NEW (SUB)URBANISM & THE KING'S SPEECH: HOW WFH CLEARED THE WAY FOR CHARLES' GREEN VISION

Given the UK PM's record thus far, and the new King's own quietly headstrong personality (as well as his immense passion for sustainability), I can’t imagine Charles has found it easy to take advice - however ‘amicably’ - from Liz Truss, with recent news reports stating that he is now to pull out of his planned attendance of COP27 next month. While sources conflict over whether this was advice or ‘agreement’ it is, either way, rather sad, although not at all surprising. As many have already noted, Charles’ main duty now is, in a sense, to stop doing the very thing he was always best at: sharing his opinions.

It has been interesting, though, to watch over the last few weeks as one by one, after decades of mockery, architectural commentators and other built environment professionals have begun (if not in droves) to come forward in finally giving the former Prince the credit he deserves for many ideas in urban design, planning and sustainability. Dismissed at the time, these now seem far ahead of the curve and highly prescient.

But it’s even more interesting to realise that many of Charles’ key tenets are also wholeheartedly being taken up by Resi developers (although probably without much awareness that they are ‘Charlesian’ or, ‘Carolean’), when developers at the time, a good three decades ago, were almost as vocal in their criticisms of the Carbuncle King as was the entire architectural community. The ‘new’ walkable lifestyle, focused around a flight back to the suburbs, is not new at all – in fact it’s neo-Carolean in the extreme.

As a former architecture student myself many, many years ago, the then Prince was an object of derision (sometimes even venom) within the architectural community. Despite having no particular interest in the Royal Family (although I found the Queen’s funeral the other week surprisingly upsetting), I always had more time for him than did my classmates (and tutors) since my architectural interests went somewhat against the grain. While I love a bit of brutalism as much as the next modernist, I have also always had a concurrent interest in postmodernism and even dare I say it pastiche, so the likes of his development Poundbury always amused rather than offended me. (We also have to credit Charles with what I consider the finest ever insult for a bad - or disliked - building. Without him, we would never have had the rather wonderful and highly entertaining ‘Carbuncle Cup’.)

But on a serious note, while most of his critics targeted him very much on issues of style, this was never in fact his main concern. Perhaps a more important criticism was as regards what were seen as unwarranted interventions, notably the fury of Richard Rogers who blamed his interference (in the famous ‘black spider’ letters) for scuppering his Chelsea Barracks scheme. I can see Rogers’ point that this may have crossed a line – but on a broader level I felt his interventions were valuable. As such – though I’m not the first to point it out – it seems unfortunate, not to mention ironic, that the moment Charles gained any real power was the moment he was (in this sense at least) no longer able to wield it, and just at a time when we could urgently do with a ‘green’ figurehead in the UK.

The New Urbanism

Mocking Charles’ taste for the faux-historic may have been a convenient way of disavowing his deeper points but, as he has made clear, for example in his speech at the RIBA back in 2009 (perhaps an early turning point when the architectural community began grudgingly to shift their position), aesthetics were never his primary concern. Far more important were his opinions on issues of community-building and scale; of reduction of car use; of renewable and clean energy; of a ‘shop local’ ethos; of respect for local wildlife and local vernaculars; of mixed tenure and affordable housing; of reuse of existing buildings; of a drive to ‘shop local’ – none of which goals are mocked today.

Charles was influenced by a movement which began in the States and which called itself The New Urbanism. Key examples were Seaside, in Florida, and a development by the Disney Development Company, also in Florida, rather quaintly called ‘Celebration’. And herein lies the problem. The fact that it appealed to the Disney group at all says much about the pastiche aesthetic which came to be associated with the movement. There is no denying that they do feel pastiche. They feel too 'pretty' – they feel too nice – they feel too false – at times they border on a level of faux-pastoral befitting Marie Antoinette’s Hameau. Crucially, these are all things that architects (but not developers, or indeed the public) tend to deplore.

Actually, I find Poundbury more Portmeirion than Disney – and in its “Prisoner” incarnation. I half expect a vast white balloon to start bobbing ominously around the streets (and for some reason I quite enjoy that). In any case, I don’t live there; it is the residents’ opinions that matter. And in fact these developments are arguably no more pastiche than those of the average large-scale housing development (and indeed not much more pastiche than the work of key postmodernists such as Stirling or Graves, though perhaps without the irony). Whilst it's unclear to me why New Urbanist principles required a cloak of faux-historicism, or of a vernacular that was not in all cases truly local, perhaps it is simply because that is, in fact, ‘what people want’ – and New Urbanism was primarily about people. Notably, the likes of Barratt Homes remain ever popular with buyers, whilst Milton Keynes (UK, England), which shares a similar source to the New Urbanism for its principles but a modernist aesthetic, has by contrast become almost a byword for ‘regional blanding’.

