle class now than they were 40 years ago.

What's missing are families. “The urban renaissance has been down to empty nesters, singles and childless couples,” says Yolande Barnes, head of research at property consultants Savills. They've yuppified and gentrified whole stretches of the inner city, filling them with flats.

This age divide may not be as troubling as a class or racial one, but it does have consequences. If people with kids are still working in the centre of the city, but living further out, that means more commuters, more congestion and more strain on the environment.

The solution would be to bring families back in, which requires high-density family housing. You can do that in France or Italy, where people are quite happy to bring up kids in an apartment. But when Brits have kids, most want them to grow up in a house, with their own front door. Throw in a garden and they're truly happy. The trouble is, houses are low-density: they cover a lot of space but don't provide for a lot of people.

Hilary Cottam of the Design Council, named Designer of the Year for 2005, says there may be a radical way out of this conundrum. “Do people really want to have their own private gardens,” she wonders. “Or is it that they just want to have a safe, clean place?”

She reckons that if planners and architects spent time really talking to people, they might discover that not many are desperate to start planting shrubs, so much as they want an outdoor haven they can call their own. And we've already found the answer to that.

Visit Notting Hill or parts of Hampstead and you'll find some of the smartest houses back on to vast, gated communal gardens. No worries about dodgy strangers or stray needles, but a big, shared space where neighbours get to know each other and where there children can play in safety. So far these idyllic little patches have been the preserve of the very wealthy, but there's no reason why the principle could not be extended, in London and beyond. Squares of tall houses backing onto their own mini-park. Open up more of those and you'd soon see families come back, including middle class ones. Indeed, you could hardly keep them away.

Not that Rogers needs advice from me: his report is fizzing with ideas. To take one example: he notes the absurdity that while VAT is charged on brownfield developments, greenfield building is VAT-free – giving developers a perverse incentive to build on virgin sites. He wants that playing field to be levelled.

And it's this which makes his report depressing reading. For Rogers and Co made the exact same suggestion seven years ago. And nothing happened. A small, simple measure – and the government did not act.

And this is Richard Rogers, one of the most well-connected members of New Labour's new establishment. If he can't get things done, who can? Our problem is not a shortage of smart plans and clever reports. Thanks to Rogers and his ilk, we have plenty. The trouble is, a political set-up that allows large, complex problems – like the state of our cities – to drag on for years. We have the vision; what we need is the will.

Posted on November 24, 2005 05:40 PM

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