UK Digital Trailblazers

Congratulations are in order for the market town of Chipping Norton, aka "Chippy" for its runner-up status at this year's Great British High Street Awards.

That's Shaun Fagan on the left in the photo, the Chairman of Experience Chipping Norton (ECN) and true believer in the vitality of small towns and the transformational potential of technology.

We're inspired by Shaun's work and are currently collaborating with him and the digital team at Real Towns to amplify this strategy for more UK towns and high streets.

5 Key Technologies of the Smart City -- Reblog

Wi-Fi Mesh Networks

So what exactly is a mesh network and why should we be excited about this?

When you think of the "smart home", with the ability to control your thermostat remotely or water your garden when it's needed, imagine this capability amplified into public infrastructure. Cities will be able to manage energy resources and control activities such as lighting and transportation controls through central dashboards. Read more about it here.

Expanding mesh network capability to citizens will be more than just offering public Wi-fi. It will enable street-level information exchange and a multitude of ideas we've yet to think about.

Keep an Eye on Wearables

Intel announced that it's downscaling its wearable division after several failures including the Basis Peak watch. While this may seem like bad news, most notably for the teams working on these technologies at Intel, it's just another ripple in a market poised to take off across multiple sectors.

There are some very smart minds working in wearables right now and many of the usability and human factors issues killing off some nascent products are accelerating innovation. Fitness and health are obvious markets, but more intriguing is how wearables interact with the everyday objects we encounter in an urban environment.

Speaking of Disruption...

Technology + horizontal integration with zero marginal cost = scaleable disruption.

What does this mean for urban planning and community development? Think of any processes that can be merged and integrated with user technologies (API), Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI)...transportation, utilities, resource management, B2B and B2C. Now keep going.

Read more about it here.

Technologies to Tackle Food Waste

Food waste has become the hot topic of late, most notably the ways in which technology is raising the bar and linking businesses with nonprofits for food donations. Boston-based startup Spoiler Alert launched a web-based portal to facilitate this exchange real-time and has received additional funding to accelerate the platform. Read more about it here.

When businesses see themselves as hubs and enablers within a community, rather than the local employer, there is great potential.

The Upside of Down

I've been reading Thomas Homer-Dixon's excellent 2006 book "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilisation." Not exactly a cheery topic, but what is remarkable and hopeful is how prescient his observations were 10 years ago.

He identifies the convergence of global stresses as if it's a running commentary of 2016, predicting much of the strangeness that has been rolling out all year. What strikes me, though, is how my perspective has changed from assuming that we're ill-equipped to overcome some of these stresses, to feeling that the political and socio-economic environment is never better for exploiting the opportunities in front of us.

In other words, we've been too comfortable. I see entrepreneurial, innovative people tackling some of these issues head-on through collaboration outside the normal channels. There will be much disruption ahead.

Sustainability from the Ground Up

Feathers are flying around the abundance of smart city projects, but many lose traction under the weight of their own ambitions. Existing infrastructure and institutional bureaucracy are among the barriers confronting the type of systemic change proposed by these initiatives.

Sometimes, staying small pays off. Several private projects in the US are gaining ground by starting at the community level, developing partnerships with tech companies, utilities and the state to build smartly planned communities from the ground up. You can read more about them here.

Each project can serve as a living laboratory for sustainable practice, holistically looking at resource management, energy, transportation, and quality of life.

Smart Cities or Smart Transportation?

Transportation seems to be the key driver in many smart city initiatives. MK:Smart is a multifaceted approach for Milton Keynes to respond to rapid population growth through "internet of things" (IoT) and one of their solutions is to provide real-time information to drivers on where to park their cars and how to pay for it efficiently. Read more about the project here.

Not surprisingly, the two primary challenges of IoT projects concern humans, not cars. Developing an infrastructure that tackles efficiencies in transportation and resource management requires shared systems within the broader landscape of stakeholders that include government, academia and industry. In other words, lots of meetings and steering committees. The other challenge is the elephant in the room...privacy. It's time for smart city initiatives to include citizen engagement as a driver rather than an afterthought.

