The February update from Manchester A Certain Future (MACF) http://ontheplatform.org.uk has arrived this week with news on efforts by all partners towards reducing the carbon footprint of Manchester, which I fully support.

MACF is a broad based organisation of many partners and philosophies, from some neoliberal globalisation in economic policy to grass roots local cooperatives and campaigns. Any progressive city is necessarily a mixture of movements, beliefs, organisations, authorities and trends. So, for example, it would be unrealistic to look for a uniform ‘party line’ and it is better that different interests find a way to ‘rub along’ for the greater good.

There are some encouraging signs. For example, Manchester City Council plans to replace 56,000 street lights with low-energy LED lamps, saving up to 60% on carbon emissions. Probably many Manchester partners first saw an LED street lamp at CCI and CUBE on Portland Street. It was the early production prototype Philips 82watt lamp, part of an exhibition on new indoor and outdoor low-energy lights.

But some signs are less encouraging.

Many of us had assumed that higher energy prices were a natural ratchet which would lead to less energy demand and consumption. Better insulation and high-efficiency boilers would become cheaper – and more attractive each year – when compared with rising energy bills. Well, we learnt the hard way in 2013 that this model has limits, especially when there is a context of austerity and reducing living standards. People pushed back on prices, rather than spending more now to save later.

Yet in MACF there is (still) a stated desire to maximise the “multi-million pound Green Deal” programme in 2014. Really? Even after the abysmal national take-up figures in 2013 and then the shift of ECO cost collection away from using consumer fuel bills and on to general taxation? It feels very unlikely, unless Green Deal now is only about the ECO payments to social landlords, in which case the Treasury would probably give it to HCA to manage as grant aid.

So, it feels there is a bit of catching up to do. I know that is a challenge currently, especially when many organisations have shrinking resources and are being hollowed out. But we must show the resilience we look for in others, and find ways to be optimistic as well as determined.

The recent storms and flooding in the UK have brought climate change into sharp focus, and early 2014 might be a moment when the popular mood changes. But we should be careful not to rely on it too much. It would be lovely to think that, when the prime minister said “money is no object” that all our wishes will now come true. But what he said was just to rephrase something well known in the public sector, which states that any public service is allowed to break the rules when it is a matter of saving life and limb – “money is no object in a relief effort”. Unfortunately for the climate change agenda, the increased spending on flood defences in the UK will probably come from the two usual suspects of savings and contingencies. For some time now, it has been ever thus.

The storms and flooding may lead to a new emphasis on adaptation, but possibly with even less effort on prevention. After all, it is possible to fully support adaptation without admitting that carbon emissions are the problem. Adaptation alone does not ask questions about the causes of climate change, so it could be caused by … sunspots, natural cycles, or even changes in the price of Marmite.

In my opinion, and supported by science, climate change prevention (or reduction, given it has already started) is essential. But if there is no major national shift towards prevention and therefore stronger reductions in carbon emissions, even though I and many others wish it would happen, what are Manchester and other cities to do?

Transport and the heating of buildings remain the high impact sectors for reducing carbon emissions. The MACF ambition for more people in buildings to show their visitors a Display Energy Certificate (DEC) is one that I hope takes a strong hold. I have said before that every shop window on Market Street or in the Northern Quarter should have a DEC in the corner. Keep it simple, uncluttered, A5 size is enough, showing their A to G rating and maybe a QR barcode for anyone who wants more details. Surely a great student project.

Another practicality. For carbon literacy and buildings I would suggest that in the built environment professions we start to examine the use of U values. For example, windows. A double glazed or triple glazed window makes a building warmer because it is better insulated, and the measurement of the amount of insulation is its U value. The lower it is, the better. But when new windows are advertised on TV, there is no mention of U values. TV ads instead talk about windows being “Triple A Rated” or similar. In terms of insulation, many people now will know about duvets and togs. The higher the tog number, the warmer it is, because the higher the amount of insulation. Some good engineers will wince here, because togs are for textiles and U values are for building materials. But … carbon literacy, folks … I would ask: if your choice between two new windows is U values of 0.67 and 1.1, what do you think? Now, if I tell you the two windows have values of tog 9 and tog 15, is that any clearer now which one will give you a warmer room? I think so.

