Paul’s central argument is that economic growth is coming primarily from cities. We have been witnessing this trend for the last 50 years and it looks as if it will continue. The dominance of cities is increasing in population terms and even more so economically. The planning industry needs to be thinking about how they can accommodate such dramatic growth in our cities.
Within cities, density is key to economic performance as well as to environmental performance. Ensuring both efficient and effective use of space and resources. Planners need to welcome this and plan to enable higher density, not to constrain it.
In an international, highly mobile and competitive world “nice” cities attract more investment and highly skilled labour. Quality of life in cities is critical to their economic future and an important means by which planners can help shape the future.
In explaining those points Paul drew strongly on Volterra’s key technical strengths in understanding city growth, density and agglomeration, quality of place and forecasting economic performance.
Image: Tower Bridge Sunrise by Marcus Holland-Moritz under license CC BY 2.0