Platform to Promote Community Health Engagement

Dr. Deepak Chopra's digital platform Jiyo now has a localised portal in partnership with Aspen City of Wellbeing, a nonprofit organisation addressing the health and quality of life for its residents.

The platform is a digital connection to information and analytics that measure and prioritise the health and wellbeing of its citizens. This contextual platform supports a trend in citizen engagement to connect people with place-based information, expertise, and like-minded colleagues. Aspen City of Wellbeing has created its own dashboard that not only provides personalised insights for users but establishes a feedback loop with valuable information on the interests and preferences of its citizens. Read more about it here.

Digital EdTech and the New Classroom

Deloitte recently published its Digital Education Survey, with insight into how the education ecosystem is extending beyond the classroom. No doubt about it, education technology is impacting the way students learn, but as a parent, I'm much more intrigued by what makes my teenage sons interested to learn when they're NOT in school.

One insight from the survey is that students want the chance to learn new things and they want to engage in ways that are fun (no surprise), but this is less about wanting to get better grades or preparing for assignments in school and more about the independent learning itself and the chance to engage with their peers. And yes, they goof off and play games and visit sites that don't meet your approval, but imagine environments that take this self-directed online learning to the public square. If parents are worried that kids spend too much time online at home, perhaps we should be focusing on learning labs that use technology to engage students in the communities around them.

New Spin on the Lamp Post

A new approach to location-based energy services and communications infrastructure is being rolled out by Totem Power through towers capped with solar canopies that resemble palm trees. You can read the story here. The towers include 4G and wifi communication capabilities powered by solar energy and battery storage, and offer smart lighting and electric vehicle charging.

They will become the town beacons. Which begs the questions, should they all look the same? Is this an opportunity for cities and neighbourhoods to put their own stamp on the design? If the intention is the raise public awareness of clean energy issues, then shouldn't the public be engaged in its deployment?

The Rural/Urban Axis and "The Silent Vote"

Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election highlights an ever growing divide between rural communities and urban centres, not just in the United States but in many developed countries. As with the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, pollsters missed the mark and failed to identify the “silent vote” living in less populated areas. 

At its best, polling provides an equal voice to all and gives expression to the public’s wants and needs. At its worst, polls follow the most engaged voices and are inadequate at reaching citizens not interacting with civic life, either because they lack the tools, don’t see the relevance in their communities, or do not find the methods themselves to be engaging.

Home to more than half the world's inhabitants, with forecasts that 70% of the global population will live in urban areas by 2050, cities play a central role in contemporary society. Digital connectivity, internet of things (IoT) and social media can measurably influence the approach planners take to citizen engagement and these technologies, when deployed thoughtfully, have the potential to bridge the rural/urban divide.

Chicago is catalysing some of the most progressive smart city innovations in recent years and has a model for a civic tech ecosystem that can be exported to smaller communities and counties operating under greater constraints. Smart Chicago’s Array of Things Civic Engagement, an urban sensing project that collects real-time data on environment, infrastructure and public activity, is a partnership between governmental and non-profit foundations. According to Glynis Startz, a Harvard Ash Fellow who worked with Smart Chicago this past summer, the structure of the initiative lends it both stability through government backing and agility under the Chicago Community Trust which is primarily focused on bridging to communities within specific project work.  Smart Chicago’s Civic User Testing Group (CUTGroup) pays residents across the entire county to provide user feedback on websites and apps to help enable better tools. This open government model has been picked up by planners in other American cities such as Detroit, Oakland, and Chattanooga. Arguably, it could be rolled out across suburban, ex-urban and rural areas in order to draw residents into the conversation about their communities, with the potential for constructive feedback loops.

In the “2015 Connected Cities Report” conducted by Harris poll on behalf of Salesforce, 3,075 adults in 15 major U.S. cities were polled. The report found that residents are seeking greater use of digital technologies such as mobile apps, websites and social media to communicate with their local governments on service issues, public transportation, public safety, energy use and other civic concerns. However, resident demand for digital technologies is offset by generally low use, or low awareness, of current offerings in their cities. The survey offered other insights, with a majority of citizens open to sharing personal data in exchange for digital services such as location data for safety, energy and water usage for efficiencies, and traffic data to improve transportation systems. Further, an average of 60 percent of respondents were willing to share personal contact information for civic engagement.

