Abercrombie's London Plan 1945

The current London Plan maintains the centralising strategy pursued in the Capital since the big bang of the 1980s despite the polycentric ambitions of Boris Johnson’s mayoral campaigns. Areas in London are becoming increasingly mono-functional and commercial sites are being consolidated to provide larger and larger scale developments. An Edge debate examined whether:

— This will lead towards a more or less sustainable and resilient London

— Where London’s value lies and whether scale has inherent value

— A successful decentralised model can be envisaged with a more balanced and less energy-intensive locational/spatial strategy

— London can develop viable ‘Lifetime neighbourhoods’ as proposed by the Mayor?

The debate drew on recent research into distributed workspaces on the outer edges of metropolitan areas (‘Liveable lives’, 2010), the role of place (‘Why place still matters in the digital age’ 2011) [see downloads below] and the impact of scale in workplaces (forthcoming report, 2012)

Debate held: 30th October 2012
City Hall, London

Chair:
Nicky Gavron – London Assembly member and former Deputy Mayor of London

Speakers:
Ziona Strelitz – Director ZZA Responsive User Environments
Michael Edwards – Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
Ben Rogers - Director of the Centre for London

Downloads:
Edge debate 51 London redistributed? invitation
Edge Debate 51_London redistributed? - Debate notes
Edge Debate 51 London redistributed? Handout
Edge Debate 51 London redistributed? Speakers
Liveable Lives [2010]
Why place still matters in the digital age [2011]
London redistributed? Michael Edwards’ presentation
The 1999 UCL report which gave birth to London Overground / ringrail / orbirail - London’s spatial economy: the dynamics of change (1999)
AJ Footprint review 8th November 2012