Listen: George Ferguson
George Ferguson is an architect and a former RIBA president, who has just concluded four years running Bristol city as elected mayor. Not aligned with any political party, he used his independent status to implement radical transport, education and outreach schemes and partnerships during his time, aimed at creating a more resilient, connected and healthy city. His grand finale was devising and hosting Bristol’s European Green capital 2015 programme, harnessing the city’s rich creative, social and intellectual capital to generate enthusiasm for sustainable living
One of the most exciting aspects of my role as mayor has been joining forces with other cities across the world to drive the agenda for innovation.
The key innovation needed here is structural: for cities to be more in control of their own futures. Devolution deals are absolutely necessary if we are to innovate. This can’t be achieved within the existing structures of funding and governance.
Housing - or homes, as I like to call it - is an area that needs a huge amount of innovative thinking if we are to ever get on top of what has been an intractable situation, especially in the rich south of the country, where pricing pressures and lack of development has meant that there are too many losers. We could be much more radical about providing emergency interim homes. When I stop and talk to people sleeping on the street, and ask them, ‘What do you want?’, all they want is a place with a key where they can leave their stuff and that they can make their own.
We have set standards of what a home means that have prevented us from doing what I’ve seen happening in the USA, where car lots, parking lots and building sites have been allowed to become micro villages. People might live in a 3m cube, but only as an interim measure; for as long as they need it, it’s their place. It’s certainly more dignified than being in a hostel. We need to be more innovative in our planning, and be more intelligent in the development of new solutions instead of having such a standard way of producing so-called ‘affordable’ and ‘social’ housing. Anybody who has been an architect all their lives has been frustrated by regulations that stop good things happening. That’s not new. What’s new is that we have had a huge surge in smart thinking.
In Bristol we have been forming partnerships with our universities to generate new solutions. Bristol has done some smart thinking in terms of transport. Governments are generally so unintelligent about the way we use our cities: we are driving around in circles polluting them because we don’t give people the information they need to enable them to be more efficient in their journeys - to tell them how they are going to travel in and how far they have to walk and what it’s going to cost them. That’s where the investment has to go. It’s not about building big new infrastructure so much as making the most of what we have.
Cities are sharing now and being much more generous in communicating directly with each other. As mayor, I had more communication with other cities in China or Africa than I did with central government. And there are wonderful alliances forming within Europe, of course. In Bristol we established a brilliant partnership called Replicate, with Florence and San Sebastián. We are looking at the poorer parts of the city and investigating how we can give people the ‘intelligence’, the information they need to give themselves better lives by making better use of resources and opportunities. We always offered Bristol as a laboratory for change; that was the platform I stood on when I was elected as mayor. Some things failed and some things succeeded.
I think the things that most excite me are the changes we’re making with young people, in our schools. There’s a collective noun for those who resist change: adults. Kids are always open to change. As mayor I instigated lots of primary-school initiatives, such as one tree per child, which is now a global initiative; cities in Japan, Australia and Africa are taking that on. Every child plants a tree and learns about the importance of trees to our environment, but they also have a stake in their city as a result.
Creating a primary-school education programme on sustainability is another exciting investment, which will continue over the next few years and impact on the national curriculum. Starting in the primary schools is how you create long-term change. We launched the mayoral award for healthy primary schools. Now they are all falling over themselves to be healthier and kinder to each other. Kids understand they are better off walking and cycling to school than being driven by a parent. I knew, even without a second term as mayor, that these things would have a lasting impact.
Ultimately, what was reinforced through my time as mayor and every encounter with colleagues from all over the world, is the knowledge that successful cities are cities that are good places to live. The disasters are the ones that just chase GDP rather than chasing quality of life.
Image: Frances Gard
