The theme of the final day of Smart City Futures - which took place in Salford yesterday - was ‘the new conversation’.
‘New’ meant not only uniting people who don’t come together as much as they should – universities and their local communities – but also framing conversations in a …
Posted on Friday, 24th July 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
What would you do if you ever had the honour of meeting royalty? Better still, what would you do if a member of the royal family were to pay you a visit to see the fruits of your labour, a project that your community had put its very heart and …
Posted on Friday, 24th July 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
It’s true they were. Right to start with the young that is. To start with Sure Start, Children’s Centres, investing in primary education, community nurseries and tax credits. These interventions all have the right intentions at their core – to ensure that children born to poorer parents have the same …
Posted on Wednesday, 22nd July 2009 | This entry has 1 comment(s)
The Conservatives and Labour have both been setting out their plans for banking reform over the past week or two. First we had the government's ‘Reforming Financial Markets' White Paper - http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/reforming_financial_markets.htm - with Alistair Darling setting out proposals that seem incredibly modest, relative to the scale of the …
Posted on Tuesday, 21st July 2009 | This entry has 2 comment(s)
‘Rural proofing' is a deceptively simple concept. It's a government commitment that as policy is developed and implemented, policy makers should: think about possible differential impacts in rural areas; assess what these might be; and then plan and deliver appropriate adjustments.
The Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) has recently reviewed …
Posted on Friday, 17th July 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
Here's a conundrum: help your town or city survive the recession and create new jobs and opportunities. Do it with fewer resources and, while you're about it, see if you can eliminate poverty.
One answer may be a rediscovery of interventionist municipalism. This is a throwback - or maybe …
Posted on Wednesday, 15th July 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
We all know that public policies these days 'should' be based on evidence; but I'm not clear about when and how the full might of rational thought is best brought into the public policy arena. We seem sometimes to have mislaid the 'politics' part of 'policy', in our reliance on …
Posted on Tuesday, 14th July 2009 | This entry has 0 comment(s)
The Rural Shops Alliance, National Housing Federation and British Beer and Pub Association estimate 1,000 country pubs and village shops could close during the coming year due to the shortage of affordable homes in rural areas.
It’s clear many villages are becoming the equivalent of ghost towns and their communities …
Posted on Thursday, 9th July 2009 | This entry has 1 comment(s)