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New figures reveal that more and more cities are planned to solve the homes crisis, and our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, shows how a Cardiff-born entrepreneur as well as the capital of Wales itself, could be leading the way.
Earlier Phil has described how he was helped to break into the South Wales Echo office car when he was a cub reporter, recalled his early career as a journalist, the importance of experience in the job, and making clear that the‘calls’ to emergency services as well as court cases are central to any media operation.
He has also explored how poorly paid most journalism is when trainee reporters had to live in squalid flats, the vital role of expenses, and about one of his most important stories on the now-scrapped 53 year-old BBC Wales TV Current Affairs series, Week In Week Out (WIWO), which won an award even after it was axed, long after his career really took off.
He has disclosed as well why investigative journalism is needed now more than ever although others have different opinions, how the coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown played havoc with media schedules, and the importance of the hugely lower average age of some political leaders compared with when he started reporting.
Phil has explained too how crucial it is actually to speak to people, the virtue of speed as well as accuracy, why knowledge of history and teaching the subject is vital, how certain material was removed from TV Current Affairs programmes when secret cameras had to be used, and some of those he has interviewed.
Cities may be the future, and one supporter of them born in Cardiff knows this better than most because he’s planning to build one.
The billionaire Sir Michael Moritz works now for the venture capital firm Sequoia, and is a signatory of The Giving Pledge, committing himself to give away at least 50 per cent of his wealth to charitable causes. He went to Howardian High School.
Sir Michael is one of the figures behind the push for a new urban area outside San Francisco – a project that has the label of ‘California Forever’, which is necessary, according to another backer, because of an “epic housing shortage” on America’s west coast.
They are to put their ambitious plans for “homes, jobs and clean energy” to a public vote in November.
If approved, the new city will house up to 400,000 residents on 60,000 acres of what is now farmland.
But what may be about to happen in California only highlights events around the world, as a huge housing crisis takes hold, which Cardiff may be leading the way in attempting to solve.
91 cities have been announced in the past decade, with 15 in the past year alone.
In addition to a new capital in the north, Egypt, for example, is building five other cities, with plans for dozens more.
India is considering eight urban ‘hubs’, and outside Baghdad, Iraq, workers have just broken ground on the first of five settlements.
Even Donald Trump, in his bid for re-election, has proposed 10 “freedom cities”.
The UK (particularly England) is facing a homes crisis which is almost unprecedented (although not surpassed by the post-war housing shortage).
The Conservatives promised in their 2019 manifesto to build 300,000 homes a year in England, and underpinning that pledge was a requirement for local authorities to set their future housing plans according to a formula that took account of expected population growth.
But it was watered down, and the Tory UK Government proposed changes to the English planning policy framework that would allow local authorities to treat the formula for setting housing targets as advisory rather than binding.
Under the changes, councils would be able to set far lower five-year plans than suggested by the population-based formula if they can show that meeting them would change the character of an area.
In Wales the problem is less acute, although Cardiff is expanding as never before (including when it outgrew its council headquarters), in order to meet a growing demand, and new housing estates or apartment blocks are going up all the time.
The Atlantic Wharf area of Cardiff will be completely transformed over the next few years with more than 1,000 new homes, entertainment and cultural attractions, hotels, offices, and a public square.
Cardiff Council published its masterplan in 2020 for a 30-acre site stretching from its County Hall headquarters to the Red Dragon Centre across to Lloyd George Avenue and down to the Flourish, where Bute Place meets the Wales Millennium Centre and Roald Dahl Plass. A massive new metro system is also being built to support the extra families.
The cost was estimated in 2018 at £738 million, and one of its branches will run along Lloyd George Avenue, linking the centre with Cardiff Bay.
At least no new cities are planned in Wales to try to address the terrible homes issue.
It’s happening elsewhere though, and one Cardiff-born entrepreneur is in the thick of it…
The memories of Phil’s extraordinary decades long award-winning career in journalism (including major events like massive urban expansion) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Another book, though, has not been published, because it was to have included names.
