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I'm sorry if this blogs keeps banging on about eco-towns but if this is the extent of the approach taken by Gordon Brown to sustainable development our Government is a mile away from grasping the issue. Why isn't he addressing cities first? After all, more than 50% of the global population lives in them now and this is set to rise to 75% by 2050, according to the United Nations. I look at where I live now, on the fringes of the City of London in Aldgate, as the perfect example of why Brown should look to major conurbations first before concocting wild plans of bolting on new towns across the UK.
My local population is exploding. There is already a high density of social housing in and around Aldgate (if you drive east down commercial Road it's the area directly south) but we are now seeing a major influx of the demographic beloved amongst estate agents, young professionals. What I'm witnessing, and have been a part of, is a huge land grab amongst developers to snap up sites, and old warehouse buildings, and throw up as many flats as possible up.
I've done a back of the envelope sum and worked out that this decade, 2000-2010, will see between 1,200 to 1,700 new units being developed in the immediate vicinity (approximately one square mile) of my flat. That consists of refurbishments or the rebuilding of existing buildings (I'm in one of those) and two major developments just west of where I live, on Gowers Walk. There is the City Quarter, being developed by Berkeley Homes and currently under construction, and Goodman's Fields, a major development planned for later this decade.
At the risk of sounding like an estate agent (I'm not trying to drive up the value of my flat , honest) this is just the type of city centre zone where development should be encouraged. Brownfield land, great transport links, a mixed ethnic community etc etc. What is currently being planned is almost a town in itself, and it's market driven, rather than by top-down dictat. What is needed to really drive sustainability here is co-ordination, so as to bring together an energy strategy for the separate development and to stitch together the different communities (ie us middle classed white professionals and poorer immigrant communities from the Indian sub-continent).
What emerges from this example if not a easy sound bite for Brown to latch on to but a messier reality, where growth areas are dictated by the economic and social evolution of cities (or towns) rather than the pin in the map approach taken by Labour. It's smart growth, a phrase coined in the Blueprint for a Green Economy report written by the Conservative Party's Blueprint for a Green Economy group last month. And it's happening right now.
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