← The Urbanist
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- [00:12]
A
Hello and welcome to a special edition.
- [00:14]
B
Of the Urbanist, which was recorded live from the rooftop of Brookfield's recently opened Mayfair property at 77 Grosvenor street in London. I'm your host, Andrew Tuck. Coming up to mark the recent release of Monocle's Urban Livability Index, we chaired a panel discussion that to unpack the soft and hard bits that make up urban excellence. Joining me on the panel was Tamsin Ace, the director of East Bank, London's newest cultural mega district in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Sebastian Ricard, director, Wilkinson Air Architects and shepherd of the recent Battersea Power Station redevelopment. And the man behind the index, Monaco's foreign editor Alexis Self, joined too. Plus, we got some answers from a selection of other industry professionals in attendance. What they think makes a livable city. So let's dive straight into our panel discussion right here on the Urbanist with me, Andrew Tuck.
- [01:14]
A
Well, welcome to today's show live from the rooftop of Brookfield's Mayfair property at.
- [01:20]
B
77 Grosvenor street in London.
- [01:23]
A
We're going to start with looking at Paris and why it performed so well. Lex, we're putting you on the spot immediately. You've helped mastermind the survey this year and although we had category winners, we had an overall winner as well. And we've put Paris in that top spot. There's always an argument, whoever gets to the top spot, readers write in and say, no, it should have been our city. Why in the end did you award Paris this prize?
- [01:49]
C
Bon soir, Andrew. Lovely to be here. As a native Londoner, it pains me to sing Paris's praise from a beautiful London rooftop. However, when it comes down to it, I think Paris is the kind of apotheosis of a monocle livable city. And I think that's why I kept coming back to it when I was compiling the survey. We've spoken about why the survey was begun and as a kind of reaction to other surveys that were very data heavy and focused on particular things over others. For us, we do focus on the data and we do focus on those key and classic indicators of livability, but we also focus on other things that perhaps those other surveys don't take into account. Things like architecture and culture and kind of general joy of living in a place. And with Paris, it performs well in all the kind of key areas, healthcare, education, business. But then it's so beautiful and it's almost kind of unrivaled cultural offering. And then, you know, as the French so often are skilled at condensing this idea or this feeling Into a pithy phrase, joie de vivre, you know, the joy of living. And I think Paris is just a joyful city and a kind of that idea made manifest.
- [03:03]
A
Well, I think also that we like it because independence of companies, retail still the opportunity to do many things. And also these charged moments which I'm looking forward to speaking about to Tamsin in a moment where there's a moment of proper collective change in a city where something happens that moves the dial for Paris. There have been a few of those, the Olympics, especially. Sebastian, you're at Wilkinson Air, but I think we can guess by the name Sebastian Ricard that maybe you have some thoughts on Paris and France. Do you think they're doing a good job?
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D
I think it's very interesting because I'm exactly the reverse. I'm actually French, living in London.
- [03:39]
A
Welcome, we want you here.
- [03:40]
D
Exactly. And I've been here for about 30 years, so kind of got the good balance of culture. I think for me as a French person, Paris is too perfect. So I love Paris. It's a city I've grew up. I find in a way the beautiful part of Paris, one of the things which stop it from evolving. So I think you're totally right in your survey. It's got all the right ingredient. And I think the Olympic Games actually were fantastic. And actually I was there during all the European Games.
- [04:06]
A
One of the few Parisians, French people.