Cities are working to establish meaningful feedback loops that aggregate data from citizens and respond to civic issues. Philly311, a collaboration between Salesforce and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, is a citizen reporting platform to address non-emergency services at the street level and enable responsive fixes to city infrastructure issues ranging from potholes to stoplight outages.  

Citizens using Philly311’s mobile app can report an issue, track status updates, and search for relevant community data.   Citizen participation projects have the potential to inform the citizenry, increase transparency in government, level the disproportionate influence of different social, economic, racial, religious and geographical populations, and draw on citizen awareness and expertise to improve quality of life.

While cities serve as economic and innovation drivers, with many emerging technologies designed to serve complex urban regions, there are opportunities to translate and adapt best practice to the rural landscape. It begins by devising an innovation ecosystem where business, government and institutional partners create high-quality employment, with more emphasis on expanding access to digital skills and community-led programs that engage citizens as advocates for progress. Anchor institutions such as universities and schools have a role to play in connecting citizens with the broader conversation outside of their communities. Crowdsourcing renewal and community development projects is one such driver towards a more connected populace.

Ours is a family seriously into Algae... and this is big news!

JCU scientists successfully use algae to clean wastewater in year-long trial. @CTBCC_JCU @enviro_sci @EngAustralia http://bit.ly/2fzGF6d 

Make your own batteries from metal scraps for fun, profit, and a cleaner world

How to make "homemade" batteries out of metal scraps: http://www.futurity.org/steel-brass-battery-1288512-2/ … #batteries

New Simulation Represents 100% Renewable Energy System

Researchers at the Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland have developed the first ever model depicting a 100% global renewable energy system.

In a first of its kind-type simulation researchers from the Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland have modeled a 100% global renewable energy system covering the entire planet, structured into 145 separate regions as part of 9 major world regions. The global Internet of Energy Model puts into effect the targets set by the Paris Agreement using only renewable energy generating sources. Specifically, the model is intended to find the most economical solution for a renewable electricity system, and show how renewable energy can provide electricity for every season, day, and hour of the year.

This sort of technology is key to modelling regions for energy and sustainability.  A big leap forward.

Story here.

Hydropower generates lots of headpond methane--it isn't as clean as you would think--Guardian

The hydropower paradox: is this energy as clean as it seems?

Get the story here

.

Forbes story on life at near zero waste/carbon footprint luxury house

Forbes story on life at near zero waste/carbon footprint luxury house:  Click here.

This is so much the future of architecture and home building.  

Five ways the UK and India can lead in smart cities... from The Conversation

Five ways the UK and India can lead the development of ecologically smart cities http://bit.ly/2eOlaNF 

The Influence of Economic Development on Place

Nine years ago, while working on a masters' thesis in urban and regional planning, I built a case study on "placemaking" as enabled by a large-scale capital project to build a new art museum in the downtown market district of the City of Roanoke, Virginia. My research identified the shortfalls around the public language of placemaking and the conflict between large development projects and their stakeholders and community-based interests.

While I still believe that these interests are not mutually exclusive, the struggle between local economic development and local understandings of place continues everywhere. When site-specific projects at the neighbourhood scale have clear objectives to address the history and culture of neighbourhood, through historic preservation or cultural programming for example, there can be a common narrative derived from community input. To overlay development without an understanding of place identity is a missed opportunity.

One thing is clear. The image I derived from Lawrence Buell's concepts of place-connectedness suggests that the overlay of digital information, which in 2007 was barely a whisper, is now in full swing and largely accessible. If communities don't step up to develop the content that delivers their narrative, then it will be filled in for them.

Would you live in a self-sustaining village?

