The New Silicon Valley
My dreams for Cambridge 2040
I read this article in July about plans to make Cambridge into Europe’s version of Silicon Valley and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. The plan proposes to expand the city — currently home to about 150,000 people — by building new business parks, labs, science hubs, and crucially, up to 250,000 new homes.
The aim of it all is to “channel the success of the Californian hub”, and tap into the powers of digital technology, green industries, and life sciences to burgeon the UK's economic growth.
It’s a really ambitious plan. One that, if done well, could change the urban design game and set an example for future city plans across the country and the world. But there are a few details from the article that make my stomach drop a little. The main one being the sheer speed of it all. “Ministers,” they say, “are looking at greeting a new generation of 1980s-style development corporations to speed up developments.”
Now, I wasn’t alive back in the 80s, but I get a strong impression that it was a period of profit over people, and certainly over the planet. Also, speed isn’t really a key ingredient in building strong, community-centred new neighbourhoods. These things take time and thought and communication and care — for the people who will be making their homes in these new places, and for those who may very well be displaced.
But before I get sucked into a sceptical spiral about the whole thing, I’m going to stop there and get to what I really wanted to do with this newsletter, which is to dream up what this mammoth expansion might look like if I was the boss of it. So let’s get on with that, shall we?
Guiding values
SPACE10 — a research and design lab based in Copenhagen that also happens to be my employer — has a wonderful book called The Ideal City. It gathers case studies from around the world of people transforming their urban environments to create safe, resourceful, accessible, shared, and desirable spaces for everyone.
It acknowledges that rapid development and growing populations are just a couple of the challenges we’re currently facing, but takes the optimistic stance that we have never been so well-equipped to manage them.
Flicking through it yesterday, the chapter titled The Desirable City gave me just the right foundations from which to build my new Cambridge:
A desirable city is one that is a pleasure to be in. It is designed on a human scale, making everything accessible within a 15-minute walk. It is a city that encourages the playful side of humans by promoting curiosity, wonder, and discovery. It nurtures a vibrant public life, with access to culture, art, and activities, and appealing public spaces for relaxation, well-being, and learning.
This feels perfect for this project because Cambridge is already a desirable city on a human scale. While you can’t walk across it in 15 minutes, you can cycle across it in 25, accessing all that the city has to offer in a very short distance. With the expansion, I want to keep this access, allowing new inhabitants to live in close proximity to everything they need without overwhelming the very old city centre. As well as basic services, this will mean developing leisure spaces where people can relax and nurture their well-being.
We’re also talking about a future hub of technology and science, so reflecting the learning that Cambridge already embodies, and the curiosity and discovery that so accurately define these industries in the spaces of everyday life makes perfect sense.
The people make the place
When building an entirely new neighbourhood to extend an already existing, and in this case, very ancient city, my most important first step is to talk to people. Equity and inclusivity are at the heart of a desirable city, and I’ll need a group of diverse stakeholders to help develop a plan that works for everyone.
The people in our target industries are famously paid the big bucks, making them more than capable of pricing out locals who live in the centre of town. This is not what I want. Our new neighbourhoods need to appeal to both this highly skilled, highly paid cohort, as well as those on lower incomes, ensuring that existing local populations aren’t shoved aside.
We want everyone to feel happy, welcome, and fulfilled in this new Cambridge. No perpetuating social divides and inequalities here!
From the ground up
OK, so I’ve got the people on board and everyone seems to be getting along nicely. Now it’s time to build our dream neighbourhood.
Looking at a map of Cambridge, we can very quickly see that the surrounding land is agricultural — fields that will need to be transformed into homes and communities. This seemed like a roadblock initially, because with the environmental challenges we’re facing right now, who are we to rip up perfectly good fields?
To which I say, who needs a field when you can have a forest?
For each plot of land identified for development, there will be a designated area assigned for reforestation. With the help of the best reforestation specialists, each site will be planted out with native species, bringing life to the area that was never part of the agricultural, mono-crop, landscape.
Bugs, bees, birds and all kinds of animals will make their homes there, the soil will get back to good health, the root systems will help prevent flooding when it’s wet, and the trees will help cool the area down when it's hot. These local forests will provide luscious green spaces for children to play and learn about wildlife, and for grown-ups to walk, sit, jog, and wonder how life got so good.
Trees and plants won’t be limited to the neighbourhood woods though. They will also line each of the streets as part of extensive street gardens filled with flowers that bloom at all times of the year to feed the bees and bring everyone a bit of seasonal joy. There will also be seating and tables to encourage people to sit outside, chat with their neighbours, and get to know one another.
It might seem strange to start a neighbourhood with trees that no one can actually live in, but studies show that green spaces like these improve general well-being by lowering stress, reducing rates of anxiety and depression, and improving cognitive function and memory. Also, loneliness in England is through the roof and as harmful to health as smoking, so getting people outside and talking to each other seems like quite a good place to start.
Homes for all — but they’ve got to be nice.
I’m going to start this section with exactly what my committee and I don’t want.
These new-build neighbourhoods have been popping up like herpes all over the country and it’s gotta stop! Not only are they poorly built which can have dangerous consequences, but they’re dated before the final brick is even laid.
They also don’t promote any kind of community spirit or allow for the diversity we’re looking for in our new Cambridge. As I mentioned before, this means homes of different shapes and sizes to fit the lifestyles, budgets, and needs of the people who will be living in them.
So, to go with our beautifully planted streetscapes will be thoughtfully, carefully built, beautiful homes. They will be made from locally abundant materials, energy efficient, easy to live in, and a pleasure to behold. Homes where you actually want to spend time, invite people in, rest, read, sleep, cook, eat, laugh, learn, raise children, and grow old. Homes that are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. That can adapt to your needs and accommodate change.
Complete neighbourhoods
If each one of Gove’s 250,000 homes had a 4-person family living in it, Cambridge could be looking at an extra million inhabitants. That’s quite an overwhelming surge from 150,000 — one that the city’s ancient central streets wouldn’t be able to take.
This means that an important move for our new neighbourhoods will be to decentralise and create what Carlos Moreno has coined as 15-minute cities. Each neighbourhood will be set up with good-quality services and spaces, all within a short walk or cycle. They will be fully equipped with everything you could need on a day-to-day basis, from grocery stores and healthcare centres to fun things like cafés, pubs, shops, markets, and spots to sit and watch the world go by. Mary Portas — the Queen of Shops herself — says that “High streets are the hearts of our towns” and it is local businesses like these that keep those hearts beating and communities financially thriving.
All the buildings and streetscapes will be accessible to everyone, with seamless wheelchair access and smooth pavements. People will be able to ride to school and work on the wide cycle lanes, and if where you’re going is a bit far to pedal, then there will be reliable tram and bus links to take you wherever you need to go.
With hardly any cars on the road because the transport links are so damn good, plus all those trees we planted earlier, the air quality will be better than ever and the people will all be happy, healthy, and active.
Back to reality
I feel like perhaps my vision for this new Cambridge is a little different from old Govey’s, but I am going to cross my fingers as hard as I can that if his proposal gets approved, it’ll be the kind of plan that thinks before it acts and creates real homes for the real lives of real people.
Because the last thing we need is any more of this:
See you in the next one,
Annabel