🚨 Today, Housing Secretary Michael Gove set out plans to promote the densification of inner-cities.
👉 The lack of density of UK cities compared to comparable nations "means lower growth," he said.
But what can the UK learn from urban models on the continent? - a thread 🧵
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Take Spain 🇪🇸🇬🇧
65% of Spanish people live in flats, while in the UK, this stands at just 15%.
Spanish cities are dense, opening the door for policies that would be unthinkable in the UK – like car-free superblocks in Barcelona and total car bans in the city of Pontevedra 🚘🚫
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Density brings economic benefits, not least through better transport connectivity.
In his speech, Michael Gove acknowledge that "our inner cities have much lower population densities than comparable Western countries, impacting our productivity."
🔗
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He went on to say: "Only 40% of people living in our great cities can get into the city centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared to over 2/3 in comparable European cities," referencing stats from
@CentreforCities
' 'Measuring Up' report 📝🔽
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Barcelona's an example 🇪🇸
With its famous “superblocks”, Barcelona is one of the densest cities in Europe.
Its public transport accessibility is significantly greater than most large UK cities, boosting economic performance by increasing the size of the labour market 👨💼🚉
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Urban density has benefits beyond local labour markets however.
It also makes transport infrastructure investments more viable 🚆💰
Since urban density boosts demand, transport schemes become cheaper, better quality and therefore more feasible for providers and cities.
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⬇️Take Seville and Nottingham.
The low-rise urban form which dominates Nottingham, and in fact most British cities, forces residents to take longer commutes and rely on cars, reducing the demand for active travel schemes and public transport investment.
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Dense urban living can also bring social benefits.
🚙 In 1999, the city of Pontevedra banned cars, with residents enjoying higher road safety and lower congestion and air pollution ever since.
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Only around 15-20% of the population of comparable British cities however live in a similarly-sized area of land, making this all but a pipe dream in the UK.
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So do Government's proposals on inner-city densification go far enough?
We welcome attempts to reform the planning system to promote the densification of existing areas - something we've long called for at Centre for Cities.
But urban density won’t solve all our problems…
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If Govt is serious about densification and planning reform, policy must:
➡️Release green belt land around stations bringing 2mn new homes to the UK's largest cities
➡️Increase the number of residents & jobs in areas with good transport links using the £1.5bn Brownfield Regen Fund
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📢 Cities will need to expand outwards as well as upwards if want to start closing the gap on England’s 4.3 million missing homes.
And this means green belt reform 🏡
Failure to do this will only worsen the UK's housing shortage and affordability crisis.
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