- [04:09]
D
Actually, I actually did go to event every day and who has the cheapest holiday you could do? And that's what the French people do. Well, and what I mean by that is actually coming back to your point, of all the ingredients, all the big event is that actually the public sector in France is very strong. And so they managed to organize things which make a big shift in the way a city could be approached, which we struggle more in the kind of English system, in a sense that they managed to enact major projects in a way that we struggled. So when we talk about the Elizabeth line, which everybody loves now we know how long it took when we talk about HS2, you know, we are fully involved. We're doing the whole common station in there. It takes forever. It's very complex. There's a lot of negotiation. It gets delayed, gets scrutinized, it gets changed. I think the French system is organized very differently. You know, when you have a big wish to do something, there is a very strong political backing, whichever party it is from, and it goes ahead. And that's something we struggle a bit more in the English system. And that makes A big difference I think in the way you can help transforming a city. Of course a city anyway, like Paris has all those amazing ingredients for a long, long time. I do prefer personally a bit of misorganization and mess and I love London for that personality.
- [05:21]
A
I was going to say welcome to London. You've chosen the right spot. Special Tamsen. It's like we thought about this show because how that for queuing up you. Because legacy from the Olympics, the impact of these big events tell people who don't know about the project you're involved with because you're building off that legacy in extraordinary ways.
- [05:41]
E
Yeah, we're a key part of that Olympic and Paralympic legacy. East bank is the UK's newest cultural education quarter, making its home on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. And just to let you know who those kind of key partners are, we have UCL who are forming UCL east and they've been open on the Olympic park since 2023. The next partner that joined was London College of Fashion who brought all six of their campuses into one building. Again on the Olympic Park, Southwest Wales. East joined us just in February this year and they've created a new mid scale dance venue with amazing studios and facilities that they don't have in any of their other spaces. VA East Storehouse just opened last month to rave reviews which was opening up access to their quarter of a million objects and a thousand archives. Really turning that sort of idea of the museum inside out. And we're just midway through our journey. So we still have the VA East Museum that will open in spring 2026 and our final partner is the BBC Music Studios. So really key, huge anchor institutions who are choosing to make either new homes or bring their entire operations to East London to learn from the amazing creative communities of East London, but also to transform and change their institutions.
- [06:54]
A
Now we did a nice story about VA east, the Storehouse, what a project. A colleague of mine today was saying they wanted to go and see it and apparently the queues are now unbelievable. So it's in the old media center that was part of the Olympic Games. Taken individually, these projects are of course all extraordinary. But collectively I think what's been amazing in London over the last 30 years is how you almost move the focus of the city to different places. You know, 30, 40 years ago people talked about going up west because everything was in the West End. That's where we are now is where you came for going out to a club, you know, entertainment, cinemas, theater. But now you could spend all your time out East Just tell me how much is that in your your mind about a kind of once in a generation re engineering of our city.
- [07:44]
E
I mean, I feel very honored to be part of that transformation. The whole focus of the Olympic Games is about transforming East London and sort of moving the gravity of London East. If you come to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park, there is so much more that you can do. You're not just going for one thing. If you want to, you can come and shop at Westf Field. There's amazing transport links. I really thought about that in terms of the amazing sporting venues. You can swim, you can watch football, you can go to concerts, but you can also study and learn. You can work, you can train, but you can also engage with some of the world's most well known and established arts organizations. Whether it's an exhibition at the VNA or a dance performance at Sanford as well. So with the BBC Music Studios, they all be, you know, the home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC singers. Like, you can come and spend a day East London on the Olympic Park. A night, a weekend, a week. There was so much on offer and what that kind of investment has done has drawn other businesses to the area as well. As we know we have aber voyage on the park we have here east, which is the innovation district. We have Stratford Theatre Royal. We have other venues now who are looking at what's happening in Stratford in particular and going that's the place that I need to be because of the innovation and the partners and also the way that east bank is working. That a key difference to this partnership is that we're coming to be together. We're not coming just to be good neighbors and sort of wave at each other from our windows. We're here to build programs that we couldn't do elsewhere. We're here to scale up that offer and we're also here to learn from the extraordinary communities that we're being part of. So it's not that we're just landing now and arriving east. We've been working in East London for the last 10 years to look at programs that are needed to learn from the experts that we're joining and, and to create programmes that are really different and needed and to broaden access for.