If a village had off-grid capability, would you live there? Power-positive homes, waste-to-resource systems, sustainable and localised food production...it's closer than you think. Already, thousands of people are on a waiting list to be the first residents of a pilot village in the Netherlands. The concept was rolled out at this year's Venice Architecture Biennial by Danish studio EFFEKT.

In a world where larger walls are being built around unsustainable homes and wealth is ever more concentrated, does this represent an opportunity to redefine how we use space and how we share resources?

The Marketplace

One of the great innovations of the Romans was the Forum.  The forum was a public space where transactions occurred and it virtually was always associated with a market.  The market was where the luxuries and goods of life were purchased.

Our medieval concept of market was the same.  And then we had the farmer's markets and town markets of France and cities/towns the world over.  It is natural to assemble trade.

Strangely, we have given away the lion's share of wealth associated with that to the likes of Amazon. At first that makes huge sense in a globalized rapidly paced world.  But the price was the death of place.  High Streets full of far away chains with delivery trucks and "systems" are little better than Amazon.

It is time for something new and integrative with the past, with technology and with local.  We are thinking about that.  Help us.  We don't want to own the franchise.  We want to enable.  We want to enable the High Street Green--not create a venue for shareholder wealth.  Wealth for the market should be local.  It just doesn't make sense otherwise.

Sustainable?

It was once said to me in a graduate school lecture that no unsustainable trend is... sustainable. Tautology to be sure, but thoughtful tautology!

Absent sustainable, we cannot have green.  The symbol for our familiar effort--the green triangle of arrows, represents reduce, reuse, recycle.  I would add repurpose.  I suppose that is in part of reuse as well.

We now fairly know that we cannot maintain our world and burn endless carbon fuel.  It is impossible.  "Endless" may be sophistry.  We can't burn ANY carbon fuel.  Of course we will.  We have no means by which to switch, so we will add damaging hydrocarbons to our world and we will warm our climate at a pace that is dangerous for life as we know it.

So, what to do?  Anything we can is the realistic answer because, in part, so many will cynically do nothing.  There is no amount of training or pleading that can motivate the sociopath to be communitarian.  At some point we must have law and regulation that enforces the brutish to do the appropriate societal things.  They will still fight and cheat.

At some juncture, the grab for extended resources will slow and cease.  Wealth will simply melt.  It is a fixture, as currently conceived, of a bygone era.  I don't worry about it.  People will fight hard to have their super shares.  They will rationalize and wheedle and connive.  No worries.  Sooner or later, we will do the right things.  And in the intervening period, those who are selfish first will be selfish first.

Eventually, we must find sustainable.  How does that happen?  By choice.  By action.  By youth.  By education.  By honesty.  It will be a long fight--like great fights before it--Civil Rights for instance.  It will come.  No unsustainable trend is sustainable.

Ecommerce and the High Street

No doubt about it, shopping online is easy and increases exponentially each year. If you've wasted time running around to shops only to find that things are out of stock, you'll be inclined to "click and collect" the next time around. Where does that leave the High Street?

Even digital commerce has a physical presence somewhere, whether it's a warehouse or a stand-alone shop. Technology may be enabling remote forms of commerce and retail, but the built environment on the High Street remains. How we use those spaces collectively will dictate whether people think it's worth making the trip.

It can't just be about retail, it needs to be experiential and unique. A gathering place. A place to convene. Understanding how people want to engage in the non-digital world may give us clues to what's next. What if every High Street had a learning lab or maker lab where you could build new skills?

The Internet of Stuff

The so-called "Internet of Things" is coming.  Coming fast.

What does that mean?  It means that we have enough available network capacity (if we want) to say enormous amounts of things about nearly all stuff.

So, here's another idea--software as a service--SAAS.  It turns out that airlines don't see themselves as airplane companies.  Airplanes are a tool for them.  They would like to rent their tools. So if each thingamabob on a jet engine can "tell" the network when it is feeling poorly, the engine company doesn't sell engines any more...it sells engine time; air hours in flight over the Atlantic. And thus Virgin doesn't need to take care of engines anymore; they can design lounges and do the stuff they think is cool and will enhance the customer experience while Rolls Royce does Internet of things-based SAAS to Virgin in the form of engine hours for sale.

