Cool views, plus got to see @antbreach.bsky.social in person!

HUGE HOUSING NEWS: The Assembly just passed our bill allowing more homes near public transportation, SB 79! We need more housing & we need it near transit. It’ll reduce traffic congestion & carbon emissions & increase transit ridership & affordability. Go housing! Go transit!

I was going to tweet this last year but somehow I was impeded… “When [economic] growth does, and does not, reduce poverty” www.bii.co.uk/en/news-insi... — A great literature review by a team including @paddycarter.bsky.social and @paulsegal.bsky.social

Very excited to see my favourite Substack is going full time. If you're interested in Euro politics then you should be spending more time trying to understand Turkey. I've already learned lots from @selimkoru.bsky.social and you can too if you subscribe below: open.substack.com/pub/kulturka...

The Government is considering a second planning bill - if they are serious about meeting their target of 1.5 million new homes, they should use it to introduce a new flexible zoning system:

BLOG | What should the Government put in the second planning bill? 🏗️ England's planning system needs more certainty at the plan-making stage. @antbreach.bsky.social & @mauricelange.bsky.social set out how new legislation could help to establish a zoning system. Read 👇 buff.ly/pxUo7mh

There is plenty to like about this pledge to help universities diversify income. But it really doesn't tackle the wider issues they face, or recognise their primary local roles in their home cities. My blog on last week's announcement 👇

A shocking chart for Brits - our average disposable incomes, adjusted for cost of living, are distinctly in the third rank of European countries. British living standards are only slightly above those in Estonia, Poland, and Spain.

Not a great article. For example, this argument that supply has only a small impact on prices implies the opposite to its conclusion - to have a substantial effect on affordability, we actually need an extremely large increase in supply!

Our new briefing is about the role of universities in their local economies. The short version is - places don't need a university to be prosperous, but where cities have them they are sizable chunk of the local knowledge economy.

The Building Safety Regulator simply isn't fit for purpose. Can anyone who wants to defend the new system please explain how this behaviour improves fire safety? Is this really an appropriate response to the Grenfell Tower fire?

Something interesting about residential fires: cooking is a huge source of them, but fewer fatal ones. To die in a fire you and others nearby generally have to be pretty incapacitated (by age, disability, intoxication, and/or sleep – usually and, not or), and people who cook are generally not that.

Some personal news - as of Tuesday I will be stepping up to become Director of Policy and Research at @centreforcities.bsky.social. Will mean a new set of responsibilities for me, but housing's not going away! Very grateful to CfC and the opportunity to fill @paulswinney.bsky.social's huge shoes.

america's becoming more british

This is the one in Yorkshire. The one in Nottinghamshire will remain open.

Great piece by @samuelstafford.bsky.social on a planning reform debate Government really shouldn't be having. Argument for underpowered NDMPs when the Government is desperate to hit 1.5m homes is bizarre - like mixing fizzy pop in with the rocket fuel samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2025/08/on-n...

What this report does particularly well is link disparate parts of the system - local authority funding and fiscal devolution, compulsory purchase and local plans - which all contribute to the situation we're in.

Planning is so important, but the system in England is broken. It's great to see a report that neither advocates for the status quo or a free for all. We can plan better communities and build more homes by learning from our neighbours.

NEW @centreforcities.bsky.social REPORT OUT TODAY! In Planorama, Luka and I argue that if we want English planning to perform more like its international peers – Germany, France and Japan - it needs to BE more like them. 🧵 on what that means...

Our new report is on why the English planning system is so weird. Planning in England has lots of meddling with weak local gov that makes it hard to, well, plan. Planning in other countries is more rules-based and certain - which means they are better at *actually planning*

Reading about the Milton Keynes (Wolverton) railway station 'refreshment room' in 1849:

One of the best image captions I've ever seen

Bismarck on English food after a visit to Hull, York and Manchester in 1842.

This is the thing. Environmental group experts and leadership read it, backed it and then u-turned when grassroots members’ blanket opposition to development became clear. At the end of the day, no matter the topic paper clips to puffins, membership orgs fall back to members’ views not principles.

What sad news - West's posts on the Tanguts were always fascinating, and showed both his masterful scholarship on the languages and history of Inner Asia and a deep commitment to sharing his unique knowledge with the rest of the world. RIP.