- [09:26]
A
Our audiences and we can come back to this again. But I think the other thing that hit me when I spoke to yourself and when I went out to see the VA team is like people's lives change if they have a proximity to something. So it's great to say London has all the Museums and, you know, in the museum district. But when it's on your doorstep and when you think the access routes into it are simple, somebody living in a neighborhood where they hadn't thought of being a dancer or an artist, the barriers fall down.
- [09:56]
E
They do. I mean, everything that east bank stands for is about creating opportunities for our East London communities. Lots of promises were made back in 2005 when the bid went in for London to host the Games about what it would offer. And we feel very much that we are here to honour those promises and make sure that there are jobs, that there are routes into education, there are places to live and that there are things to do and see, and that these big institutions are here to kind of add to that creative community and bring their kind of profile, their resource and their networks, but also to kind of really amplify what's there already.
- [10:28]
A
Sebastian, a quick one for you. When you think about the work that you're doing, maybe just tell people a couple of projects you're working on at the moment as yourself and as Wilkinson Air, and then maybe just reflect for a second on what do you think that does to a city. How are you thinking about, again, not being individual projects, but about this kind of agenda for the city?
- [10:46]
D
Well, I think one of the key things which hopefully make a success of a city is the mixed city and the density. Mixed city and density are two very important points. When you were talking about the Olympic Park, I think if you help by creating a mixed city, and I think it's not only a mixed city horizontally. We learned, of course, for the past 70 years that actually zoning is the worst thing which can happen. You know, having people who have to travel far to go to a museum is the worst thing to do. Because, yes, as you say, you don't get connected with this opportunity, but it's the same thing. If you have to struggle to go to work, well, you see that even more since COVID it's a problem. So I think the mixed city is very important, but do it vertically as well. So, speaking about projects, you know, we're obviously working on Citibank and Canary Wharf, and I think one of the things that I'm very excited about is actually trying to transform vertically buildings as well. Thinking that you're going to stack a series of office floor and and they're all going to do the same all the way up a building. It's crazy. And of course those buildings are there, we should do the best with them. And how do you transform them? How do you make them Exciting for people to go there. And I think if you can create that kind of mini village also vertically when you have that challenge, I think that's a very interesting point. And of course it's the same thing. Other projects, of course have been involved in Batasipoa station for quite a few years. And what we were trying to do there, it was in the building. We have a lot of function in the building itself, but we also have this kind of mini village, you know, this kind of 10 minutes walk where you can do everything in 10 minutes. So you can't do it everywhere. But trying to bring that as much as we can in city, I think is a good solution. And you are more healthy. You were talking about to be healthy if you can walk, if you have to take the stairs when you can, to go to work, to do things, rather than jumping in the cab or jumping in a car or taking the tube, I think it's even better. So I think all those things help.
- [12:29]
A
And for listeners, that's what Sebastian and Wilkinson have done at Battersea. Another thing, a bit like Tamden, moving the focus a little bit to the south of the river to Battersea. Even friends who work there say that when you're there, looking back at London on the north bank, it's changed their perspective about how they see the city and feel. But you got the transit changed, you got the usage of buildings changed, you changed people's perception of a space. I want to bring Lex back in because we need to make sure he feels responsible for everything that's in the magazine. This culture question. Culture is of course art and dance, but there's another kind of dancing which is nightclubs and bars. This nighttime economy is vital to us. It is if we're going to survive and thrive. Who did you give the award to for getting on your dancing shoes?
