ULI TRENDS: Public and private sectors urged to create ‘new narrative’ for density

The public and private sectors need to collaborate to showcase best practices in dealing with the challenges of urbanisation and density, according to Isabel Dedring, London's deputy mayor for transport.

‘It's the responsibility of both the public and private sectors to form a new narrative for density,’ she told delegates at the ULI Trends conference in London on Tuesday. ‘It's our general responsibility to educate the community…we can get there without it, but it will be painful and it will take 10 times longer.'

The word 'density' has negative connotations, conjuring up images of single-use housing blocks and even ghettos, ULI Europe CEO Lisette van Doorn acknowledged in her introductory address. ‘But 89% of our members believe that density has become important over the past five years. That is the main theme for this conference and for our work over the next couple of years. We believe that good density offers great advantages to cities, makes them thrive, better connected and with a lower carbon footprint.'

Lessons have only been partly learned
As population growth continues and the world urbanises, as new cities emerge and older cities are re-populated, policy makers face the chalenging question of how to accommodate more people, Greg Clark, senior fellow at ULI Europe, told the conference during the presentation of his latest report 'Density: drivers, dividends and debates.'

Picking up on the negative connotations of 'density' and 'doomed' examples of ghettofication of certain groups of the community, Clark argued that the lessons have only been partially learned. 'There is a long memory of failed density projects which creates political and civic resistance.'

A gap exists between the negative attitudes to density in the minds of politicians and citizens and what the real estate industry has come to regard as general knowledge and broad insights, Clark said. 'There is a need for a fundamental education programme and debate about which cities have densified effectively. We need to provide evidence through case studies and create a more positive agenda around density.'

New normal
One of the key issues real estate professionals need to take into account when dealing with urbanisation and density is that change is the 'new normal', the conference heard. ‘There are four things I have learned in terms of my thinking about the future,’ Chris Luebkeman, fellow and director of research & innovation at UK-based engineering group Arup told the conference. ‘Change is constant; the future is fiction – that is, we collectively write and create the future by collaborating with people and collecting stories; indeed, participation is what shapes our world; and everything inconvenient will change.’

Luebkeman pointed to the idea of the village as a mental map of how a growing number of people want to live with their families and extended families. This includes old people who he preferred to describe as ‘elders’. ‘In the village, the elders are contributors. We need to move our mental map; the burden of the ageing society and view it as the opportunity of the elders: for example, to take care of the kids. Society is remembering the values of the village and we are seeing greater desire to have the village opportunity.'

Connectivity and accessibility are key in today's increasingly dense cities, Luebkeman said. ‘Place matters to humans. The physical world matters more than ever …In Australia we came up with a motto: smaller homes, bigger lifestyles.'