Anchoring Universities in Urban
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Newcastle City Futures 2065: funded by the Government Office for Science and progressed by Newcastle University Institute of Social Renewal as a collaborative engagement project NEWCASTLE ANChORING UNIveRSItIeS IN URbAN ReGIONS thROUGh CIty FOReSIGht CITY Mark Tewdwr-Jones, John Goddard and Paul Cowie FUTURES 2065 NEWCASTLE CITY FUTURES 2065 Anchoring universities in urban regions through city foresight Final Report July 2015 Mark Tewdwr-Jones, John Goddard and Paul Cowie This report is intended for: Policy makers and a wide range of professionals and researchers whose interests relate to all aspects of the future of cities. The report focuses on Newcastle, but will also be relevant to the interests of many other cities and regions nationally and internationally. This report should be cited as: Tewdwr-Jones, M., Goddard, J. and Cowie, P. (2015), Newcastle City Futures 2065: Anchoring universities in urban regions through city foresight, Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal, Newcastle University, Newcastle. Newcastle City Futures 2065: funded by the Government Office for Science and progressed by Newcastle University Institute of Social Renewal as a collaborative engagement project 03 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Newcastle City Futures 2065 project was funded by the Foresight Programme of the Government Office for Science under the direction of the Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government. Foresight strengthens strategic policy-making in government by embedding a futures approach. This was the first occasion that a Foresight project was commissioned at a geographical area beneath that of the country as a whole. The project team at Newcastle University would like to thank the project’s Lead Expert Group who advised on the progression of the project and who were involved in different stages of the work. Newcastle University would also like to thank Dr Colin Herron who contributed to this final report. Particular thanks are due to the UK Government Office for Science Future of Cities Project Team led by Professor Sir Alan Wilson and Eleri Jones, to the national project’s Lead Expert Group, and to Newcastle’s City Futures Development Group. We also wish to acknowledge the many experts and stakeholders from Tyneside, the UK and overseas who contributed to the work of this project, who provided material and intelligence, and who generously provided advice and guidance. A list of those involved is provided in the Appendices. The project report is the culmination of an intensive and ambitious city-wide engagement and collaboration process in Newcastle that has involved over 2500 residents and representatives of over 50 different public, private, community and voluntary organisations. The identification of issues and ideas about city futures have been selected for presentation throughout this report, although the final edit and form of the report remains that of the three members of the project team. 05 FOREWORD 8386_newcastle_urban_op.qxp_Layout 1 17/07/2015 12:55 Page 7 It has become increasingly recognised that achieving good qualities of life in the UK depends in large part on a good future for cities. Challenges can be identified for the here and now but it is clear that to meet these, investment is needed that will have impacts in the long run. We are all conscious of the pace of technological change and so we not only need to seek to meet our future aspirations but to future-proof to the best of our current abilities. Most thinking about future cities is concerned with the relatively short run. In June 2013, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Mark Walport, launched a Foresight Project on the Future of Cities which had a 50-year time horizon. As a part of that project, he felt that it was important to engage with cities and Newcastle was the first of a series of visits by Sir Mark and the Foresight team. The idea of thinking about the long term was enthusiastically received and the Newcastle City Futures Foresight programme was launched in 2014. This report is the culmination of much hard work by many people, led by the three authors of this report, supported by a broad-based local community. The Newcastle Project had a structure which initially mirrored the national one with a Lead Expert Group but this has since broadened into the Newcastle City Futures Development Group, embracing the universities, the City Council and a wide range of organisations and citizens. This report is interesting , thought-provoking and very impressive and will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the future of Newcastle and its region. The task of looking 50 years ahead is seriously challenging. Our understanding of cities – the science – provides a foundation but there are too many uncertainties to provide forecasts. What can be done is to broaden the foundation to encompass aspirations for the future and then combine these with plausible trends to generate a number of scenarios. This process has been achieved brilliantly in this study. This report offers an excellent account of the baseline – where we are now and the challenges – and in highly innovative ways proceeds to identify what is important for the future as a basis for scenario development. The exhibition was an outstanding achievement which raised the awareness of the challenges to a wider community and was the basis for futures’ thinking via stakeholder and Delphi groups. Three detailed scenarios have emerged from this process the first of which is essentially trend- based, the other two representing different kinds of aspirations based on alternative assumptions about the balance of economic development across the UK. What emerges is the beginnings of a route map to meet the challenges shown in the trends scenario to generate an exciting and prosperous future for the city and its region. These conclusions, and the engaging way in which they have been generated, represent a tremendous achievement. Professor Sir Alan Wilson FBA FRS, Chair, Lead Expert Group, Government Office for Science Project on the Future of Cities 07 CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................................10 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................................14 2. CITIES IN CONTEXT ......................................................................................................................................20 3. FUTURE CITIES ON THE POLITICAL AGENDA ..........................................................................................22 4. WHAT ROLE FOR UNIVERSITIES? ..............................................................................................................24 5. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................................................28 6. BASELINE EVIDENCE ....................................................................................................................................30 7. NEWCASTLE CITY FUTURES EXHIBITION ................................................................................................46 8. NEWCASTLE CITY REGION RESEARCH AND LITERATURE DATABASE ..............................................60 9. STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOPS ......................................................................................................................66 10. THE DELPHI SURVEYS ..................................................................................................................................70 11. SCENARIO BUILDING ....................................................................................................................................76 12. EMBEDDING NEW METHODOLOGIES IN THE UNIVERSITY AND THE CITY ......................................98 13. FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ENGAGEMENT ..............................................................106 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................................................110 09 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THE NEWCASTLE CITY FUTURES 2065 PROJECT This Project has taken a broad and overarching look at the long-term future of cities over the next 50 years using Newcastle upon Tyne as a pilot. It demonstrates that there is a strong case to develop a much more strategic and synoptic approach using futures methods and city-wide participatory processes to think about city futures. Universities can work more proactively with and for the cities in which they are located, and use both creative techniques and their expertise to foster civic engagement . This report shows that a reappraisal is vital to help address cities’ major challenges ahead – for example, relating to demographic shifts, economic growth, social and environmental change, transport and infrastructure needs, and the integration of public health and urban environments. The challenge is to meet the rising expectations within and across cities that will come over time; and to deliver a wider range of sustainable benefits based on the unique place assets evident in cities. At a time when citizens in cities can often feel remote from policy-making, there is a particular need for more coherent and consistent approaches to generating engagement and participation processes across entire urban areas relating to change, by remembering the past, being confident about the present,