- [13:18]
C
Well, unfortunately it wasn't Newcastle, it was Athens. I mean, this all relates to everything we've been talking about. And again, why Paris has these jewels kind of ready made in the city's fabric is that actually urban planning on the scale that Haussmann did in the 19th century is very difficult to do today. And Paris was designed and you look at Barcelona and all these cities that had these grand redesigns at that time period. And it was designed so that people could walk and have public space. And it's still today. These are held up as the most brilliant examples of that kind of urban planning. And same with nightlife. You know, it's something that grows organically and then is often hampered by Other developments, most obviously gentrification. And you know, that's especially been the case here in London. I think Athens, it's going through a quite a familiar cycle that we've seen in lots of cities where it's a cheap place and artists arrive and young people arrive and then they're the kind of the vanguard or the shock troops of this kind of cultural diversification and gentrification. And they're followed by hospitality ventures and short term lets. And then it becomes a bit of an issue. I think that Athens has a couple of things that mean that it is kind of protected from the type of nightlife pacification or whatever that we've seen in places like New York and London and even Berlin to an extent. Although nightlife is such a part of Berlin's culture that it's. That is actually protected by the government. Without going too deep into the history, the Greek junta, I mean that's within living memory. And people are very protective over their freedoms in Greece and especially in Athens. And then in 1994, actually this very stern faced Greek minister of public safety or something, Interior minister imposed this law, tried to impose this law to kind of stamp out an air of permissiveness that he saw in Athens that had got out of control, where all nightclubs had to close at 2am and of course as soon as he introduced that law, it became a badge of honor for nightclubs to go as late as possible. And they eventually repealed the law and poor old, I think his name Papathomyles, was ushered off the stage. And today in parts of Athens, the bars and the clubs close when the last punter leaves. It's a brilliant city. It's got so much history. It's beautiful and it's a bit gritty and it's just got brilliant.
- [15:47]
A
Nightlife, Tamsin, the metabolism of a city, the rhythm across the night and day. I guess some cultural institutions open later, dance places. You're involved in that 24 hour culture a bit. Is that something that you have on your agenda as something you think about? Okay, we don't want to be places that open at 9 nicely and close at 5.
- [16:10]
E
We're really thinking about that sort of nighttime economy because the institutions that I work with generally do have a kind of a relatively conservative closing hour. Even you know, the lates that we do, they're late. So you're looking at 10, 11 o' clock at the latest. But we've been talking about, one of the things we're really keen on is thinking about the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park as A whole. It's a 560 acre site with amazing labourers emerging with lots of other activities going on. And so what we're talking about is how do we connect the dots between what else is going on in the park? So if what's happening at east bank is something that's the kind of the party and then you've got the after party, maybe at Hackney Wick. We've got amazing clubs and nightlife over at Hackney Wick, who, if we could collaborate with them and build collaborative offers and programs that really respond to each other's themes and big ideas, you can kind of tell that wider story that there are, that we can actually share the love and actually look at how we can sort of support each other's own ecosystems by coming together around big ideas and coming together around joint initiatives and sort of activities. But also, what does that look like for the people that are starting to live on the Olympic Park? What are the offers that are there for them if they are, you know, working within the nighttime economy? Is the park safe for them to walk back through at night? Are there facilities for them to do other bits and pieces of their sort of admin that normally if you're working a 9 to 5, you get to do within traditional hours? So the nighttime economy is a big thing for us. But already VNA east, they've only been open the Storehouse since May. They've already had one big late event on a Saturday night and it was packed, sad. As well as east are looking at doing really regular dance parties where they kind of open their doors later as well. So we're experimenting. So watch this space, I suppose, is what I'd say, because we know there's an appetite for it, we know there's a demand, and we also know that East London is rich with nighttime events. There's some iconic club venues within Newham that we'd really love to collaborate with, particularly next year when we open the V and A East Museum. Their launch exhibition is looking at the history of Black British music and some of those genres that are being explored. They originated in the boroughs that we're very much set to work with. So watch this space because we will be doing much more and having our tentacles going out beyond the Olympic park, out into those boroughs and just really experimenting and seeing what works. So I say that nothing's off the table.