Phew.  Crazy.

Who needs their own driverless car?  No one.  Who needs parking spaces?  Why are things distributed in country if they don't need cheap parking and cash and carry?  What happens when the delivery van is a robot and gives you a screen to select your delivery time and then makes it optimised by software?  The answer is...internet of stuff.

Everything from your milk delivery to your packages to your kids' backpacks will soon be vying to talk to you.

Your appliance for that interaction will be a range of devices, maybe even a virtual space inside a pair of goggles. That's all less than 6 years away.  How does it change you?  How does it change your place?

"What is the city but the people?"

Shakespeare’s Coriolanus asked the question first. And we've been attempting to answer it as we respond to each wave of new technology that is meant to make our lives easier as we engage in public spaces. We now voluntarily agree to contribute information to urban databases in exchange for information on the ground that is useful to us. We don't make money from this but the private companies managing the databases stand to gain. Is this the role the citizen plays as a city evolves, a pixel on a map? What happened to the random and the unpredictable? 

I confess. I'm captivated by technology and appreciate how it can be leveraged to solve problems. I love knowing when the next bus is arriving, or how to navigate to my destination, or where the nearest cup of coffee is waiting. But how do you get optimisation without losing the melting pot that makes "place" so special? Let's not forget the abomination of large highways slicing through urban neighbourhoods in the US so that traffic could flow better. We lost sight of the local and paid homage to the automobile, and we're still doing it.

Community asset mapping enables a bottom-up, citizen-led approach to planning but it can be messy. It is ethnographic and iterative. Each sub-ecosystem defining itself for the one around it. 

What does PLACE want to be?

Place is predicated on what its people want.  If they want to be a tourist destination, if they want to be exclusive, if they want to be "smart" and advanced, they will move toward it.

In other words place is deliberative.  That's an extraordinary idea.

It is extraordinary in this way most most of all:  Talent will choose or avoid place.  If talent wants to leave, the pool gets less interesting.  The coral reef starts to look like a mud puddle.

This is what the discourse on "diversity" means.  Orange fish are inherently interesting because, well, they exist.  Place either has orange fish or it doesn't.  You decide.

If you have a good university, you already have orange fish.  The rest is much easier.  No university, no place.  Trying to have "place" without a school as an anchor is like trying to have an ecosystem with no place to hide.

Natural beauty is wonderful.  History is fabulous.  Local is awesome.  None of it carries well without diversity.  And diversity is either massively urban (which not every place can be) or it is consciously inclusive (which is hard) or it is associated with large educational institutions.  Knowledge and ideas draw diversity.  And the absence of knowledge and ideas causes smart people to leave.

What will people do?

Ok, there is a lot of justified angst about AI and jobs.  I have spent years thinking about the topic and there are few simple answers.  There is going to be a transition, and it is going to be rough for many. Skills just aren't what they used to be.

It is also a myth that high tech creates its own jobs in equal or greater numbers.  It just doesn't.  High tech is job destroying.  The good news isn't that it is wealth creating, because that wealth tends not to be local (i.e. on the High Street).  It tends to be in Silicon Valley, etc.  So, by all means, be a mini-Silicon Valley.  If you are not so, in some sense, the future is indeed grim until someone decides to pay your way.

But local has many options.  It doesn't have to be global linked 24/7.  It can grow its own food.  It can have emphasis on local markets and producers.  It can celebrate the artisan and the low carbon producers.  And it should.  That is part of the High Street Green.  And this is what people will do.

The US has had a true explosion of craft brewers.  There are thousands selling beers now in the US in a market once dominated by what now seems to be one company or maybe 2 or 3.  Breakfast cereal was similar.  Coffee shops... etc. etc.  It isn't just food.  With  maker/repurposing centres, it is possible to launch businesses that fix old clocks, repair expensive shoes, and grow unique orchids.  These can be more than supplemental livings for many--and they can contribute mightily to quality of life.

