Urban Space, Age and Economics

Annalise V Johns, London-based urban designer brings us the latest discussions from some of the most interesting urban design discussions around London. Want to share what's being discussed in your city? Email us.

Bestselling author Deepak Chopra spoke at the Southbank on May 22 on his latest book The Healing Self that surrounds personal health. Chopra, a pioneer of integrative medicine among his many accomplishments, shares his insight into this new age of responsibility for our own health, and specifically our need to make conscious preventative daily choices to offset illnesses and diseases. To remind you, the top 5 non-communicable diseases (NCDs) afflicting the human race today are; cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and diabetes, which account for 40 million deaths each year. However, add the fifth, depression, which “is the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide” affecting 350 million or 4% of the global population, or one in 20 people, and you begin to see how health services really have their hands full. A talk at the LSE in February on The Future of Aging stated “someone is diagnosed with dementia every three seconds.” Both sources lament the statistics of non-communicative diseases but stress the power of prevention needing to be prioritised by all of us to age more humanely. Research has shown that those who remain connected to what is going on in society, remain productive and socially engaged, are those who offset diseases such as depression and many forms of cancer. This translates into more “people {being} better able to help themselves and others to stay well and get ill less often and for shorter periods of time.” The question is: how does this translate into our urban spaces and into our evolving economy?
 
The Royal Society of Art has been exploring manufacturing in the city and how the industry has evolved. The report highlights how manufacturing serves a diversity of sectors from multinational to self-employed suppliers. More importantly the location in which this sector finds itself is equally diverse depending on the scale and typology of the output. What is most pressing is the need for more affordable manufacturing units made available to be rented across London. Interestingly, in Richard Florida’s latest book The New Urban Crisis, among the rich body evidence he shares some delicious statistics on London’s recent rise among “leading global cities for Venture Capital Investment”. Florida, reminds readers that the evidence show us that “ the world’s most innovative and creative places are not the high-rise canyons of Asian cities but the walkable, mixed-use neighbourhoods of San Francisco, New York and London.” These are the places that are safer, have higher quality of living and support a mix of talent, age and use. The key here is the walkable space. If we go back to the earlier question about aging humanely, by enabling a sustainable existence whereby people can be a part of society via their walk to work and their productive lives, then really it comes down to the design of our cities. Bringing our cities back to a human scale a scale of resilience, not a scale of siloed development.
 
The new urban crisis is one that can be solved by providing more thought to sustainable health and adapting the way in which people actively evolve over their lives, as a design tool to guide what a development should look like but also by what it should provide. Many might argue this tool to be biomimicry – an approach to innovation that emulates nature to secure sustainable solutions. If you combined the investment from Venture Capital coming into London, with the lack of affordable manufacturing space, within all of the opportunity areas London has earmarked, more students and older employees could be given the chance to activate a sustainable preventative health model.

Interestingly, only yesterday I received the latest newsletter from the New Economic Foundation, which is urging Londoners to save our Railway arches “home to thousands of small businesses all over the country”. The archways are owned by Network Rail and provide ideal affordable, local spaces for small businesses to operate at a diversity of scale and employment. They are “powering local economies and giving life to local communities.” Network Rail is about to sell off these arches to global investment firms, which seems a missed opportunity. Brexit or not, London’s population is growing, the population is ageing and the combination of better health, productivity and sustainable jobs are needed for all ages and stages of our work force. We just need a more consistent system to realise it.
 
Filmmaker Luciana Kaplan’s latest film Rush Hour documents the commute of 3 people: a Mexican beautician, a Turkish mother working in a clothing store and an American engineer. She demonstrates the losses of life that take place due to the uncompromising commute many people in urban areas endure to afford their cost of life. It is a painful truth that even in London, many have to travel too far, for too long, to be paid so little, which translates into a huge cost of non-communicative diseases. The sad truth being told in this documentary is that none of the commuters shown could prevent their life choices without the intervention of more humanely designed cities.

About the Author

Based in London as an Urban Designer for the past 15 years, Annalise V Johns specialises in designing multifaceted spaces that improve environmental resilience while maximising social determinants of health. Her experience with complex places means she is called on to provide solutions focused on sustainable transport, sustainable drainage and air quality improvements based on evidence and innovation.