- [18:26]
A
In a moment, I'm going to ask you a very simple question, which is, what would you put on our survey next year? What's a category that you think about? I Think you've already suggested, Sebastian. It may be a little bit of grit, the grit index, but whatever you want to choose. But come back to you in one second. Sebastian, quick one for you. Battersea Culture. Let's tie up with Tamsin here because you have Apple as the key tenant there these days. Their staff want to be doing good stuff at the end of the day. They don't want to just be going home on the subway. You've added culture in lots of different ways to there. How much of the early thinking was that as you began to build out.
- [19:05]
D
Battersea, you know, you've got obviously Tate Modern in the east of London, which is another Forest station, but you can't have in every big city, you know, three, four, big cultural venue, you know, you can't afford that. And so the dilemma we had with Battersea Station was it's a private investment, it's a private developer, the client. So it needed to stack up financially to make it sustainable long term. And at the same time, you know, culture is essential on a building like that. You know, the kind of history of the building, the drama of that space, we needed to give it justice. And one of the reason it was so iconic is probably because of actually the temporary moment between 1980s when it closed its door and when the building reopened. You know, there were so many events at city, scale projection on the facade and all that, which made it very special. So it was very important to bring back and to bring culture. But culture is many different ways. And this culture with a big C and what we all call the small sea, which is everywhere, which is bringing people, making sure that they get access to it. And so we didn't want Patterson Police Station to become a museum or to dedicate a specific space within the police station as a museum, where you go behind a window and you see something. So we've tried to engage with the building. So, for instance, we've created an FNB unit in what we call Control Room B, so you can have a drink and have some food in the middle of the control panel of the 50s. So we've really tried to engage with the fabric, so to make sure that people who go there don't feel they're just in the shopping center, they can really engage with the building. And you see it because most of the people who come there take a lot of photo, look at the architecture and, you know, actually they don't only go shopping and a lot of people go through the building to see the building, to engage with the building. Of course, we've got a cultural trail. You can connect your phone and you can have a lot of history about the building. But you see it in many different aspects. And in architecture as well, it's been the same. We've tried to bring back some components of the existing fabric, so we transform them. So we've reused some of the gantry beams as reception desks for the residents. You know, we bring some equipment in the middle of the space and all those things have reference to what the building was there for.
- [21:09]
A
Okay, here goes. Let's start with you. Tamsa Tamsin is making a face move. Why are you starting with me first? That's unfair. Tell us, when you think about London, you think about culture, you think about making districts. What's the thing you think? Why don't people think about this as a good marker of a good city?
- [21:23]
E
I mean, there are so many things. I suppose the thing that's on my mind at the moment, which might not be, I mean, there's lots of different ideas I would think about, is about access. The Olympic park is one of the most accessible parks in Europe. And the sort of 2012 Paralympic Games really changed how the world looked at disability and inclusion. And in terms of representation within media, on tv, the investment within culture for deaf and disabled artists. And I. I feel like we've kind of forgotten that investment and what the Olympic park represented and did for the sort of disabled community. So I think I want to know that London is becoming, across the board, a space that everyone can access, that everyone feels welcome and knows that they can get to it. Because I think we're feeling that on the Olympic park, like Stratford Station has got lifts, it's very accessible, the flooring is really smooth. It's great. All the buildings have been built with that in mind. But I want that to be the benchmark and everyone can access the city.
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A
Okay, 10 out of 10 for that. That's a brilliant idea coming out. How are you going to compete with Sebastian?
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D
Well, I was going to use. I was going to use another term about or another reference to accessibility. I was going to speak about mixed city. And so accessibility in that sense, in the sense that I think a good marker for a city for me is a city that is accessible to everybody. I think a good marker is if you don't feel oppressed by a city because you don't feel welcome for whatever reason because of your background or because of your wealth. If you think every space is up for you, whoever you are, I think that's a very good marker. If you feel comfortable at night, if you feel comfortable in the morning. If you don't feel you're an outsider, I think that's a very, very good.