Local Communities – the New (Old) ‘Walkable Lifestyle’

Appearances aside, the fundamental purpose of the New Urbanism was to create walkable communities with local amenities, by contrast to the way most suburbs had developed in which all major amenities – office buildings, major retail parks and so on – were at a commutable distance. It was also about creating mixed communities via mixed tenure and inclusion of affordable housing. In fact The New Urbanism wasn’t even new back in the mid-1990s. It had its roots in the Garden Cities movement, which had also influenced the UK’s New Towns movement of the 1940s-60s (including Milton Keynes).

But aside from mockery of the aesthetic, there were other more critical issues in the way of any sort of major take-up of New Urbanism, notably:

• There simply wasn’t enough available employment in a New Urbanist community for people to all work locally;

• Since people had become used to vast retail choice and huge warehouse-type stores, there was no way that these could be included within this model, and people were not prepared to only ‘shop local’;

• People were still very attached to driving. In fact some traffic experts at the time even argued that car use might increase because people would simply drive shorter distances far more frequently.

That was then – and this is now. How times have changed. Whilst Charles – and the New Urbanism movement in general – could never have predicted the Pandemic and certainly wouldn’t have wished it, any more than we would wish climate change to have put (many) people off driving, the climate we now find ourselves in, both metaphorically and literally, has to a large extent removed almost all of the obstacles that originally stood in the way.

New Urbanism 2:0 – Resi Developers and the Return to the Suburbs

Nearly 3 decades on, WFH and the rise of online shopping have evaporated many of these barriers, and whilst some still hope for a ‘return to the Old Normal’ in the next 5 years, Resi developers don’t seem to be among them. Instead they are embracing these changes, building WFH-friendly housing estates in the suburbs and promoting ‘New Villages’, the village-ambience and a walkable community lifestyle, as well as mixing tenures. While the current trend to build a BTR offer alongside homes for sale is primarily a financial decision, and certainly allows the developer to bring forward amenities, it is nonetheless true that it also helps with community building. Similarly, SBTR (Suburban Build to Rent) is only just taking off, with heavyweights such as Legal & General making moves in this direction.

Whether people are still attached to their cars to the same degree is highly variable dependent upon area – and it is true that the rise of the electric car has reduced much of the impetus towards ditching cars full-stop in the name of climate change. Certainly in major cities, and especially in London, very few people bother to drive at all, if only because of congestion, whilst in the regions there still remains a sort of ‘status stigma’ about public transport use. Even there, cycling has certainly seen a huge uptick in interest. And while major retail hubs will still have appeal as a sort of ‘day trip’ (and so long as they come closer to being ‘entertainment experiences’, with flagships offering something above and beyond online shopping), for the majority of retail needs, online is now the preferred mode, whilst the ‘shop local’ movement has significant popular support. Of course we mustn’t forget that at the same time as reducing driving by inhabitants, online shopping also increases driving by couriers and delivery vans; road network design will have to keep this in mind.

There are other barriers – I wonder how many local planning departments have the resources or inclination to do the in-depth work required in true place-making, when student accommodation (sometimes carbuncles in their own right) and bowling alleys (yes, bowling alleys – because what we most need right now is a nice bit of 10-pin bowling) bring in faster investment. And so-called ‘NIMBYs’ do tend to resist even the most carefully considered new development almost as a knee-jerk reaction (by all means fix the Housing Crisis – just Not In My Back Yard…), with local councillors then reluctant to risk losing votes.

Major housing developers, however, have always had a certain amount of heft to sway decisions, purely via the threat of the withdrawal of investment. Assuming that ‘New (Sub)urbanism’ is well-considered (and I believe many developers really do want to create viable communities) this may not be a bad thing. In any case, and in principle, at least, the way is far more clear now for something approaching Charles' green vision - albeit that it seemed to take a tragic Pandemic to make it viable.

The King’s Speech: Sustainable Finance

Charles’ has been a compelling, quietly influential and highly prescient voice – even when nobody wanted to hear it. It’s only a shame that, aside from the odd generic statement digested lazily after Christmas dinner, we won’t be hearing it again. We will have look to his pre-existing statements for gems. What more then can we take from the new King?

If we are concerned with ESG – and Real Estate Investors and developers alike say that they are - we might do well to look at his Sustainable Markets Initiative, which he’ll sadly now not be able to promote at Cop27, and perhaps also to look again at his comments at the 2020 World Economic Forum. The environment, he pointed out,

"isn’t a separate asset class. Nature is, in fact, the lifeblood of our financial markets and, as such, we must rapidly realign our own economy to mimic nature’s economy and work in harmony with it … Global warming, climate change, and the devastating loss of biodiversity are the greatest threats humanity has ever faced … What good is all the extra wealth in the world gained from business as usual if you could do nothing with it, except watch it burn in catastrophic conditions? The only limit is our willingness to act. And the time to act is now.”

Sad to say, at the pace at which we grudgingly admit that he is right, he is unlikely to still be on the throne by the time Sustainable Finance 2.0 – let alone 3.0 – gains any real traction. Let's not wait so long this time to listen to his unpopular opinions.

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