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- Order of the British Endgame - 18th December 2024
During 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry identifying key trends has always been central, and now comes further news which underlines this – the biggest trend of all is sweeping across the world: building cities.
Welsh cities, especially Cardiff, may be leading the way, and key figures from Wales appear to be ahead of the game, with a move now towards greater urbanisation.
Hot on the heels that the Welsh capital is on the edge of a boom which is only replicated in the UK by London, comes more details about the plans for ANOTHER city.
Reports say that Cardiff is due to experience Gross Value Added (GVA) growth which is higher than any other major UK city except London in 2024 and 2025.
This has led to an incredible explosion in new buildings, with homes to accommodate more people, and as WalesOnline (WO) has put it: “The skyline of Cardiff has changed dramatically during the past 10 years. As you approach the city you can see it is dominated by a range of new skyscrapers either completed or still under construction”.
It’s not just Cardiff either.
According to the annual Demos-PwC Good Growth for Cities Index, Cardiff is estimated to grow at 1.3 per cent and 2.0 per cent annually in 2024 and 2025 respectively, with Swansea slated for 1.0 per cent and 1.7 per cent growth annually in the same period.
Even as this extraordinary news is digested, we are hearing further information about other cities around the world.
For instance, the kingdom of Bhutan is planning a “mindfulness city” that, if built, will cover some 2.5 per cent of the country — an area larger than Singapore.
‘Gelephu Mindfulness City’, as it’s called in the project’s masterplan, will serve as an economic hub and gateway for tourists to the rest of the country.
The planned city will have eleven “ribbonlike neighborhoods” that incorporate the area’s 35 rivers and streams.
Neighbourhoods will be designed like mandalas, with repeated patterns organised around a central public space.
Bhutan’s King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck has declared that the country is “not trapped by legacy and can innovate swiftly to implement plans that other countries might hesitate to pursue”.
The plans were released last year, but more details have emerged recently, and it follows other new cities, because King Jigme is not the only world leader with the city-building bug.
Think of Saudi Arabia’s Neom development or Indonesia’s future capital, Nusantara.
91 cities have been announced in the past decade, with 15 in the past few years 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 (now President-elect), proposed 10 “freedom cities” during his campaign.
Key figures from Wales may be ahead of the curve with this trend too.
The billionaire Sir Michael Moritz is a signatory of The Giving Pledge, committing himself to giving away at least 50 per cent of his wealth to charitable causes.
He went to Howardian High School.
Sir Michael is one of the people 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.
Through its subsidiary Flannery Associates, CA, the company anonymously purchased over 50,000 acres of farm land in southeastern Solano County, on the edge of the San Francisco Bay Area.
In August 2023, it announced the East Solano Plan – to build a new walkable city of up to 400,000 people on 17,500 acres of land.
In July 2024, the firm withdrew its ballot initiative and announced an agreement with county officials to create an environmental impact report and development agreement.
So it seems that cities are the way forward – and Wales could be at the forefront of this trend!
The memories of Phil’s extraordinary decades long award-winning career in journalism (including significant 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.