So, the take-home message for the built environment and housing professions is, show a DEC and talk tog.

Disclaimer: My personal views only. So far I have worked for national, regional and local government, the private sector, the voluntary sector, and universities. That only leaves the church and the military still to do, though I did once have a boss who was an ex-army chaplain. Nothing in these blog postings is a statement of the policies or practices of any current or former clients or employers.

The sad death recently of Stuart Hall and the thoughtful obituaries that have been published, along with recent public debates about extreme weather and climate change, perhaps help us first take stock of our past and then point to the possibility of a new era in politics being about to start. Of course, nothing is certain because politics is not mechanical, but let’s consider the last 60 years, as outlined in the obituaries of his working life, and how the time divides roughly into two political periods.

First, in 1956 we had Suez and Hungary. The Suez crisis caused a disenchantment with the UK, France and Israel acting as imperial powers, basically invading Egypt on a pretext. The Hungarian uprising and the Soviet crackdown showed the Eastern Bloc countries in a similar light. The resulting New Left was non-aligned, not fixed to nation states, but instead fixed to ideas of human rights and freedoms. It was the New Left that created a climate for cultural change and the ‘sixties revolution’ of supporting campaigns rather than political parties. This was CND, women’s liberation, the civil rights movement in America, Cathy Come Home and Shelter, and a nascent environmental movement.

Then, in the late 1970s we find a counter-movement politically. The oil crisis around 1973 created an economic shock in the West which took years to work through. Politics slowly moved to the right, a new era of neo-liberalism followed, summarised as Thatcherism in the UK and Reaganism in the USA, but best known now as globalisation. The solution here was to be business-led, to dismantle the structures which were said to hold back progress, including trade unions and local authorities. In the UK the New Labour movement continued in that direction in some aspects, for example requiring students to pay tuition fees, but took a more inclusive approach in other aspects, such as the network of Sure Start centres, rebuilding schools and hospitals, and in-work tax credits to address child poverty. There was a view in Russia that the two world wars in the twentieth century were essentially a conflict between democracy and capitalism, and the post-war settlement in the West was about how those two forces might rub along. Globalisation put capitalism first again, not least because democratic countries became powerless to stop flows of money leaving. The New Labour movement argued that this was a price worth paying for a new, more peaceful world order. To roughly quote a line from the TV drama, The West Wing, “Global trade stops wars. The rest we sort out afterwards.” Iraq and Afghanistan ended that hope.

However, even if wars continued, globalisation in the West contained two seeds of decline: debt and climate change. The lack of global political structures that were as strong as the forces of business meant that any international responses to debt or to climate change were essentially voluntary, by treaty, and could be ignored or avoided without penalty. Thus we see the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund making requirements on elected governments for limited amounts of borrowing while the business sector was very lightly regulated, being able to shop around the world for the best deal. The new round of Basle banking rules have been an attempt to better regulate banks internationally after the 2008 crash, but other aspects of globalisation continued as before, alongside growing levels of income inequality.

So, following the 2008 crash (from which the UK has yet to recover economically in terms of GDP, productivity or employment), and the 2014 extreme weather events (which maybe will bring climate change into political focus in the UK), this could be a moment politically when the furniture is moved for another 30-year or generational period. Crucially, any such change will hinge on how younger people respond politically to their generally declining conditions of employment, housing and debt. The national lack of trust in UK institutions as well as in the press and in political parties has, I believe, inhibited a coherent political response so far.

And when this political response does show itself, there are no guarantees it will be a good outcome. Politics is not a playground game where ‘left’ and ‘right’ take it in turns to be in charge. The move could be further to the right. The 2008 crash has produced some strong right-wing trends in some European countries, especially in blaming immigrants, most recently in Switzerland.

The pessimistic scenario is of a right-wing retrenchment across Europe, with increasing xenophobia, more intolerance of minorities, and an increasing meanness in sharing the fewer public resources available. The driver for these trends would be the continued economic decline of the West as the South (China, India, Brazil, and maybe Africa) rises. Such tensions are also evident within the South, for example the street protests and disorder in Brazil over rising costs in public transport, and the increase in street violence linked to racism.

An alternative scenario is of a new understanding of how the world’s resources are finite, and what a fair and equitable sharing of these resources would look like. Ideally, centred around maximising people’s happiness and wellbeing rather than maximising a figure of wealth. Money is only a means to an end, not the end itself.

