People Make Cities: What makes a successful city?

What makes a successful city?

The old urbanist Lewis Mumford says “perhaps the best definition of the city, in its highest aspects, is to say that it is a place designed to offer the widest facilities for significant conversation.”

Conversation… That might be the essence of the city.

Conversations might take place electronically of course but texting is hardly conversation. They happen on street corners, at water coolers, in queues at the post office, on the bus but the best conversations are over a coffee, or a pint, or lunch and as a society we have become very sophisticated at creating settings that help us meet and speak to each other.

The late David Williamson of Matthew Algie, Glasgow’s great old coffee roasters, used to say of Tinderbox “nobody ever goes into a coffee shop because they really need a coffee – the coffee is just an excuse for something else – a date, somewhere to read the paper, wait for a train, do some emails, get out of the rain or the cold, have a conversation.”

Aristotle said “Man is by nature a social animal.” I prefer the intent behind Jimmy Reid’s alternative that “man is social being”.

One of the marks of a good city is the success with which it creates opportunities for people to have conversations with each other.

Conversations are best in the right place and cities offer the theatrical sets and backdrops that dramatise these close interactions.

You can do it in the back of a taxi but it’s the small scale social spaces that occupy the very special zone between the private space of the home an the civic space of streets, squares and plazas.

I imagine that all planners, architects and urbanists recognise Nolli’s plan of Rome. But I’m guessing that quite a few here aren’t familiar so I’ll indulge myself in something that was for me an important influence.

In my first year of architecture at the Mac I was part of a group project that elected to make a Nolli plan of Maryhill Road. Apart from the obvious public spaces on that street like the Community Central Halls and Queens Cross Church, we decided to include all of the pubs, cafes and chip shops as well. And it was quite a challenge because we had to go in to ALL of them and make a quick survey. Now, it would have been rude to go into a bar without buying a drink, so that’s what we did, from 10.00am sharp. I’m not sure how many of you will be familiar with such establishments as The Viking, the Caber Feidh…

I wish I still had the drawing but the point is that it was a brilliant way for us, as callow students to get to know the place beyond the skin-deep impression of streets and buildings.

In later years we designed lots of bars, and coffee shops, some nightclubs, hotels, airport lounges, meeting rooms, tea points, staff restaurants and pretty much everything else in between. We realised that these small-scale stage sets are the places that directly connect the real people that inhabit a city to each other and to the BIG architecture that gives a city its architectural form.

We talk a lot about social spaces and as a business we became good at creating spaces where people are happy to spend time, talking with each other, people watching, revelling in just being there.

Glasgow was a late-comer to the party that cut and pasted high street brands throughout the country. But eventually we got all of the objectionable Wutherspoons, Slug and Lettuces, Yates’s Wine Lodges, Walkabouts, and more recently 5 Guys and Byron’s that exist everywhere else. The property and investment people probably think that Glasgow has been extremely successful in attracting “retail brands”. We often hear that this is the second or third biggest retail destination outside London. Is it anything to be proud of?

The places where we meet are essential parts of the cultural fabric of our cities. People sometimes think that the culture is only what happens after the pre-theatre menu but for me the social spaces are the theatre. In our culture these little public spaces are how we welcome our visitors, how we celebrate and pass the time with each other.

I’ll go back to that key word in the title of this seminar – what makes a successful city…Success… Interesting that you wouldn’t choose to just ask the question “what makes a good city”? Implicit in the choice of the word success is the idea of competition. Some cities are successful and others are not – so how do you measure that?

I don’t really approve of the idea that you have to put a number against everything in order to figure out who is the winner. But I understand the reality that nowadays cities are, if not movable, at least flexible and changeable and very much in competition with each other for the spoils of investment, tourism and the taxes of their citizens.

Cities are made of people… (we know that because People make Glasgow.)

Where people meet, they will do business…that’s why cities grew up around the busiest crossroads, harbours and river crossings.

The function of a city is to create close face-to-face connections between as many people as possible.

How do you get to know a city? Not one thing, lots of overlapping experiences and moreover memorable interactions with other people. Busy is good and dense is good. Density creates conflict and energy (the roar of the crowd) and from that comes creativity.

