Towards the all-age-friendly city

Posted on: 1 October 2014
By: mackene
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This report finds that inter-generational trust, built through frequent encounters and better-designed housing and transport is key to an all-age-friendly city. The report depicts possible ideas for improving cities, from digital aids for encouraging accidental encounters between generations, to sentiment mapping and modular housing for intergenerational relationships. It explores how shared service hubs could bring generations together, as well as skill-based currencies and digital platforms that could enable a shift from generations co-habiting in public space to true sharing. The report looks at the intersection between the World Health Organisation’s work on age-friendly cities and UNICEF’s work on child-friendly cities. It aims to spot potential conflicts in the design and use of cities by older and younger citizens, as well as understand where these groups of citizens have the same needs and so can use cities in new collaborative ways.

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Planning Theory & Practice

Posted on: 26 September 2014
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This is a new resource page from the journal Planning, Theory & Practice. Here you can explore for free some article collections which will be added to throughout the year; find links to the blog and twitter pages, and discover the latest Interface article.

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Wellbeing in four policy areas

Posted on: 26 September 2014
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The All-Party Parliamentary Group  on Wellbeing Economics has published its first report, following a year-long inquiry exploring how wellbeing evidence can be translated into policy in four diverse areas: labour markets, planning and transport, mindfulness in health and education, and arts and culture.

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Planning reform proposals

Posted on: 26 September 2014
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The House of Commons Library has published a planning reform briefing note providing a comprehensive outline of the Coalition’s planning reforms since the introduction of the Localism Act in 2011 and the National Planning Policy Framework in 2012.

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City geographies: Visualising urban form, dynamics and sustainability

Posted on: 25 September 2014
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LuminoCity3D.org is a mapping platform designed to explore the performance and dynamics of cities in Great Britain. The site brings together a wide range of key city indicators, including population, growth, housing, travel behaviour, employment, business location and energy use. These indicators are mapped using a new 3D approach that highlights the size and density of urban centres, and allows relationships between urban form and city performance to be analysed.

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A visual history of the future

Posted on: 25 September 2014
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Depictions of future cities can play an important role in shaping our thinking on cities and our future urban strategies. This report explores the ways future cities have been depicted over the last 100 years and considers what these depictions sought to communicate and why. Its aim is to identify and understand the types of cities visions which have had the most influence.

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Public land, public good: Getting maximum value from public land and property

Posted on: 25 September 2014
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Localis, in partnership with Cathedral Group, has published a report which highlights the potential for public land and assets to be used for developing new housing, reshaping public services, and boosting local economies.  The report found that councils are reacting to ongoing austerity by acting more like property developers, moving away a mentality of simply selling buildings and land for one-off capital receipts, and instead looking to redevelop assets to derive revenue income from them that they can use to help support public service, with the proportion of redevelopments shifting from a third of all disposals to a majority of disposals over the next 5 years.

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Strategic planning: Beyond “cooperation”

Posted on: 24 September 2014
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The Royal Town Planning Institute has published proposals for strategic, larger-than-local planning in England. They draw on existing arrangements but require much stronger incentives to cooperation and making plans for the future.

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Writing planning policies

Posted on: 23 September 2014
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A guide to writing planning policies which will address the issues that matter to your neighbourhood plan.

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Rebuilding Britain: Planning for a better future

Posted on: 23 September 2014
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This unique book asks a simple question: how can Britain organise itself, not just for survival but to build a fairer and sustainable society? The arguments refer to the high ambitions of those who pioneered the planning movement and campaigned for a clear set of progressive values, but whose drive for utopia has now been forgotten. The book takes a distinctive approach to exploring the value to society of social town planning and offers a doorway for how planning, both morally and practically, can help to meet key challenges of the 21st century. It challenges the widely held view that it’s impossible to achieve a better future by suggesting that there is real choice in how society develops and pointing to contemporary examples of utopia.

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