irishboyinlondon

Evening Standard: Cycling in the city: can London go Dutch?

Excellent positive write up in the Standard about LCC’s Love London Go Dutch Campaign, the big ride this saturday and cycling in cities!

Spotting a man on a bike with a dog in the front basket and a child in the back trailer seems an unlikely occurrence in London. So too a chap pulling a suitcase along beside his two wheels, or a child travelling the city by standing on the back rack of her mother’s bicycle.

Of course, I saw none of these people spinning their way through our capital but in Amsterdam — a city just an hour’s easyJet flight away from London yet worlds apart when it comes to cycling.

This Saturday, the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) is holding its Big Ride — a cycle ride through central London supporting its “Love London, Go Dutch” campaign. It calls on the mayoral candidates to bring Amsterdam-style safer cycling streets to London.

Londoners are often incredulous when the idea is raised of dedicated cycle lanes along all main roads — commonly stating that our road layouts are too old and streets too narrow.

Yet Amsterdam, with many equally narrow streets, did not begin its development as a cycling city until the Seventies, before which the UK’s and the Netherlands’s cycling profile looked similar. Today, when around just three per cent of journeys in London are made by bike, that figure is 47 per cent in Amsterdam — 14 per cent more than in 1991. So I went to Amsterdam to see whether we could head in the same direction as its cyclists…

…Funding is always the biggest issue. The Amsterdam Cycling Strategy 2007-2010 committed nearly 70 million to cycling over four years.

“The past couple of years the budget has been lower, because of the economic situation and since some of the larger and expensive projects have been completed,” explains de Lange.

Money comes from several funds including an air quality plan, national subsidies for infrastructure and from individual boroughs, but the largest proportion (more than 35 million) comes from the Amsterdam Mobility Fund. De Lange explains that this pot of money, to fund public transport and cycling, is generated from car parking charges. So although parking in Amsterdam costs around 4 an hour in some places, drivers can see that their money is going to improving other forms of transportation.

The London Cycling Campaign works out that whereas in Amsterdam £20 per head is spent on cycling, in London Boris Johnson’s 13 “biking boroughs” — part of his “cycling revolution” — provides just 75p-95p per head in those areas.

But it does not expect large sums of money upfront and an immediate overhaul of London roads. Rather it sees cycling infrastructure being built into new road and junction developments over time.

“We estimate that including proper provision for cycling at Blackfriars Bridge would have added only one or two per cent to the total cost of the rail/road interchange project,” it says.

In Amsterdam, de Lange explains: “Most often new bicycle paths are made when a street has to be renovated anyway. This is about every 25 years. Then it is not a lot more expensive to make a bicycle path than to make a pavement or parking places.”

04/26/12

What Matters: Innovating for a better city - Michael Bloomberg

…In New York City government…three key approaches have helped us…to drive innovation forward.

Empower your team

I expect my staff to value creativity and new ways of thinking. Citizens deserve more than tweaks to the status quo—so I reinforce to commissioners and other policy makers that bold, new ideas should be the rule rather than the exception. This mandate empowers leaders to push themselves and their teams beyond their comfort zones, to look with fresh eyes at challenges and potential solutions. Simply giving permission to innovate is insufficient; you have to expect it and hold people accountable for delivering it.

Remove the barriers

Being clear-eyed about barriers to innovation and removing them is also important. For example, we’ve raised private philanthropic dollars to subsidize innovative new programs, such as our new comprehensive effort to help black and Hispanic young men achieve at the same rates as their peers in other ethnic groups. When we’ve tackled issues like sustainability and poverty that span numerous agencies, we’ve created cross-agency teams to improve coordination and results. As a result, our sustainability program has produced a 13 percent reduction in New York City’s carbon footprint over the past five years.

Support those who fail

When it comes to innovation, the one thing you know for sure is that it will not always succeed. In New York, the intense media focus can be a disincentive for innovation, which is why I’ve always believed it is critical to give a public pat on the back to those who took reasonable risks but failed. That’s how you keep the new ideas coming in—and it’s how you keep attracting the top talent.

These three approaches have helped us drive innovation in areas ranging from poverty to sustainability to education to creating new open spaces. And mayors from cities all over the nation are launching their own bold solutions to many of the same challenges…

…The need for local government innovation is now greater than ever. When I talk with my colleagues in cities across the nation, they say they are being asked to do far more, often with much less. Citizens expect more. Many residents, hard hit by the recession, need more. And there are fewer public dollars to respond. That’s certainly the case here in New York City—and that’s why we’ll continue empowering leaders to drive innovation, reducing the barriers they face, and supporting all those who keep challenging the status quo with innovative new ideas.

04/5/12

Looks topical! The film examines the conflicts between politicians, developers and communities when it comes to issues such as property development, economic growth, jobs, regeneration, gentrification and community!

dominoeffectmovie:

We are proud to present a sneak peek at The Domino Effect. Coming Soon

The Domino Effect is a documentary film that explores the process of real estate development in New York City. The film digs deep to uncover the complex networks of banks, developers, politicians, and non-profit organizations that shape our cities. During the last decade, the North Brooklyn communities of Williamsburg & Greenpoint, have experienced the negative impacts of excessive luxury development and gentrification, more than any other neighborhood in NYC. Told through the voices of longtime residents, this film conveys the personal impact of real estate development in their community while shedding light on issues encountered by residents of cities across the country. Will your neighborhood be the next to fall? Full release Summer 2012.