Clearly this is an ideal, and globally there will always be countries which drag their feet, looking to squeeze an advantage over the rest. But, for me, I’d much rather face that as a problem to be dealt with, rather than have to deal with retrenchment and xenophobia with all its echoes of 1930s Europe and the conditions which supported the growth of fascism.

Disclaimer: As are all my posts here, this is a personal view.

www.tonybaldwinson.wordpress.com

Following the 2007-8 economic crash in which high property values played a significant part, the world of urban regeneration has, in part, struggled to find its feet again. Yet it was often said that the truly effective regeneration and renewal of some of the most deprived areas in the UK was always a 25-year change process— working to a rhythm of generations, not quarterly reports.

I want to suggest that it was the years leading up to the economic crash, let’s say 2002 to 2008 roughly, which were the aberration and that we are now poised to return – either to normality, or to repeat the earlier mistakes. And perhaps the biggest of those mistakes was to assume that ever-rising property values was the same as urban regeneration. It was clear to many at the time, and to many others with hindsight, that a world where property prices were rising faster than earnings year on year was not sustainable.

Instead, let’s go back to the drawing board. We need to remind ourselves of the underlying factors which are crucial for urban regeneration, and apply these timeless traits in modern times.

So, in no particular order we have:

1. A Masterplan
OK, these days even the youngest newbie in the team knows that you have to have a masterplan or you just cannot join the regeneration club. But, sadly, how often have we asked people for a masterplan, only to be handed a document. Yes, it has lots of colourful diagrams and maps. Especially the overlay maps that show the synergy between transport corridors (bus routes) and primary employment areas (bus stops). It might even touch on some of the headings below. It will have a vision statement. But, crucially, the writers of the document will have assumed that the document is the masterplan. It isn’t. The document is useful for various engineers who will need to know where to dig their holes. The masterplan is what people tell you when you ask them the question, why do they bother? If you get a coherent answer from a range of partners, brilliant! If you get unconnected answers or even no answers at all, then there is no masterplan, only maps.

2. An Economic Base
Bang in the centre of your urban community is an externally-funded non-transferable major employer with a commitment to, and proven results in local employment, and an order book that is full for the next 50 years. Lucky you. The rest of us have to work with less, and with what is real. Not everywhere will be a high-tech innovation hot spot. There just are not enough Googles to go round. So a me-too economic strategy will not work. Maybe for your area the niche, the economic USP, is something like world-class soft cheese making. Don’t knock it. Better to be real and succeed than to be pretentious and fail.

3. Partnership Working
Anyone who says that partnership working is easy clearly hasn’t tried it recently. Like childbirth, some say we only do it again because the brain can’t fully recall the pain from previous times. Partnership working is going back to your office and thumping the wall with frustration. It is putting down the phone and tearing your hair out. It is not about who sits on what committee. Nor is it who is on speed-dial with who else. It is hours and days of patiently going over the same simple point with the plonker from X until a glimmer of independent thinking is spotted. Every regeneration programme has at least one X. For me, I’m waiting for the day predicted in science fiction when arms-length agency ABC becomes self-aware. I’d fill in the gaps, but I need the work.

4. Community Engagement
So, this is (a) the minimum necessary number of community meetings to be endured in a church hall to satisfy the council so that planning permission will be granted, or … ah, there is no (b).

5. Jobs, Skills, Education
When asked, the majority of car drivers say they have above-average driving skills. Similarly, the majority of regeneration programmes have above-average expectations. Which sometimes is valid because there is a need to re-balance an area that has become mono-cultural. After all, blacksmiths did have to re-train as car mechanics. But too often the high-skills jobs focus says nothing for the many people who have lower formal skill levels but still want and need to play their full part in the local community, including the local economy. My first job was as a schools crossing officer, that is, I did a lollipop patrol. Long may they be.

6. Leadership
Similarly to partnership working, this is not only about who runs which committee. Nor is it about management, a necessary but different task. Leadership is bestowed, not taken. You will know the classic definition, that the people around a good leader say, ‘this is what we have done’. But also, leadership is not about any one person, but instead it is a function in which many different people all have a part to play at different times. The teacher who stands up against the bully is a leader.

