Learning from London
“Cities cannot afford not to act.” These words were the essence of Nicky Gavron’s talk on affordable housing and climate challenges in Copenhagen Monday 16 February. The talk was the first in a series called ‘Copenhagen Urban Challenges’ arranged by Copenhagen X, the municipality of Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
Nicky Gavron is a member of the London Assembly and former Deputy Mayor of London in the office period of Ken Livingstone (2000-2008). She is internationally recognized for her environmental expertise. Nicky Gavron was a key figure in the establishment of the London Climate Change Agency and the C40 – a worldwide climate change action group consisting of the world’s largest cities.
Affordable housing
Many cities are desperately lacking affordable housing. Since 2006, Copenhagen has managed to build 12 affordable housing units. London has the ambitious goal of creating 50.000 by 2011. A goal which has required a new approach to planning policy, land values and how new sources of finance and innovative tenures are brought in.
“The big picture for the UK is that we must seize the opportunity to create a more efficient and equitable housing policy,” Nicky Gavron says. In her opinion, lack of flexibility, planning tools and cooperation between the state and the city are the main obstacles in Copenhagen. “You need to get the policy framework right as a context for action,” she recommends.
Climate challenges
Nations have to empower their cities to act upon climate change. “Cities are a main contributor to green house gas emissions but they are also part of the solution,” Nicky Gavron stresses. Together with former mayor Ken Livingstone she founded the climate change action group C40 in 2005 – making 40 of the world’s most polluting cities join forces to cut down emissions.
In February 2007, London put forward a Climate Change Action Plan that includes cutting-edge policies covering the four big urban CO²-emitters; water, waste, energy and transport. The action plan is a call to citizens and businesses that active participation is required from all to reach London’s 60 % emissions reduction goal by 2025. The message put forward is simple: To tackle climate change you do not have to reduce your quality of life. But you do have to change the way you live. And city governments and businesses have to work together.
“The battle against climate change will be won or lost in cities.”
Nicky Gavron
Comments
London's goal of 50,000 new units of affordable housing -- while laudable -- is unlikely in the current economic climate. New York, which had a goal of over 91,000 units new units of affordable housing for the 10 years from 2001-2011, will probably struggle to build half that number.
Besides the unfortunate timing of the plan which left much of the building until the last years of the plan, the city's inefficient and competing bureaucracies often slowed down proposed developments for years and raised costs in what is already one of the most expensive construction markets in the world.
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