One of my favourite printed magazines is Monocle; I sometimes pick it up for the office, but last week took it on holiday. It is a weighty tome – and you need a few hours to pick your way through it.
It was good edition to buy – as they published the ‘liveable cities index‘ for 2010.
I was sad to see that Nottingham didn’t make the list, but then not one UK City did! We need to put this right immediately – or at least in time for the 2011 survey.
Liveable City, according to Monocle is
“urban settlements where human life can thrive because they are easy to navigate, diverse, pulsating and full of opportunities”. Easy then!
Munich came out top with Copenhagen and Zurich in second and third respectively.
What Monacle don’t do is print you a convenient tick list against which you are measured. You need to read between the lines, I will have a go at the headlines…
Transport – this features highly, whether it be the airport, public transport or cylcing. Reducing the reliance on the car is clearly a big factor. Easy to say but difficult to achieve…
Public Space – the winning cities all have a familiar theme – there are public spaces where people can walk, relax and play. Please walk on the grass!
Art / culture / technology – these intertwined things are an important part of the Cities life. Galleries can inspire people. But inspiration isn’t enough on its own – we need to create opportunities. Culturally you have to be diverse. We need to make it easy for people to start businesses and keep them running…
Food – when we were in the USA last year with the Sheriff of Nottingham we quickly spotted that ‘food’ was a key component to making something work well. The presence of an eclectic mix of restautrants – from Michelen starred establishments, to basic street cafes.
Sport – both watching and taking part are important in the mix of a City. People feel good if they are taking part or watching winners; they feel great if they are winning…
Ambitious and proud – the Cities featured had some familiar themes – they had ambition or were competitive (on a national and international stage). But critically their citizens were ‘proud’ – and this is a hard won badge.
Looking at this list, I don’t see that it is out of reach for Nottingham. In some ways we are ‘there’. I’m not saying we couldn’t do better – we could. But we have a great platform to work from.
Anyone up for the challenge?
p.s it was noted that there is a ‘chain’ index and the number of Starbucks is one of the measures. Shutting them down won’t help my cause..