7. Inclusiveness, Fairness, Diversity, Tolerance, Equality
Unfortunately, there is a cheap and very nasty way to build community spirit, and that is to produce a scapegoat. The blame game. Sometimes it is blatant— let’s blame Travellers for crime, let’s blame immigrants for unemployment, or young people for litter. But there is also an insidious blame game— let’s blame political correctness. “Everything was going just fine until we had to be nice to…” A tell-tale sign of this approach is an exclusive focus on traditional communities, as in a bread commercial, which conveniently leaves out the minority voices that can be found if you search with an open mind.

8. Mixed Communities
What are the factors which influence the mix of any community, any area? The housing type? Access to transport? Skill levels? These are textbook answers, but in truth it comes down to two factors: secondary schools catchments and estate agents. All the rest is puff. If you want to regenerate towards a more balanced, mixed community, then start with teacher recruitment.

9. Sustainable Practices
It is a fact universally acknowledged that every urban regeneration programme with a sustainability strategy is in need of more eco-bling. (Sorry Jane, but you know others have mangled it far worse. I have names if you need them.) So, when the flood defence teams arrive with their wagons of concrete in the hundreds, and you ask them to fund the planting of some trees, and get *that look*, you need to realise that actually more eco-bling is needed instead. Think bigger. Artificial trees made from recycled plastic bottles, that kind of thing.

10. Transport
Most people walk. Some run. A few skip. Many cycle. Some use wheelchairs, some scooters. Doctors encourage us to take exercise. And walks with greenery around us are good for our mental wellbeing. So isn’t it marvellous how professors of transport planning have come up with concrete walled dual carriageways. Who would have the M602 in their CV, no-one I guess. And, as every economist knows, the required solution for any economic improvement is another motorway.

11. A Sense of Place
There are stacks of picture books for architects to colour in (sorry, palette) which show you how to make a distinctive and unique sense of place. Oh, wait a minute, …

12. Can-Do Attitude
This is perhaps one of the hardest aspects of urban regeneration to make happen. It is where “everything here would be just dandy if only the government / council / supermarket / whoever would give us X.” Maybe it would. It very probably would be an improvement. But urban regeneration is not a box of magic wands to be rationed out. “If only we had the power to do such-and-such.” Of course, funding helps massively and for some tasks it is indispensable. But it is all for nothing if there is no spark, no passion, no love, no animation, no attitude. And we all know places which have had the money and then some, but where there is nothing left to show for it.

You may disagree with some, or even much, of this blog. Great. Because that’s the attitude we like to see.

It seems rather bad manners to mention this, but what happened to the idea of a mixed economy?

The idea of wanting to achieve both a thriving private sector and a strong public sector seems to have become passé. Now, we are told, you can have one but not the other. And private sector growth is good, and public sector growth is bad.

This week we have heard of outline political manifestos stressing the need for local authorities to show “value for money”. Probably alongside their statements on apple pie. Innocent enough, but it comes from the same political song sheet as “more for less”.

Now, most economists who don’t fear for their job security would tell you that economic activity rates are agnostic about any private vs public sector ideology. Except that the private sector pays its economists more (in general) than the public sector, and the piper calls the tune. Worse, in some parts of the public sector the ideological requirement is to promote the private sector alone.

So who is there left to champion public sector growth? We need to stop apologising for the quality of life improvements that come from full employment, from diverse workforces, from social goods, from environmental protection, from lifelong learning and from rich cultural lives. These are not nice-to-haves. And in a mixed economy these are not conditional on the beneficence of a few wealthy individuals in a light-touch regulated private sector characterised by growing inequalities.

But these days to argue for a mixed economy is so left-wing that you might as well raise a red flag and call for world revolution. However, having a mixed economy does not require a five year plan for bread, or national targets for pizza production.

Surely with the UK housing market in crisis, with youth unemployment at record high levels, and with the wider London area overheating while many parts of the UK shiver, the days of private-good and public-bad must surely end soon. What is needed is a return to a more balanced, more equal, fairer economy which returns to its rightful place as a servant of society, not its controller. Public service, in fact.

More … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy

Last month, six thousand teenagers using social media turned up one day at a shopping mall in São Paulo, Brazil, and started a new trend.

