#11 - Ben Southwood, Stripe: StreetVotes, Strong Suburbs and A Win-Win Solution for Gentle Densification & Tackling the Housing Crisis

Ben Southwood has worked for KPMG, was head of research at the Adam Smith Institute and the head of Housing, Transport and Urban Space at the UK think tank ‘Policy Exchange’. He has also assisted CreateStreets as head of research. Currently he is editor at Stripe, for the online journal Works in Progress. An excellent source for high quality, optimistic articles on scientific progress, innovation and other topics. In this episode he talks about the StreetVotes concept, how it can gently transition low density areas into beautiful, denser neighbourhoods, offering more housing units in overheated markets, giving more power to local communities and enabling them to reap the benefits of this  densification. The concept is a true win-win solution that is now being tested out in the UK on a small scale. Visit Works in Progress here: https://www.worksinprogress.co/ Find the StreetVotes concept and whitepaper here: https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/strong-suburbs/ --- For more information on The Aesthetic City, find our website on https://theaestheticcity.com/ Love what we do? Become a patron! With your help we can grow this platform even further, make more content and hopefully achieve real, lasting impact for more beautiful cities worldwide. Visit our Patreon page here: https://www.patreon.com/the_aesthetic_city Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_Aesthetic_City Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.aesthetic.city/

Om Podcasten

How come our modern cities have become so hostile to humans, so ugly, car-oriented and grey? What is the solution to these problems - how can we return to a more human, beautiful and liveable city? In this podcast, host Ruben Hanssen interviews experts in the fields of architecture, urban planning and urban design to find out how we can improve our cities, our architecture and our streets, in order to create more friendly and beautiful places. The clock is ticking; valuable land is wasted on dreary developments while many beautiful, picturesque urban environments are at risk of being jarred forever by ugly buildings that don't belong there. There are better ways to build; let's explore how!