- [22:55]
A
Marker because I think, you know, even our wedding cities, even London, which I love, I do think there are invisible barriers in this city where there's no gate, but people don't go across the road into a neighborhood because often not because they think it's going to be rough or edgy, the opposite. They feel it's like too smart for them. It's not for people like them. So I think those barriers have to come down. Koh, Lex, you're last. They've both got 10 out of 10. Are you going to hit a home run? That's a cricket term.
- [23:22]
C
I think I'm going to. I'm going to build on what these two have said and talk about public space because it's something that I feel London is lacking in. And Tams and I were talking about this earlier. I think really the elemental quality of life factor is human connection. It's why we live in cities. And I think the cities of the future, these places that are lauded as the future are places where humans are often separated from one another and things are automated and that's seen as progression. Well, it pains me when I go to Southern European cities and I see how, how well they do public space just for the sake of public space. It's not there as a place of commerce. It's, it's there for everyone. So it's kind of related to accessibility. But the number of public squares and it's something that our European brethren do so well and I feel it's so important to quality of life. Cities are people and if you don't see them not at work or in a relationship that's mediated by some other thing, but just there because they're your neighbors and the kids are playing and walking around and you've got somewhere to sit. That for me is beautiful and qualitative to the max.
- [24:30]
B
My thanks to my guests, Tamsin Ace, Sebastian Ricard and Alexis Self for joining me on our Liverpool Cities panel discussion. And finally today we wanted to bring you a few observations from some of the experts attending our event. First up, let's meet our guests.
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F
Hello, my name is Muiwa Okey. I'm the current president of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
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G
Hello, my name is Julian Maynard. I'm the managing director of the Maynard Design.
- [24:56]
H
I'm Tim Stoner. I'm an architect and an urban planner.
- [25:00]
I
I'm Chris Choa. And I'm the director of a consulting company called the Outchemist.
- [25:06]
B
Our first provocation. What are the most important factors to building a livable city?
- [25:12]
F
High quality needs to be at the heart and soul of a livable city. Quality just doesn't mean aesthetics. It means access to nature, access to green spaces, orientation, closeness with your neighbors. That's super important. But on a personal point of view, I think quality cities or quality places means something that's approachable, easy to use, compelling. And when I think about that, I think of cities like Barcelona, which actually won Arriba Sterling Prize not too long ago, and that that sort of touches on the public square, on densification, so gentle densification. And I think that's what a high quality, good city looks like.
- [25:58]
G
I think it's about public spaces, for me, making sure they're inclusive. They can respond not only to maybe different events or different times of the year. I think cities need to have activation, they need to change. I think that's what really embraces and makes cities interesting. Also, I think when you navigate a city, can you get to places which you've heard about? Is it open for? Not just, you know, I'm thinking about myself, but when I get in a city, I always sit down and observe and see how people are using a city. I always think, you know, how would my mother, you know, how would my children, how my friends respond to this, you know, would they find it inclusive, would they find it easy, would they find it stressful? Or would they, you know, embrace it like I'm doing? Sat down here observing.
- [26:47]
B
Next up, we asked what are some of the softer elements to a successful city?
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H
We come from a tradition of scientific research and discovery over the last 50 years, started here in London, now globally, a network of space syntax research which has been attempting to. To discover the science of cities. What is it that you can measure that you can then model, that you can encode in an algorithm? And it comes down to things like the way that streets connect. How do you measure connectivity? How do buildings turn to face streets or turn away from streets? You can code that how many front doors are there on a street, how wide is the street, how much shade is there in a street? All of these things are measurable. So if we can measure the inputs and then compare them to the outputs, so we observe people, that's the other side of it. We follow people through cities, we watch them, we look at how they behave. And the discoveries have been to link the inputs to the outputs and to get the. If you like the DNA of a city?
- [27:51]
I
I've recently been thinking about a term that I know is very important but has always vexed me. You know, of course, we talk all the time about density, urban density. We know urban density is good. It brings a lot of good things. It allows us to invest in a way that's very productive. If we have to put in a train line or a park or some trees and we're in a dense area, it'll have more impact. Totally makes sense. But if we try to promise an elderly relative that they can come and visit you in a very dense place.