We do need to realize that spaces will need to work for consumers, local producers, and global producers.  The deck cannot be stacked too much one way.  And that requires market interventions. That is a painful reality for those justifiably suspicious of all things that don't have a clear incentive structure for performance.  We need to worry about that.  We need benchmarks from other locales and other tools to make sure people are not drawing a paycheck saying they do something when they don't deliver.  That said, some form of basic income (eventually) seems inevitable.

The simple truth is that we cannot all survive making baskets and artisan breads for each other.  And technological efficiency is simply too high for us to employ 7-9 billion folks.  Something's got to give.  It will.

DIY 3D Printing: Switcher DIY Power Modules For Smart Home Projects...

DIY 3D Printing: Switcher DIY Power Modules For Smart Home Projects...: Hristo Borisov developed and published a set of 3D printable socket and switch modules that are controlled by  ESP8266 .



This is very cool and VERY high street green!

Smart City Kiosks

The city of Newark, NJ recently unveiled a new smart city kiosk called BrandNewark.  Earlier this year, Kansas City billed itself as "the world's most connected Smart City" after installing 25 community kiosks resembling giant iPhones. Which begs the question, are kiosks the future of way finding and community engagement? They've been around for decades, first as free-standing art installations on street corners with posters and notice boards (think Art Nouveau and Paris), evolving into digitally enabled beacons with advertising.

There are issues with on-street web terminals. The LinkNYC project experienced a few set-backs when it was discovered that people were using the kiosks to access pornography in public places. This is where the internet and public spaces meet. What we access on our laptops and smart phones is something else entirely when it becomes public forum. Maintenance and vandalism are also issues with stand-alone kiosks that require the public to engage with them in order to access information.

If we are all walking around with a smart phone, that becomes our kiosk.

What is a "Maker Space" and why do they matter

A maker space is a safe, neutral zone inhabited by construction tools, know-how and hope.

It is designed to incubate creativity and projects.  Projects cause direction, commerce, fulfillment and connectivity to locale.

They also link locale/place to abroad.

Maker spaces are not business incubators.  That is a different engine that is designed and dedicated to a different purpose.  Instead, maker spaces are multi-age, scrappy, filled with repurpose ideas, crafts and nuttiness.

Maker spaces "acquire" tools.  A lathe.  A drill press.  But they are really nothing more than old or repurposed factories turned toward what people want to do in a social way.  Their most important tools are a kettle and a coffee maker and a sign that welcomes those who want to touch that place in them that solders, shows, grinds, weaves, etc.

Every place that is going to be a place needs a maker space.  It needs lots of them.  They are ideally a set of rooms around a well-lit bay of naturally lit tables dedicated to doing things.

The talk and showing will come naturally.  It is a place that 17 year olds think is "cool."   It is also a place where old men want to "hang out" and women want to coffee klatch.  It is all that and not dedicated to any of it.

In needs insurance and organization--a board--but it doesn't need a staff beyond the volunteer who knows how to show how to safely use the new 3-D printer or CNC machine.  It is secure.  It watches itself from vandalism and theft.  It collects materials like boards and old radios and has storage rooms that have honor system purchases from them where people sign a list saying they took an aluminium bar.

They are centres of renewal and community and essential placemakers.

What is the Smart City?

A smart city is not one dominated by a single firm, nor is it dominated by the state or a government.

A smart city is an enabled ecosystem built on top of a grid of multiple possibilities for interacting and becoming informed. It is an omni-channeled place with discoverable content through multiple platforms.

It isn't tied to one map.  It isn't tied to one framework.  It isn't tied to one point of view or one provider or one set of providers.

A smart city enables.  It gives voice to those who are normally not projecting their image.  It is a place for action, discourse and safety. It is transparent.

It allows people to find help both acutely and in the long term.

It enables linkages to commerce and ideas, but it is not alone the forum.

It is a wayfinder.

What is a "Social Enterprise" and Why do they Matter?

It must be stated up front that there is a popular libertarian view that only self-interested functions exist in earnest.  That is not the view taken in this blog.  We are more than happy to debate the point with those who challenge on it, but there is loads of evidence to support our view and almost none supporting the contrary view except angry old white man talk.  We are not against angry old white men.  We get it.  But let's just be honest who we all are (written by a mildly angry old white man.)

