On pub trivia nights, as everyone knows, the winning team won’t be you and your best mates. You’ll be too similar. The winning team will be a diverse range of people with vastly different backgrounds, experiences, knowledge and skillsets. The same applies to civic decision-making. It’s not only fairer to include people in the decisions that shape their lives and futures. It also produces a better result.  The best cities – more intricate, more subtle, greener an more interesting - will arise from…

Traditionally, cities have been the founts of human creativity. Think Damascus, Athens, Florence, Venice, London. But as modern city life becomes more demanding, as more and more of us become oppressed by the drudgery of economic survival, our capacity for creativity is depleted. Our lives, and our cities, get harder. What can be done? How can we make our cities more humane, more vibrant, more creative and more fun?

It all begins with an idea.

Housing and cities are so much the topic du jour. It seems bizarre that wealthy cities like ours can no longer afford to house their young, their workers, their old, their poor or their creative classes. But as someone said to me this morning, when governments fail, it’s time for the non-profit sector to get cracking! Why? Because not-for-profits involve real, ordinary people taking the lead, stepping in where governments fear to tread, making change. It’s time. Time for citizen-led city making.