- [28:26]
D
Place.
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I
It's not a terribly appealing term. So something I've stumbled on recently is a term which I didn't invent, but it's a wonderful term. It's called sociality. In zoology, sociality describes a tendency of a species to try to join other members of the same species. And in urban terms, sociality is the theoretical possibility. It's a number. It's how many people you can theoretically meet over the course of a single day using only public transportation. And it is not necessarily a causal relationship, but it's highly correlated to all the things that you and I care deeply about. And in particular, if the. The public transit system is good, if the connectivity is good, if the quality of the urban spaces, the parks, the places where you can mix are good, you can theoretically meet many, many people.
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B
We also asked for some best in class test cases. Who is doing livability best?
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H
Any city that is pedestrian focused. People first, slow. So the best cities are those cities that have adopted a 30 kilometer, 20 mile an hour maximum speed limit. It's the World Health Organization recommendation. They're the cities that have invested in slowing down. And that runs counter to a century of cities that have invested in speeding up. They've built highways, they've built elevated highways. They've just tried to fill their cities with cars moving quickly. And you question that and say, well, to what end? Surely the essence of a city is, okay, an event that we're in this evening where everyone stopped and more or less stood still to engage, to talk, to share ideas, to form relationships that lead to creative business ideas that lead to, on occasion, they lead to invention. They lead to people saying, well, let's follow up, as has already happened. Let's meet again, and maybe something will come from that. And that's what cities do. That's why we have cities. They're not random. We have them to create ideas to help us solve our problems.
- [30:42]
I
Here we are on a beautiful terrace On a beautiful day, we're sitting in a place that probably has a sociality ranking of around 3 million. So theoretically, from this one spot we could meet over the course of a single day, 3 million people. Now, London is about 8, 9 million people in the city proper, 20 million in the metropolitan area. You take a city that is smaller than London, say Paris, much smaller than London in the city proper, in the metropolitan area, it has a very similar sociality, roughly 2, 3 million people. So what's going on in Paris that is more than what is going on in London. And it's the fact that people are a little bit closer together. There are a few more public spaces. People use the streets and the public spaces differently. And the transit system is excellent. The speed of the transit system is excellent. You take a city like Moscow or Lagos, these are cities that are roughly comparable to London in the city proper, in the metro area. But whereas London has a sociality ranking of 3 million, Moscow, Lagos have maybe 3,1 million. Even though they're huge, dense cities, but because they're not so well connected internally, because the public spaces aren't quite as joined up, the sociality number is lower.
- [32:08]
B
And finally, what do we need to see less of in our cities to improve their livability?
- [32:13]
F
I think we need less fast motorways, inner city motorways or dual carriageways. I think we need less of that. We need walkable cities, we need sort of diet of mobility, mobility diet, starting from walking, cycling, scootering all the way up to the car and flying to ensure that people. It's easier to connect with your neighbor, it's easier to chill and congregate in a square. So yeah, we need less concrete.
- [32:46]
G
I know a lot of people are probably anti car, but I think when you do experience a city where they've got a range of modes of transport and I think we really need to not just from a sustainability and environmental point of view, but it's connectivity. You know, you don't connect with people when you're sat in the car in a traffic jam. You know, when you're out and about on your bike or walking, you explore. It's such a richer experience of a city and a more social experience. So I think we really have to focus on that level of modal connectivity and there's so much health benefits from that as well. People have got a smile on their face, haven't they, when they're cycling? Oh, they're walking around the city.
- [33:27]
B
My thanks there to Chris Choa, Tim Stoner, Muyiwa Oki and Julian Maynard. And that's all for this week's episode of the Urbanist. The show is produced by Carlotta Rebello and by David Stevens, who also edits the show. I'm Andra Tuck. Goodbye, and thank you for listening, City Lovers.