This presentation introduces a framework for creating socially sustainability places. Future Communities is a partnership between the Young Foundation and local partners in the UK, Europe and Asia, exploring how to make new communities places that work socially in the long term.

1. Future Cities, Future Communities
Practical ways to make new places socially sustainable
SIX in the City, Singapore
September 17th 2010
Slide 1 The Young Foundation 2010

2. •A new international partnership between the Young Foundation, local
authorities, government agencies and housing providers
•Exploring practical ways that new cities, towns and communities can
succeed as communities where people want to live
•Build a practical understanding of what can be done to encourage the
factors that promote the idea of community, social networks,
engagement, belonging and long term stewardship
•Drawing on the best of what is known, and what is being explored, in
the UK and internationally
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3. What is a community?
The mainstream view
• Governance
• Social and Cultural
• Housing & the built
environment
• Economy
• Environmental
• Services
• Transport & Connectivity
Source: Egan Review: skills for sustainable communities, 2004

4. Our starting point: an alternative view
• Physical boundaries to promote
geographical identity
• Rules and laws specific to the area, e.g.
car free areas
• Local myths & stories
• Visible leadership
• Strong social relationships, networks &
bonds
• Rituals and rhythms
• Possibly shared belief system, e.g.
garden cities, new towns, eco-cities

5. Partners and
emerging
work
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6. Our partners
•Homes and Communities Agency
•Local Government Improvement & Development
•Barking Riverside, Barking & Dagenham, East London
•Lozells & Handsworth, Birmingham
•Buckingham Park, Aylesbury Vale
•Peabody Trust (Whitecross Street & Lillie Road estates,
London)
•Malmö, Sweden
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7. Barking Riverside, East London – a large scale regeneration scheme that will
house 26,000 people over the next 10 years
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8. BarkingThe Young Foundation 2010 London
Slide 8 Riverside, East

9. Testing new framework for designing in social sustainability
Buckingham Park, 2010
Slide 9 The Young Foundation
Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire

10. Wired neighbourhoods: exploring local social media and building social capital,
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Whitecross Street estate, London. Peabody Trust

11. Birmingham CC: Viewing lessons learnt
from Community Land Trusts & seeing if it
will work as a model for Birmingham.
Lozells and Handsworth
Exploring role for community land trusts to create local housing and build social
capital The Young Foundation 2010
Slide 11
Lozells and Handsworth, Birmingham

12. Malmö,The Young Foundation 2010
Slide 12 Sweden

13. Building a business case for social
sustainability
•Work for the Homes and Communities Agency
•Review of international evidence to create business case
and practical tools for understanding & “designing in”
social sustainability in new communities
•Aim to influence stakeholders involved in creating new
places: master planners, local government
housing/regeneration/planning departments, central
government departments, architects, developers
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14. Evidence base
•Review of international evidence and practical experience
•Drawing on wide range of academic work, policy
research, case studies and new town evaluations from UK,
Europe, US, Egypt, Malaysia, China and India
•What makes a flourishing community?
•What works in creating successful new places?
•What lessons can be learnt from the successes and failures
of previous new communities?
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15. A framework
for social
sustainability
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16. Four key elements needed to create
socially successful and sustainability
new communities - alongside quality
built environment, economic and
environmental sustainability
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17. Key findings from English new towns
• World’s most sustained new town programme (1950s to
70s – 32 new towns created, 3 million residents)
•Often tensions between newly arrived and established
communities
• Can take up to 15 years before residents establish social
networks (evidence from Telford)
•Social infrastructure and local support networks are
crucial – for success and community wellbeing
•Financial models make early investment challenging –
requires new, long-term partnership approaches
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18. Social Social &
infrastructure cultural life
Voice &
Space to grow
influence

19. Social Social and
infrastructure cultural life
+ connection to local/
regional economy
+ green building,
environmental
innovation, incentives
for pro-environmental
Voice and behaviour
Space to grow
influence

