What makes for a resilient town?

It has been difficult in the UK to try and quantify (in a non-numerical sense) the values around which towns are built and made sustainable. A multitude of contested ideological visions or prejudices, along with the ongoing erosion of public spending, has meant that anything other than crisis management is the order of the day.

We hold up our hands at the dominance of the car, rapacious private (and expensive) house building, the growth of out of town shopping centres, the collapse of community initiative and the arts, low-paid and poor employment opportunities, and say we can do nothing to stop it.

This crisis of our cities and towns (bar London, which has always managed better) is not something we need to accept. I was very interested to read this statement of intent from the US-based ‘strong towns' initiative:

“Strong Towns Principles

As advocates for a strong America, we know the following to be true:

• Strong cities, towns and neighbourhoods cannot happen without strong citizens (people who care).
• Local government is a platform for strong citizens to collaboratively build a prosperous place.
• Financial solvency is a prerequisite for long-term prosperity.
• Land is the base resource from which community prosperity is built and sustained. It must not be squandered.
• A transportation system is a means of creating prosperity in a community, not an end unto itself.
• Job creation and economic growth are the results of a healthy local economy, not substitutes for one.”

“A Strong Towns Approach

There are no universal answers to the complex problems America's cities, towns and neighbourhoods face. At Strong Towns, we seek to discover rational ways to respond to these challenges. A Strong Towns approach:

• Relies on small, incremental investments (little bets) instead of large, transformative projects,
• Emphasises resiliency of result over efficiency of execution,
• Is designed to adapt to feedback,
• Is inspired by bottom-up action (chaotic but smart) and not top-down systems (orderly but dumb),
• Seeks to conduct as much of life as possible at a personal scale, and
• Is obsessive about accounting for its revenues, expenses, assets and long-term liabilities (do the math)."

If the towns and small cities in the UK thought about and tried to implement these principles and approaches, they would be something near the kind of resiliency needed to survive.