• Communication
• Accessibility
• Safety

The role of architecture and design: You can’t build a city without design – it’s the process by which we plan what we are going to build but architects and designers should also be good guardians of quality and continuity.

Commitment to quality. Care, effort. Self-awareness. Didactic, owns the narrative, tells the stories.

The role of brand and distinctiveness: To be successful a city has to be distinct. The recognition of that distinctiveness is what has become known as its “brand”.

Here’s a checklist of some of the variables: Pick and mix… from American Place Branding guru Bill Baker:

• Architecture and design
• Attractions
• Celebrity and fame
• Climate
• Cuisine
• Culture
• Emotional benefits and feelings
• Ethnicity
• Events
• History
• Industry and local products
• Influence and power
• Landmarks and icons
• Legends and myths
• Location and access
• Natural environment
• Nightlife
• People
• Personality and values
• Physical attributes
• Social benefits
• Sport

In order to resist being subsumed in global homogeneity cities need to work hard to recognise and celebrate their uniqueness.

The thing that’s clear to me though is that you don’t have to tick all of these boxes. Even a small amount of a very strong tasting ingredient can dominate – and that could be positive or negative. How many Charles Rennie Mackintosh buildings are there in Glasgow? 5? 6? How many buildings by Gaudi are there in Barcelona? How many Beefeaters standing around in London? How many body snatchers in ancient Edinburgh?

Competition

Cities are in competition… locally and internationally. Perhaps competition is good after all. Civic competition is given spice by the close personal associations that we all have with our places – the cities that we chose to inhabit and those that we choose to visit, become strongly associated with our personal identities. We see it in our choice of football teams and by that measure alone Manchester must be one of the most successful, with 2 eponymous teams, perhaps closely followed by Milan and Dundee. Funny that there isn’t a “London United” or a “Glasgow United”.

Places should not be homogenous. We need not be flattered by the addition of a Carluccio’s. It’s no more than corporate imperialism.

“The level of esteem that a city’s name evokes has a direct impact on the health of its tourism, economic development, prestige and respect.” Often this is uncontrolled, random, unmanaged…

The branding experts always say that perception and reality should be in alignment but actually for real success reality has to exceed perception. I still found Venice, Rome, Berlin, Now York, Shanghai, Kolkata, better and more amazing that I had expected.

Distinct location, geography, economy, climate, history, culture, religion, architecture produces the city’s actual character… and all of this is usually expressed through the people that you meet there.

“70 – 80% of all American cities have NO dominant image at all in the public mind. Thus finding a core differentiating asset…becomes even more important”

Being different:

• The people
• Physical attributes
• Tangible benefits
• Intangibles

“Place branding is a team sport, best played by people of all age and interests with a healthy dose of what’s best for the common good – and with an out of town coach…”

Internal pride from external approval

“Cities often have a reality problem that city leaders prefer not to recognise”

Simon Anholt

• The nature of perception and reality
• The relationship between objects and their meanings
• Mass psychology

“Every place on earth wants to do something to manage its international reputation”

Is it all just about a few simple clichés?

• Edinburgh: You’ll have had your tea
• Liverpool: you do do design do you?

Mental pictures…

• Cape town
• Beiruit
• Berlin
• Wolverhampton
• Detroit

Those fundamental stereotypes may be unfair but fundamentally affect our behaviour towards people, places and products… at least until you have to opportunity to experience them, to visit the place, to meet the people first hand. Then you can make up your own mind.

Unforeseen beauty, kindness, empathy, drama.

The discipline of strategic branding has at least taught us that consistency is important.

The stakeholders have to be co-ordinated – impossible to co-ordinate everyone but at least the city agencies should be on the same page.

In spite of all that thoughtfulness there’s an Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas, a Statue of Liberty in Tokyo, a Parthenon in Nashville, and in China, if you know where to look there’s an Stonehenge, A Washington Capitol, an Arc de Triomphe.

Politicians and leadership:

• Energetic and committed
• Autonomous
• Supported by electorate and executive team
• Supportive and effective service providers

Cities that can change:

Is this a successful City?

