and what I want to talk to you about is
how are we going to create the places
that we all need for tomorrow how do we
create them how do we how do we ensure
that all the ingredients are in place
and it’s partly to do because
transgenerational is very very important
in terms of at the kind of society that
we are experiencing over the next 20 or
30 years and it does require each one of
us to be part of the place agenda now we
have a term that we coin called the
place makers and often when we look
around place and I was delightful today
to arrive at the railway station walk
across to a very new campus which I know
all around is still very beautiful
Greenfield sides I’m quite sure that
there’s already the housing development
being planned for the next 20 or so
years to make it actually happening
however how many of you have actually
been involved in the discussion around
that in the designing of it in the kind
of requirements that you might want to
see happening in the next five or ten
years time as you move sort of different
stages and that’s really what I’m
talking about we’re talking about place
making rather than planning we’re
talking about vision we’re talking about
increasingly engaging with everybody in
the place the ingredients of a good
place I will talk you through the
different stages but most importantly
places are for people they’re not for
the architects they’re not for the
highway engineers and not for the
transportation engineers they are for
people so bear with me when I talk
through the various sections there the
average life expectancy today of her
young of her baby born is a hundred
years old
some of you will have seen probably the
notion of janitor Street Porter recently
last week I think it was where she lent
her support to living better elder for
people living to the age of 100 now it
is quite clear that we have on the one
hand an explosion in terms of older
people and at the same time we have in
especially in the Western world a
decrease in childbirth so we are we’re
living with a with many more older
people for much much longer and that
brings very much challenges with it and
I will come back to the first speaker
talks about Camp Hill and has a
resonance with plays as well and then
we’ll come back to that but it is it is
with that in mind and we need to talk
differently about our places but we also
need to involve more people in the
decision-making and currently very very
few people are involved when we’re
talking about 20 or so 30 year vision
for the place very few people are
actively involved in that kind of vision
now I have to say in Scotland we just
undergoing a review of the planning
system and it is quite interesting when
we heard evidence of various people who
are talking about where the houses of
the future to go where are the
transportation where is this very very
few people are actually involving
themselves in the in the discussion
until something is happening and then
it’s often very negative so we need to
get away from that notion we all are
part of this citizen active citizenship
and that means place makers the middle
years are a very important ones I was
really I was fascinated to hear that TED
talk by that young girl because young
people are excluded from place
decision-making and often the older
generation 65-plus who have many more
time on the hand are involved in the
place making agenda but the middle years
are very much absent partly because they
economically very active partly because
maybe they have family commitments and
both ends young people needing to parent
parenting and also the older generation
having to look after their their next
generation so the middle years are
absence from placemaking as well what we
want to see is more diverse diverse
voices coming into the place agenda so
how do we bridge the gaps between the
young people excluded not part of the of
discussion the older people very much
driving the Civic agenda and the middle
years too busy with other things and
therefore not able to participate in the
discussion I think for me what’s really
really important is again coming back to
the review Scotland was the first
country that has actually asked for
young people to be given a startegy role
in the place agenda
ie in the planning system to be
consulted on to be listened to because
rightly so young people live longest
with the decision that we are making
today and as was said earlier by the
speaker young people are very much able
to sink out of the box they are not
bothered with property values they’re
not bothered with you know em
infrastructure problems they can just go
on and find solutions and so I think we
need to get young people into the debate
so bridging the gaps is threefold one is
we need to address the kind of housing
requirements we need for the future
bearing in mind well that said about an
older aging population but actively
aging we need to involve young people
and I’m leaving climate change off the
agenda just for today because that is so
massive and I think it warns another
TechTalk so we all hear about livable
and and good places and we have
statistics forever
the most livable cities are often seen
as the most happy happiest places as
well and they are currently on an
ongoing sort of index but what I want to
see is rather than having an index in a
hierarchy every place every place should
be livable should be a happy place
should involve citizens should involve
everyone around so what we have at the
moment is for doing too many things the
same way that we’ve always done and then
we are thinking we get different kinds
of results and of course we won’t
because we’re doing the same thing so we
excluding the large majority of young
people we excluding the middle bulge and
we excluding and we only involving young
people as as and when Sue Mary Sue
school work or whatever so we need to
start doing things differently thriving
places need active citizens
active citizens of all ages active
citizens because in this day and age
where we have a huge technology leap in
terms of digitalization in terms of
being able to not having to wait for a
public meeting in the middle of of an
evening when you really rather be at
home in front of the television because
you’ve had such a busy day with
digitalization we can actually capture
much more of the of the input of people
and that’s what we need we need active
citizen we also have at the moment we’re
running a pilot in Galashiels
now those of you who come from Scotland
know Galashiels is a borders town and
has just recently undergone the largest
railway reopening in Europe the borders
railway that place is changing hugely
what was once a historically town of
textile industry and then slumped into
the called multiple index of deprivation
it’s slowly coming out again what we’re
doing there with our 400 volunteers who
are mainly from the planning
professional architects we’re working
over a four year period with education
Scotland Galashiels Academy Scottish
Borders Council and various other
community groups active in place to
understand each other’s notion about
plays so what we do is we working with s
2 to s six or 12 year old to 16 year
olds for them to learn about how place
functions have their own ideas using the
place maker up that’s coming out
stimulate a discussion but also at the
same time for young people to learn
about the decision-making structures
that’s the most important thing in a
democracy is about how and who and when
