The Economy of Place: Building Regional Communities

Britain has a housing crisis, and for many young people the thought of owning their own home is out of reach. The laws of supply and demand make the binary option for solving the crisis the building of more homes. While that has some logic the question of what type of homes, where, by whom, for whom and how are all usually unanswered in the debate. In this report, George Ferguson CBE, the first elected Mayor of Bristol and Past President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, asks questions about the importance of community and how we need to build in order to create them.

Through the report, we gather evidence-based research to support the idea that coordinating land owners with regional builders and supply chains to make mixed-use, walkable and locally distinctive communities might not only open up a different sector in the housing market but have significant benefits in terms if building regional economies. There is a reason human beings throughout history have built villages, towns and cities for the benefits and efficiencies of agglomeration and we need to find ways of funding and delivering them at scale. The concept of Regional Building Hubs may help in accelerating a new model of ‘Place Building’ to both challenge and complement the house building orthodoxy.