With the new government's ambition to build 1.5 million homes within five years, and the devolution revolution transferring more powers from Westminster to local authorities, this roundtable will focus on a UK-wide discussion on making housing genuinely affordable, exploring challenges and solutions for UK cities.

 

Since 1980, urban population growth has surged worldwide with industrialisation in the Global South and re-urbanisation around knowledge and service economies in the Global North. Good urbanisation requires planning for future population growth with infrastructure, site development, utilities and amenities. However, few countries have accurately anticipated this growth, resulting in a shortage of homes, infrastructure, and necessary services. This failure particularly affects young people and those on lower incomes, who need the job opportunities of the city but can't find adequate housing.

At least 20 different explanations and solutions have been proposed: build new cities, regenerate old cities, densify the suburbs, connect metropolitan cities and regions to create polycentric land uses with more housing nodes, reform the planning system in favour of more house building, and build more public housing. However, there are few examples of a comprehensive approach that combines multiple strands into an integrated solution. What would an integrated approach look like in the major cities of the UK?

 

This roundtable is part of the Cities Forum, which brings together national and international experts working in cities around the world to share best practice on some of the biggest challenges facing cities, and to help NLA shape our wider cities programming.