Tim Williams Blog

Countries in a good shape have little to fear from a national Census usually undertaken every five or ten years. Infamously both the Soviet Union and China deferred their Census’ after catastrophic policies resulted in the deaths of millions from famine and purges. Wales must be wishing that the results of the 2011 Census could have been buried somewhere. This is because they speak of a nation facing an existential crisis.

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I am rarely uplifted by news from the UK but my current visit to Blighty has warmed the cockles of my heart (wherever and whatever a cockle is). To be specific, my experience of Cornwall gave me a boost. This was most unexpected (a) because the economy has been as badly affected in that region as anywhere in the UK and wasn’t robust even in the boom years and (b) I had at best a mixed experience down there when running an Urban Regeneration Company in the ex-mining heartlands of Cornwall, around Camborne Pool and Redruth  – more my fault than anyone else’s – and hadn’t anticipated seeing the area bring a smile to my face. I was mistaken.
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I’ve been reading again. This time it’s the latest edition of The State of Australian Cities, published last week. Published annually, it’s always been useful and full of insights and not just for those interested in Australia. All those involved in city planning, urban regeneration and economic development anywhere should have a look at it. It’s got transferable methodologies as well as a compelling evidence base. Don’t leave home without it.

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I have been reading again. This time, it’s The Work Foundation’s critique of the UK Coalition government’s urban regeneration policy, People or Place?  Urban policy in the age of austerity.  As such a critique wouldn’t take up more than a few pages – because they don’t really have one – the Work Foundation has wisely taken a broader view and offers an overview of all urban and indeed regional policy since it first began in the UK in the 1930s.

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I have formed a uniquely bad habit. I miss Olympic parties on a hemispheric scale. I was in London when Sydney was dazzling the world with the best Olympics of the modern era and I am in Sydney while London ups the ante. I blame my Aussie mrs for these misses. She seduced me to stay in London in 2000 when I’d had every intention of enjoying the Sydney party and brought me to live here recently when I was gearing up for the 2012 knees-up in London’s East End where I not only lived but where I’d spent much of the previous fifteen years working for the renewal of East London, helping to bring the Olympics there along the way. It’s all about timing at this level.

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I attach an extraordinary graphic produced by McKinsey the global consultancy. I should preface my positive remarks about their exceptional strategic thinking by reminding us of their tenacious capacity as consultants to exploit client relationships. I was once told this joke by a BBC producer desperate for McKinsey to stop advising Aunty after years of limpet-like hanging on to very lucrative contract. ‘What is the difference’ he asked ‘between McKinsey and ET’ ?  ‘At least the extra -terrestrial went home in the end’.

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ONE of the great ironies of modern Sydney is that its most liveable and sustainable suburbs are the ones designed over a century ago. The main reason? Terrace houses.

Victorian and Federation housing was the mainstay of Sydney suburbs until World War II. It is characterised by small lots, attached housing, and street frontage. Because it was designed before the advent of the car, it was pedestrian focused and close to transport. It is less land hungry than later housing models, but provides a form of higher density living far more desirable than badly designed apartments.
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Wales is a relatively poor country getting relatively poorer. For some reason,  economists working for the Welsh Government and their allies seem to want to obscure this fact by arguing that GDP comparisons showing this fact are not as accurate a barometer as measures of disposable income. On the latter front, Wales has been doing better apparently.

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This is beginning to get me angry. Someone from the Welsh Government is obviously briefing the Welsh media that in some sense Wales is doing better economically than is apparent. So I read that the disposable income of Welsh households rose at the fastest rate in the UK in 2010, according to new figures. I note that the ‘new figures’ relate to 2010 before the public sector cuts kicked in ,by the way. Given Wales’s extraordinary reliance on the public sector for its GDP, I would expect those cuts to have a disproportionate effect on Welsh income levels from this point on: to be watched.

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I’ve been busy. I’ve co-written (with a colleague called Sean Macken) a report on the supply and affordability of housing in Sydney. It’s called Homes for All:40 things to do about supply and affordability .

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