03/23/12

TechCrunch: A City Is A Startup: The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur

An interesting piece comparing successful cities to start up businesses

On stage at last month’s Le Web conferenceShervin Pishevar, a Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, stated “The World is a Startup.” It’s an interesting perspective, and I think what’s true for the world is also true for countries, states and municipalities. With developments like last month’sannouncement that Cornell was selected to build a new tech campus in New York City, it seems to follow that if “a city is a startup,” then the best mayors are the ones who are looking at their cities in much the same way as entrepreneurs look at the companies they have founded.

The ingredients for a successful startup and a successful city are remarkably similar. You need to build stuff that people want. You need to attract quality talent. You have to have enough capital to get your fledgling ideas to a point of sustainability. And you need to create a world-class culture that not only attracts the best possible people, but encourages them to stick around even when things aren’t going so great.

01/17/12

Inside Housing: Time to roll back the Green Belt

Oh! So that’s the answer…simples! NOT! Seriously I read things like this and shudder…

12/19/11

Mary Portas reviews the future of UK high streets! Some interesting reading. You can read the report here.

Below are her 28 recommendations.

1. Put in place a “Town Team”: a visionary, strategic and strong operational management team for high streets

2. Empower successful Business Improvement Districts to take on more responsibilities and powers and become “Super-BIDs”

3. Legislate to allow landlords to become high street investors by contributing to their Business Improvement District

4. Establish a new “National Market Day” where budding shopkeepers can try their hand at operating a low-cost retail business

5. Make it easier for people to become market traders by removing unnecessary regulations so that anyone can trade on the high street unless there is a valid reason why not

6. Government should consider whether business rates can better support small businesses and independent retailers

7. Local authorities should use their new discretionary powers to give business rate concessions to new local businesses

8. Make business rates work for business by reviewing the use of the RPI with a view to changing the calculation to CPI

9. Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table

10. Town Teams should focus on making high streets accessible, attractive and safe

11. Government should include high street deregulation as part of their ongoing work on freeing up red tape

12. Address the restrictive aspects of the ‘Use Class’ system to make it easier to change the uses of key properties on the high street

13. Put betting shops into a separate ‘Use Class’ of their own

14. Make explicit a presumption in favour of town centre development in the wording of the National Planning Policy Framework

15. Introduce Secretary of State “exceptional sign off ” for all new out-of-town developments and require all large new developments to have an “affordable shops” quota

16. Large retailers should support and mentor local businesses and independent retailers

17. Retailers should report on their support of local high streets in their annual report

18. Encourage a contract of care between landlords and their commercial tenants by promoting the leasing code and supporting the use of lease structures other than upward only rent reviews, especially for small businesses

19. Explore further disincentives to prevent landlords from leaving units vacant

20. Banks who own empty property on the high street should either administer these assets well or be required to sell them

21. Local authorities should make more proactive use of Compulsory Purchase Order powers to encourage the redevelopment of key high street retail space

22. Empower local authorities to step in when landlords are negligent with new “Empty Shop Management Orders”

23. Introduce a public register of high street landlords

24. Run a high profile campaign to get people involved in Neighbourhood Plans

25. Promote the inclusion of the High Street in Neighbourhood Plans

26. Developers should make a financial contribution to ensure that the local community has a strong voice in the planning system

27. Support imaginative community use of empty properties through Community Right to Buy, Meanwhile Use and a new “Community Right to Try”

28. Run a number of High Street Pilots to test proof of concept

12/13/11

Compendium for the Civic Economy

Nesta and CABE have produced the compendium for the civic economy…some great projects reviewed! Huge but really worth reading!

Against the context of rapid economic, social and environmental change, a collective reflection is taking place on how to build more sustainable routes to shared prosperity. In the meantime, an increasing number and wide range of change-makers are already finding ways to imagine and grow a different economy in our cities, towns, neighbourhoods and villages.

This book presents 25 case studies of this civic economy… the remarkable achievements of these 25 trailblazers show why we need to get better at understanding and recognising the role of civic entrepreneurship and enable it to turn ideas into action and impact.

09/6/11

Next Urban Economy series - Case Studies - Munich | Torino | Barcelona | Seoul

Interesting reading! LSE have produced 4 case studies on economically robust cities examining their framework for growth!

A number of European and Asian cities have demonstrated sustained growth over the past three decades. Breaking free from historical dependencies, they overcame challenging crises to show progress in economic development. LSE Cities carried out in-depth research of four metro regions in the Europe and Asia, focusing on Munich, Torino, Barcelona and Seoul to identify the processes, governance arrangements and interventions through which economic transformation has been achieved.

08/23/11

Hero or Villain? - David T Beers

Image: Reuters

What do do you think…hero or villain?? Is he making the world sit up and notice what is going on or is he creating havoc for nations, economies and citizens?

Some time last Friday night, someone created a Wikipedia page for David T Beers. Overdue, you might think.

Mr Beers might be the most powerful man in the world that you’ve never heard of. He is the head of sovereign ratings at Standard & Poor’s, which means that at the world’s largest credit rating agency, he is responsible for the grades it slaps on each of the world’s governments. And last Friday night, his team decided the US was no longer the risk-free AAA nation that it has been for the past 70 years. That night, Mr Beers changed the financial world….No one elected Mr Beers, and S&P’s pivotal role in financial markets has grown up only over many generations, but here he is at the centre of the debt storm engulfing the eurozone and now the US – and under fire from politicians on both sides of the Atlantic.

08/8/11

Really interesting lecture on the cyclical failures of capitalism and human weakness

In this RSA Animate, renowned academic David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane?

This is based on a lecture at the RSA (www.theRSA.org).

08/30/10

Homes & Communities Agency launches Place Spotlight

Place Spotlight supports local areas by taking eight components of great places and describing what makes good, great and exemplary performance for local authorities and their partners.

08/10/10

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