In that editorial all of the featured examples were ‘new-build’ developments – often regenerations of decayed and derelict areas close to existing major cities.  The editorial, essentially a report from an international conference in Stockholm, contained but only one hint of the financial turmoil to come.  The final sentence spoke of ‘anchoring before the tide turns’.  Within six months the surge of collaborative enthusiasm, ‘the rising tide lifting all boats’, would be replaced by ‘falling tides that reveal who has been swimming naked’. 

So now, a recessionary year later, the first question is whether the anchors have held.   There is no doubt that some development schemes have drifted back, some have needed to pay out longer chains but few if any have been swept away or, unlike banks, needed dramatic rescue operations or state funerals.   Most of their suffering has been felt in deeper, wider waters - in the eco-systems of construction trades and home-focused retail outlets.

Only as the tide turns will it be possible to judge how well the grand designs of yesteryear are able to adapt to new circumstances and revised expectations.  The adjustments will reach across a much wider canvas  than current property values and more modest future expectations.  The groundwork – the ‘common ground’ of support – and the ‘re-defining moments’ that the original editorial noted as essential stepping stones, will probably need to be revisited.   If support has ebbed away, if those Nay-Sayers whose support was at best barely lukewarm are now even less enthusiastic, then developers and investors will need to re-define or re-articulate their plans to match the new economic and societal realities.

The developments best placed to steer a confident course are, unsurprisingly, those that were originally designed to have a complex mix of multiple components.  Islands of soul-less out-of-town retail developments populated by national chains that suck money away from local economies may not perhaps be mourned.  On the other hand, ‘mixed use’ places, with better reasons for real people to live, work, visit and create communities, will be identified as a more important part of local economic recovery plans. 

For these regeneration developments the more mixed, the more complex their components, the greater their flexibility in adjusting to changed requirements.  It would, for example, be naïve to disregard the work-space demand from the much battered Financial Services sector – now more than ever in need of more-affordable and purpose-designed accommodation with world-class infrastructure.   Similarly the Media, Tourism, and Education sectors are poised to undergo massive transformations with greater than ever dependencies on smart technologies but also requiring locally available well-educated and skilled people.

All of the 21^st Century City developments identified in the 2008 editorial will now be gearing up for rapid recovery – and those schemes more centrally directed will be seen by their governments as part of their economic get-well plans.  The out-going tide will have exposed any weaknesses and revealed (to stakeholders and investors) the strength of the underlying infrastructure – the parts of the plan that are not normally obvious to casual observers.  

Infrastructure, for any forward looking place destined to grow communities, is much more than roads, transport links, drainage, health services, parks and power feeds.   Data Centres, Network Hubs, local ‘Open Access’ fibre connections – the stuff of today’s ‘Digital Britain’ report and enablers of innovative services – are all more-easily achieved and more likely to be seen as essential differentiators in ‘new build’ developments.   This does not, of course, diminish the value of older city centre locations but it raises the bar and introduces new and radical approaches to infrastructure provisions no longer dependent on last-generation models. 

Today’s Digital Britain report will be judged on the priority it gives to enabling new and very different opportunities rather than protecting old and now less-than-fit-for-purpose constructs.

And similarly, in local economic planning, even the Nay-Sayers of the new will need that stimulus to rethink their determination to conserve, but re-purpose, the old.   The rising tide will, once again, lift all boats.

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The original editorial on which this article is based is '21st Century Cities - a new cottage industry.'

See also:  Islands of Fibre  and 'Fibre more than Faster - Part 2'