• Remote?
• Under-populated?
• Unhealthy?
• Poorly educated?
• Economically moribund?
• Lousy internet?

YET it is good to be here. We remember what it was to be great and that is sustaining. There is hope…

Universal services are usually provided by the civic government. They start out private and exotic – only available to the wealthy – but eventually we all got:

• Water and drains
• Waste disposal
• Roads
• Power and light
• Healthcare and hospitals

Properly fast internet ought to be next. It should be the current equivalent of roads, railways, canals and motorways of previous eras. Ironically, here, in The Merchant City, it is lamentable and it’s apparently because within this exchange area The City Council and University of Strathclyde have their own ‘big pipe’ intranets, making the rest of us too insignificant for the private suppliers to be very interested.

Virtual is fine but actual is the only place where we can taste and touch and smell and feel.

Vikas Mehta; wrote about The Street: A Quinissential Social Public Space. I think that you have to go smaller and into much finer detail but for him the basic building block of cities is the street.

He says:

“… one of the cardinal roles of the street, as public space, is to provide a setting for range of active and passive social behaviours… (without them) our cities and towns would be no more than agglomerations of privatised spaces and buildings, devoid of the space for the individual to be a complete citizen.”

“Good cities are places of social encounter. Creating spaces that encourage social behaviour in our neighbourhoods and cities is an important goal of urban design.”

“These encounters-the exchange of ideas and information-create innumerable possibilities to make innovation and growth possible.”

“Human beings receive fulfilment and enjoyment through interactions and contacts with others of their species. In sociological terms, our well being depends on a range of primary and secondary relationships”

So interaction is about fun as well as the economy but fundamentally when we come in contact with others we reinforce our social group. Its what gives us our identity, our individuality.

Which brings me back to homogenisation… 10 years ago a think tank called the New Economic Foundation published a report that coined the expression clone town Britain

The report stated: “Many town centres that have undergone substantial regeneration have even lost the distinctive facades of their high streets, as local building materials have been swapped in favour of identical glass, steel and concrete store fronts that provide the ideal degree of sterility to house a string of big, clone town retailers.”

NEF policy director Andrew Simms said: “Clone town Britain kind of creeps upon you – suddenly you turn round and your town is looking the same as every other town.”

The NEF report claimed that what it views as an ‘assault’ on the character of town centres “has been aided by planning and regeneration decisions that have drawn shoppers away from the high street and created a retail infrastructure hostile to small independent businesses”.

The report pointed out that:

• general stores are closing at the rate of one a day;
• between 1997 and 2002 specialist stores like butchers, bakers and fishmongers shut at the rate of 50 per week; and
• some 20 traditional (non-chain) pubs are closing per month.

The think-tank also identified what it termed a threat to “distinctive” local shops in the guise of the new breed of “micro-format” supermarket stores that have begun to replicate in high streets.

The question is whether our planning authorities need to do anything about it. When the conversation comes up the focus of attention is invariably Tesco, and the other mega-grocers but I’m more concerned by the little ones – Pret, Starbucks, Nero, Costa, Witherspoons, near here… Greggs, Pizza Hut, Jamie’s, Carluccios, Yates.

They are the enemy and you shouldn’t encourage them.

And why should planning policy allow these cuckoo clone brands do supplant unique local businesses? Would it be wring to introduce a bit of protectionism to the high street? I mean if there are controls on the design of your shopfront then why shouldn’t there be control over what (or who) is behind it?

Cities are focal points for specialisation.

The role of technology: You probably think I’m railing against technology. It is good to be off-grid a bit sometimes.

I suspect that usually, when you see someone tweeting as they cross the road, or texting in a restaurant, they are probably communicating with someone who is less than a mile away and it just adds to the idiomatic mix of communications that enrich our culture. It won’t stop them talking to each other.

But it will filter and package their language in a way that must diminish diversity.

I’m not so happy about that but I’m a lot less happy about the fact that 100m from here businesses struggle to get more than 10mb download speed and uploads at peak times are a complete joke.

So if anyone would like to have a conversation in the café downstairs about whom to talk to make that happen, then I’d be happy to speak to you!

Thank you.