20. 1. Social infrastructure
•Need for services and
support, not just buildings
•Early provision is crucial
•Lack of social infrastructure
affects community wellbeing
•Identity and reputation
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21. What residents want from new
communities
1. Good quality housing
2. Good schools
3. Safe, clean, friendly neighbourhoods
4. Community outreach workers
5. Pre-school childcare
6. Integrated social housing
7. Neighbourhood staffing
8. Supervised open spaces
JRF (2006)
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22. “… where these facilities were already
in place when people began to arrive,
the community came together and
networks were formed more easily.”
CLG, New Towns Review, 2006
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23. “ … most mixing across social groups
takes places between children. It is
these contacts … that provide
opportunities to meet and form
relationships.”
CIH/JRF (2005)
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24. Cambourne, New Town Blues
“ … planning for hard infrastructure
alone would never build a community
… it would only be done by a matrix of
formal and informal opportunities or
supported activities.”
Cambridgeshire PCT (2007)
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25. 2. Social and cultural life
• Community identity &
belonging
• Tolerance, respect,
engagement
• Pro-social behaviour
• Good design supporting
social life
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26. Three factors necessary for sense of
community
1. Length of residence
2. Local character
3. A shared common history
Michael Young, New Earswick
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27. Feedback circuits Home,
neighbourhood &
physical
environment
Religion and
voluntary Power&politics
orgs
Family&friends Economy

28. “ … you can’t ignore group
differences. You can’t pretend they
are not there as the old colour-blind
policies attempted to do. You have to
acknowledge difference.”
Miles Hewstone, 2007
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29. “ … the well connected are more likely
to be hired, housed, healthy and
happy”
Michael Woolcock
The Place of Social Capital
in Understanding, 2001
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30. “Food & photos”
Lessons from Balsall
Heath and Haringey
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31. 3. Voice & influence
• Giving voice and influence
at the planning stage
• Shaping opportunities for
influence
• Maintaining structures
and initiatives for the long
term
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32. HafenCity, Hamburg
•Large-scale new residential &
commercial quarter
•Uses principles of
environmental psychology to
ensure it becomes a place
where people will want to
work and play
• Appointed a sociologist to act
as go-between and advocate
for new residents
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33. 4. Space to grow
• New communities evolve slowly
as social networks develop &
populations age & shift
• Master-planning needs to be
flexible and adaptable
• New communities need flexible
use of land & buildings
• Informal spaces & temporary
uses should be encouraged
• Local engagement &
governance structures also need
time to develop
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34. Costs and
consequences
of failure
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35. Slide 35 The Young Foundation 2010

36. Costs and consequences
• High costs when communities fail – financial and social
•Issues for wellbeing of communities (isolation, mental
health, cohesion, fear of crime)
• Problems with community cohesion
• Stability, tenure and management
• Cost of inflexible social infrastructure
• Poor quality/inadequate facilities
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37. •Social sustainability is an issue of public value –
particularly now in context of global recession, population
growth, rising housing demand
•Cost of prevention and failure far outweighs early
investment to create new places that will work in the short
term and for the long term
•Social supports are relatively low cost – Milton Keynes
evidence indicates £700 per new household for social
infrastructure
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38. Our challenges
• Integrate thinking about social sustainability to
professional practice across all agencies and stakeholders
involved in creating new communities
• Put people first - change the way places are designed
and built
•New financial models – change the focus on short term
returns and focus on long term stewardship
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39. For more information about Future Communities
contact:
saffron.woodcraft@youngfoundation.org
nicola.bacon@youngfoundation.org
www.neveragainfuturecommunities.wordpress.com
www.futurecommunities.net
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40. About the Young Foundation
The Young Foundation brings together insight, innovation and
entrepreneurship to meet social needs.
We have a 55-year track record of success with ventures such as the
Open University, Which?, the School for Social Entrepreneurs and
Healthline (the precursor of NHS Direct).
We work across the UK and internationally – carrying out research,
influencing policy, creating new organisations and supporting others
to do the same, often with imaginative uses of new technology.
www.youngfoundation.org
Slide 40 The Young Foundation 2010