A social enterprise is one whose purpose is not purely to aid the weak, needy or deserving (a charity.) Charities do vital work and it is hard to speak in general terms against nearly anything they do.  They are integral to healthy societies.

But ecosystems that are rich have many hybrid functions.  Some are crosses between conventional creations and some are de novo--or to use an even more 6th form Latin phrase--sui generis--of their own type.

Social enterprises combine the ethos of commerce with the focus of community.  In a sense they are less profit focused, and more public focused.  Those things are continuums, and we should want all our enterprises to be "social."  They will not be.  Some will create "negative externalities."  A negative externality is an outcome that is net poor for others caused in making wealth or something positive for someone else (e.g. pollution.)

Social enterprises are often "pooled" functions that have elements of broad public support including funding.  An example is a tourist board in a town.  It is in the town's interest to have such a board.  The board probably has no sensible charge back scheme that would make it self-sustaining, yet it is obvious to all involved that there is benefit in having such a locus and such a function.

Social enterprises are the glue of place.  Done right they cause explosive goodness including growth. Done poorly, they are bureaucratic bastions of protective jobs for the frightened and defensive.  Social enterprises need to "attack".  Their boards should insist not on business plans but action plans.  They must try things...engage, venture and experiment.  They must not rest on laurels and any successes should be spun out if possible to their own life stream.  Beware the social enterprise that becomes the captive of the long standing director or board chair--or a collaborative co-dependency between the two.

Social enterprises must periodically fail.  They must incur wrath.  If they do not, then they are not engaged.  Engagement is their metier.  Their purpose is to combine the go-getter nature of commerce with the prayerful hope for a possible public good.  They are never standing still.

Where is UK density and trends toward population growth and why does this matter?

This is an excerpt from Wikipedia (click here) on where UK population is found.   In relation, here is a general article (click here) on UK demography.  I use the Wikipedia statistics to facilitate looking at other nations for comparison--which is not as simple from national sites.

What appears obvious in these maps?

I see what is obvious to most British people.  London dominates in density and scale.  Birmingham and Manchester are 2nd cities and there is a line of population running up the M1 corridor.

Bristol is a microcenter of the West.  Glasgow/Edinburgh are an important corridor.  Another micro corridor exists between Middlesbrough and Newcastle upon Tyne.  Northern Ireland is a pool around Belfast.  Wales is an echo of Bristol using the Bristol Channel to similar benefits--perhaps historically as well as currently.

Maps showing change maps are more interesting (as is typical).  Click here.

The data from  the Guardian based maps are a bit old but trends are not changing too dramatically for them to remain relevant.  You have to click on the top of the map to get to (this page) where you can click on the data change parameters which are available in "pull down" just under the photo of Simon Rogers.

I particularly note the percentage of retired persons pull-down.  Rural Britain is old and BREXIT focused.  Urban Britain is largely growing in population, much younger, and much more a focus of immigrants.

There is a clear economic corridor running roughly up the M1 where most of the energy of the UK is focused.  The maximum distance from this corridor in all directions is where the greatest number of dependents is found.

This appears to be an unhealthy and even unnatural distribution.  It is a segmented populated bound to be a political odds with itself.

Let's start with an idea

High Street Green...a social enterprise facilitating partnership between municipalities, local commerce, and digital entrepreneurs to develop innovative, street-level solutions for place-making and community asset mapping. We leverage technology to connect people with places.

But what does that mean? Place-making is about residency, work, community, sustainability, desirability, durability.

There is, of course, a large "literature." People talking to themselves is a form of discourse, and there is a place for formal discourse.  But get in the game!  Take a stake.  It takes time in life to choose your games and stakes and to place the bets, but it is better to take a stake than to do nothing and sometimes being part of the "literature" is doing nothing.

We should not congratulate ourselves for our feathery damsel fly landing on a topic.  Hit it.  Hit it hard.  Whip it.  Whip it good. We hereby commit ourselves to solutions.