do we make decisions and who makes these
decisions and these young people are
working with the elected members in
Scottish Borders Council their workers
their community councils they learn
about what matters in this
decision-making process but it’s not
just one way it’s also the other way so
what we want to see is for young people
to teach their older counterparts about
the digital media around them how to use
your smartphone to then get into the
place agenda discuss
how you get more savvy around here
you’re you’re up so it’s a Vaughn is a
two-way street so it’s really trying to
build that in the generational dialogue
that is often so missing and it doesn’t
take much what we’re hoping in four
years time that those 12 year old so
then become 16 are going to fill the
places on the community council work
with their peers work with the older
generation together for the future of
their place that’s what we would like to
see and the start is being made and it’s
delightful to hear actually for the
steering group because it is obviously
funded so it has to have a steering
group the steering group will always
meet in Galashiels and it has young
people on the steering group alongside
education Scotland creative Scotland and
the various other professionals so
that’s the way I think to innovate
change things around place don’t ask the
professional to do it to you somebody
said that we’ve got to do it together
the other thing that I would say in
terms of the gap and the places that we
need to create for tomorrow is about the
pressure on homes most of you here are
under the age of 25 there are some real
real challenges out there around the
next house building stages and we know
in terms of what happens in London we
know that similar thing happen other
cities the pressure on what kind of
homes we are building where who we’re
building it for and of course aligned to
that is the explosion in the age
population which frees up some of the
older houses but only to pay for some of
the much-needed care costs which is of
course escalating so pressure is really
on on a new kind of model so there are
other ways of building communities and
I’ve only talked about some of the
examples that we have for example in in
Germany in doing and this is Tuebingen
and and I just what’s happening there is
it’s very much a chipping in city which
is in the south of Germany is the city
itself acquires brownfield sites parcels
of brownfield sites which is then hands
over to cooperative housing associations
and these kal housing associations can
be made up of communities of content
like can pill or they can be made up of
different families but what they all
have in common is the the community that
comes together to build maybe five or
six units on one place in one place is a
community that wants to live together
there’s a different 10-years mix 10
years from some of them are rented some
of them are mortgaged others have they
usually always always on brownfield
sites and this has been going on since
1985 and what it has done it has created
a community that really is surrounded by
shops has built workspaces and it really
really works and the cost of that is of
course a fraction to what you would get
if you build it in a traditional model
but more importantly just linking back
to climate change it is of course a
community that can is walkable cycle you
don’t just build these monolithic estate
Eddie and outside of the city further
and further removing us from the
services that we need so just a few
statistics here
the over 65 age group is going four
times faster than the general population
that’s just in the next 20 years we’re
going to see a lot more older people but
they are active so don’t let let’s not
forget that they’re not just going to go
into care homes they’re going to be
active for a lot longer so what do we
need for that in 20 years time the
number of people aged 80 and above will
double and the number of people over 90
over 90 will triple that requires a very
different approach to our homes and our
places so we heard earlier about Camp
Hill which I thought was delightful
because I’m a very keen advocate of
cohousing or as some people call it a
community reason tent where people come
together not far away from here in
Scotland we just build one and that is
in Portobello few people came together
to build their own cohousing excellent
often people say who housing model comes
from Denmark it actually originated in
Scotland and it originated exact
in Camp Hill the land was gifted by a
landowner to the community who wanted to
build for their and disabled children a
community that could look after them for
impurity and that’s what the owner of
Camp Hill gave that land to it Vint horn
that some of you may know again we’ve
back it was another community of intent
they all built on the same route of
Steiner principle of anthropology it is
really really important of course winter
none has made itself a name as a very
green and designer LED and sustainable
place we have lost to some extent in
Scotland that notion of building who
housing and we should have more I think
ambition because this is exactly what
the older faster aging population
requires it combats loneliness it
increases neighborhood net
neighborliness loneliness is going to be
the largest pillar over the next few
years on two fronts wanted because it is
it speeds up I think by 64% dementia and
at the same time obviously if you’re a
lonely person you don’t really feel
inspired about anything and it does help
to have a kind of Builder kind of places
that encourages neighborliness but
actually also in place we have a lot of
towns and cities that have lots and lots
of parcels of brownfield site ideally
suited to build these small cohousing
six to seven units in sweden in germany
in the netherlands about 20% of all
housing stock new build is co housing
and that is the future that we need to
embrace and it needs to be hard by this
discussion has we had by everybody so I
started off with what are the
ingredients of place in order to reach
social equity in order to have that
social equity I would say the challenge
is to bring in all the voices the seldom
heard voices
whether that’s young people the active
middle group or whether it’s further out
that are coming to Scotland from
whatever culture who want to live and
work here we have to bring everybody
together the other ingredients of a good
place is of course kind of respect and
the trust that we want to work together
and understanding differences but
actually acknowledging the difference is
good
and finally cater for the different
needs all our our leads and again that
brings back if we look at core housing
one of the one of the interesting aspect
of core housing is it’s also housing
that can be adopted so if you build more
off-site construction for example rather
than the traditional housing a building
model off-site construction can help us
to bring the cost down reduce the waste
52% of Scotland’s waste 52% is
construction based so we need to start
looking at things differently but also
in a way make sure that we have an
energy-efficient home that will help
people as they grows through different
ages and can be adopted so the challenge
I think for all of us is to be more
active in place find out where your
development plan sits right now be
involved in place and feel free and feel
free to contact my organization say I
want to know a little bit more how I can
get involved in that thank you [Applause]