Sam Stafford gets some of the 50 Shades gang back together for the type of Friday afternoon, Adam Buxton-style ramblechat that would have taken place in the pub a few months ago. Will the post-pandemic world really not be the same? Old habits do die hard after all. Perhaps a ‘90% world’ in which life will be close to ‘normal’ but subtly different?
Sam's conversation with Paul Smith, Vicky Payne and Tom Whitehead takes in density, green space, civic space, active travel and city governance.
Paul Smith is the Managing Director of Strategic Land Group and is on Twitter at @Paul_SLG.
Vicky Payne is a planner and urbanist at Urbed and is on Twitter at @Victoria_Payne.
Tom Whitehead is Group Town Planning Manager at Brookhouse Group and is on Twitter, but does not want you to know that.
Some reading to accompany this episode:
The pandemic will reduce inequality—or make it worse.
Past pandemics changed the design of cities. Six ways COVID-19 could do the same.
The city and the virus.
https://medium.com/@maxnathan/the-city-and-the-virus-db8f4a68e404
A backlash against cities would be dangerous.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/urban-density-not-problem/611752/
Coronavirus is not fuel or urbanist fantasies.
https://www.curbed.com/2020/5/20/21263319/coronavirus-future-city-urban-covid-19
‘We’ve seen nothing like this since the 1930s’ - how will Greater Manchester’s economy bounce back from coronavirus?
If you would like to help support the East Lancs Railway:
50 Shades of Planning
50 Shades of Planning is Sam Stafford’s attempt to explore the foibles of the English planning system and it's aim is to cover the breadth of the sector both in terms of topics of conversation and in terms of guests with different experiences and perspectives.
50 Shades episodes include 'Hitting The High Notes', which are a series of conversations with leading planning and property figures. The conversations take in the six milestone planning permissions or projects within a contributor’s career and for every project guests are invited to choose a piece of music that they were listening to at that time. Think Desert Island Discs, but for planners.
50 Shades episode also include the 'All Around the World' series, which is being led by friend of the podcast, Paul Smith.
Paul put it to Sam that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely on the planning system in England. Planners here very seldom look to other countries for inspiration and ideas. Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he chats with planning professionals and academics from a number of countries to find out what works well there, what works less well, and what can be learnt.
Sam is on Bluesky and Instagram, and his blogs can be found here (from where you can also sign up for his newsletter).
The 50 Shades platforms are expressions of Sam's personal opinions, which may or may not represent the opinions of his past, present or future employers.
50 Shades of Planning is by planners and for planners and so if you would like to use the podcast or the YouTube channel for sharing anything you think that the sector needs to be talking about then do please feel free to get in touch with Sam via [email protected].
Why Fifty Shades? Well, town and country planning is very much not a black and white endeavour. There are at least fifty shades in between....