Urbanists will probably be interested in the article below, which describes this new trend in detail and explains the context of Brazilian cities where shared, public meeting spaces are said to be very few.

Link:
dissidentvoice.org/2014/01/rolezinho#more-52631

HT @scharlab Brazil Character Lab

Why is it so hard, and so expensive, to buy a good powered wheelchair?

The industry response is that they have high overheads, low volume sales, after-sale support, and costs associated with assessments. They claim that internet remote selling of so-called medical technologies such as powered wheelchairs may be cheaper, but the industry says it is unethical.

The EU Court considered these arguments and disagreed. The test case was in 2012 concerning the use of the internet to sell contact lenses in Hungary, which the Hungarian government tried to ban on health grounds. Details in the link below.

The EU Court also spelt out the difference between medicinal products (such as drugs) and medical technologies (such as wheelchairs) and decided that an open market in equipment is lower risk than in prescribed drugs.

This still begs the question whether a wheelchair should be seen as a medical device at all. What about skateboards then? Or tricycles? People can also hurt themselves when they don’t use these correctly.

But even with the current legal definitions, there is no EU legal reason for not having a vibrant, efficient, competitive market in power wheelchairs and similar equipment, just as there is a open market for your choice of a mobile phone. Of course, sometimes assessments are needed and these should be provided for separately.

And ethically, any assessment ought to be independent of the range of products that the assessing company provides.

Link:
http://medicaldeviceslegal.com/2010/12/05/eu-court-rules-on-internet-sales-restrictions-for-medical-devices/

For the most recent version of the Baldwinson & Duffy histories, please see this – Lives and Times (30 Apr 2014)

Cheers

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna [jobs website], said in the article below that ‘the UK jobs market was becoming a “tale of two halves”, with significantly more vacancies in the south.’

As a competitor jobs website, I wonder if LinkedIn UK directors would also want to comment?

Link:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/dec/23/job-vacancies-increase-north-south-divide

There is a debate underway about Victorian philanthropy and whether we would benefit from its revival in the twenty-first century. Where to start? Perhaps with a comment that this is not new.

The Victorian era seems to have fascinated the British ever since it finished. The following was written in the swinging sixties: “For some years now the economic trends of the late nineteenth century in Britain have caused acute controversy. They have been examined not only as features of a particular economic situation but also in the hope of throwing light on the sources of our more recent discontents …” (Ashworth, 1966).

In short, economically the mid 1800s in Victorian Britain saw a very high rate of economic growth, but this rate had considerably slowed down by the late 1800s and was followed by the Depression in the 1920s.

There is also a lot of published work on the role of the workhouse during the Victorian period and how it replaced the Elizabethan Poor Law which had codified outdoor relief, which roughly we might call care in the community, 1600s style. The workhouse also led to some of the early general hospitals as a form of spin-off, and increasingly the workhouse population was the elderly poor until the first general pension was introduced in the early 1900s.

In current political thinking we see the start of the welfare state as 1945 onwards with the birth of the NHS, however some academics would go back further to the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 introduced by Lloyd George. However, our current political discussions seem to separate out the NHS from welfare benefits.

Of current note, the state pension in 1908 was only paid to people over 70 years of age.

Perhaps less explored is the area where our Victorian forebears wrestled on the interactions between the private and the public sector. For example, the Victorians effectively nationalised the utility companies, taking them under municipal control initially, and later consolidating these into national boards. The logic for this legal shift was the inefficiency of private sector utilities.

Another example: the regulation of banks and of limited companies, where various scandals and bubbles brought the wilder excesses of the private sector under control. Similarly scandals in the running of workhouses, such as people being so deprived of food that they ate rancid horse bones, led to social reforms with national inspectors for minimum welfare standards.

Lastly, English Heritage would not appreciate a return to Victorian values. The Victorians were ruthless developers, demolishing the medieval heart of many towns and cities, putting up new buildings and roads left, right and centre.

Is there a conclusion to this question? Perhaps only that the economics, politics and social conditions of Victorian Britain were just as complicated as they are today, with no simple answers but with many useful lessons to be found within the detail.

Reference:
The Late Victorian Economy, by W. Ashworth, in Economica New Series, Vol. 33, No. 129 (Feb., 1966), pp. 17-33
Published by: Wiley
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2552270