City or Suburbs That is the Question - TrustNews Summer 1999
For the first time since the post War period of reconstruction, we have a government which, as a matter of policy, is promoting the rebuilding of cities. This shift in attitudes may not appear very significant but if the intention is really to build or rebuild cities then it would require a fundamental reversal of the assumed values of 'city and country' which says that cities, except old cities and Garden Cities, are bad, and country, as in the English Village model for housing development, is good.
This question was raised in Winchester by the recent conference [October 1998] titled 'Urban Living: putting the heart back into our towns and cities', organised by Hampshire County Council, Southampton and Portsmouth City Councils, and two of the largest volume house builders, Alfred McAlpine and Bellway Urban Renewal.
John Gummer, giving the keynote address, spoke passionately about cities as the place of choice in which to live and as the model to which we should aspire for building communities for the, probably, 5 million new households which will be needed by the beginning of the next century. Referring to Continental Europe, he spoke of societies which are proud to be city dwellers and have, since the end of WW2, progressively developed the art of making good cities. Yes they have made mistakes, but they have not abandoned the ambition just because it wasn't perfect at the first attempt. He knew what he meant by city. It wasn't a matter of size or density, or even its visual character but essentially the substance of a city exists in that very particular physical form, developed specifically to enable the delicate balance of public and private worlds to gain by their close proximity, and thus provide the proper environment for a civilised society. City means just that, civilised. And it is very different from even a dense and active suburb.
There is a real difference between the two conditions, not revealed in how they look but crucial to how they work. The difference between city and suburb is significant. The essence of city is in the idea, it is the reason for coming together, for creating the social space which is the public realm, and public institutions. The suburbs are peripheral, not fully engaged because the intention is to escape from the public into domestic privacy. The modern housing estate is developed from the search for a world modelled on individuality and that in turn is a fantasy modelled on the English country house and its landscape. It is often said that English cities are not really cities but collections of "Villages" and "Suburbs". This may well be a more accurate description of what we have, what has accrued over time, but it is a concept based on what places 'look like' rather than what they are, in terms of real life. It is no surprise therefore to find that, when used as a model, the result is a reproduction of mainly visual characteristics, a stage set, like Poundbury. Even the more serious reference to the village as part of the new town concept was little more than a gesture because it could never be a viable social or economic unit.
The serious proposal is that to provide a civilised environment for the 4 or 5 million new households to be formed and many existing ones needing to be re-built in one of the most densely populated areas of Europe, cities, have to become the place of choice to live in - not the place to escape from. They were so once and can be again. But the catch is they have to be very good cities.
Making good cities is something England is not very familiar with. We know what 'good cities' look like from our foreign holidays but that is just a romantic dream to be remembered through the photo album. We also know of 'good cities' in these islands but this is because they derive their value and prestige from being old and well preserved examples of another age. Neither examples are very useful as models for building new.
Evidence of a turn towards the light of the 'good city' is, in fact, hard to find, if it is there at all. At the same conference at which John Gummer's passion fired the audience of hard bitten, local government officers and developers to maybe raise half an eye above the defensive trench of everyday planning, the examples presented were, in every sense, suburban. The fact that some were four storey apartment blocks with 'classical' references and no front gardens doesn't alter the fact that they contribute nothing to the space or sociability of the public realm, nor the culture or quality of city life - and that was the best example. In fact so many examples presented as 'a major contribution to urban renewal' are merely old style spec. housing put closer together and nearer the street.
Government policy has at least instigated some research, a rare thing in the area of urban design, which has been considered by the Government Task Force, under Lord Rogers. This could be a turning point in the culture of English society, a return to the ideal of the City and away from the unattainable rural idyll which in reality is so often nothing more than a 'Brookside Close' housing estate. I hope it really is a new beginning, a start on the long haul towards re¬learning what a good city could be, but more importantly a serious commitment to the difficult task of how to make a good city for the beginning of the 21st century. And that includes Winchester.