Not sure this is really worth it. Any attempt to meet the nature industry halfway on planning reform prompts a backlash from the nature lot, and Government efforts to reach a compromise generates negative headlines like "charities under pressure to drop opposition".

proper Monster Moon out tonight

Reckon free snacks have the best return for staff morale on money spent

The asylum system is not working. It cannot cope with a world of proliferating conflict, cheap travel and huge wage disparities. A more pragmatic approach starts by helping refugees find shelter closer to home econ.st/44z5sAg

Our new report on the health of the high streets is out. Two key lessons: 1) Empty high streets are a symptom of a weak economy, not its cause. 2) Many cities still have too much retail space. Converting it to other uses will help the economy and appearance of high streets.

GM is growing fast. We will expand @BeeNetwork over the next decade to meet the needs of our bigger economy. BUT There’s a limit to what we can do on a congested surface. It’s why I am asking TfGM to start planning for an underground for GM around a remodelled Piccadilly.

please can i come to the party tonight? i promise won't do the spoken word poetry banking advert bit again (three beers later) Here's to the kitchen thinkers. The M&S tinnie drinkers. The bathroom queue winkers. The champagne flute clinkers. Here's to the people that make this gathering, a party.

On Times Radio now to talk council tax!

Lots of people tying themselves in knots in the mentions because they don’t want to say you should in fact shame people for dangerous kinks. Enforcing social norms through shame is good actually. Just embrace shaming people for strangling for pleasure. It’s a weird and bad thing.

Great to speak to the Times this week on how to reform council tax. The "Westminster vs. Hartlepool" comparisons are a red herring - the real problem that has to be overcome is that council tax is *locally* regressive in every part of the country.

Council tax: we all hate it. So why won’t ministers reform it? www.thetimes.com/article/bdb2...

Planning reform is a real bright spot in the Government's agenda. But if it continues to allow local politicians to block new homes already agreed in local plans, then it risks not making the most of its own reforms - a quick thread:

whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/defau... few showings of MISHIMA A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS at the BFI next month; even if (not unreasonably) you find the subject a pretentious creep, the film itself is staggeringly good.

Commitees refusing applications on allocated sites for matters of principle is largely why the development industry has called for a national scheme of delegation. To not include allocated sites (and sites subject to SPDs, etc) in Tier A would then undermine the whole point of the exercise.

Planning reform is a real bright spot in the Government's agenda. But if it continues to allow local politicians to block new homes already agreed in local plans, then it risks not making the most of its own reforms - a quick thread:

The good stuff in the Bill about making bus franchising simpler would be significantly undermined if this floating bus stops amendment isn’t rejected. Incredible way to wreck the progress made in building segregated cycling infrastructure that actually works for encouraging non-cyclists to try it.

hey, i made a terrible comic instead of working #makeaterriblecomicday2025

It's impossible to look at these numbers and not assume that we have already lost World War 3. While we literally worry about whether the glint from panels will frighten horses, China is building a solar-fuelled industrial base capable of taking on the world.

The problem with the local finance system is it cares so much about equalisation that it delivers unequal outcomes. We need to allow poorer places to fund services by growing their own local taxbase - tweaking how a fixed pot of grant sloshes around the country won't change our unequal geography.

Great to meet with colleagues from South Korea today - lots of learnings about Korean systems for equalisation, and we presented on the history of English local government finance from Elizabeth I to today's and funding crisis for local authorities. 🇬🇧🇰🇷

I'm really pleased about this! Our big local housebuilding data digitisation project has been recognised in MHCLG's newest housing statistics release It was a massive effort from the team @antbreach.bsky.social @jrevans.bsky.social @xuanrulin.bsky.social

YIMBY version of Goodnight Sweetheart where a junior researcher from Centre for Cities goes back in time and convinces a younger Hugh Dalton to bring in a few zoning amendments to the Town and Country Planning Act.

Our latest briefing sets out why Glasgow needs a metro mayor. Other big cities in Britain are leaving Glasgow behind with more powers and more funding tied to their mayors, even as Glasgow's underperformance drags on the wider British and especially the Scottish economy.