From Main Street to our street: how can we create and maintain shared local value in our high streets and town centres? How can we invest not just for immediate returns but for future generations? Who are the helpful troublemakers who can spark new thinking and creativity? And what ingredients can help us create local recipes for successful streets? These slides accompanied my opening keynote at the Mainstreet Australia 2013 conference in Melbourne, May 2013.

1. From Main Street to Our Street
A once in a lifetime opportunity
Julian Dobson, Urban Pollinators• @juliandobson • www.urbanpollinators.co.uk

2. Creativity... accessibility...
anticipation... determination

3. Welcome home
An impressive gateway...
and a friendly face?

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Welcome home
How can we build belonging in an era of rapid change? 1
Local value, local values
What is local value and what does it depend on? 2
Four ingredients of local value
The magic potion that brings dead cities back to life 3
Growing local value
Stories of change that take us from models to mindsets 4

5. Welcome home
The Sheffield Tap has restored part of the city’s
historic station, brews its own beer and is a
convivial meeting place for locals and strangers.

6. Welcome home
Kant defined happiness as something to do,
someone to love and something to hope for...
but it all needs somewhere to happen.

7. Enemies of belonging:
places that all look the same
‘Many town centres that have undergone substantial
regeneration have lost their sense of place...’
(new economics foundation, Clone Town Britain)

8. Enemies of belonging: growth at all costs
‘Most people won’t walk more than 100 yards to get a
coffee. In a large town we could have a Costa at both ends
of the high street, one in a retail park and one at the
station...’
(Andy Harrison, chief executive, Whitbread)

9. Building belonging:
is there a better way?
‘Through our digital experiences, we are recognising
that by providing value to the community, we enable
our own social value to expand in return.’
(Rachel Botsman, What’s Mine is Yours)

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Welcome home
How can we build belonging in an era of rapid change? 1
Four ingredients of local value
The magic potion that brings dead cities back to life 3
Growing local value
Stories of change that take us from models to mindsets 4
Local value, local values
What is local value and what does it depend on? 2

11. Local value: not everything that
counts can be counted
‘The gross national product... measures neither our wit
nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning...’
(Robert Kennedy, March 1968)

12. Creating local value:
Whitby, Yorkshire
‘...A most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of
beautiful and romantic bits...’
(Bram Stoker, Dracula)

13. Creating local value:
Stokes Croft, Bristol
‘Six years ago this was one of the worst places in
Bristol. Now it’s one of the most interesting places.’
(Chris Chalkley, People’s Republic of Stokes Croft)

14. Local value: the new ‘commons’
‘Trust is the most important resource. If a community
has been forbidden from managing its resources for a
long time, the main obstacle to overcome is the lack
of trust...’
(Elinor Ostrom, Nobel prize winning economist)

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Welcome home
How can we build belonging in an era of rapid change? 1
Growing local value
Stories of change that take us from models to mindsets 4
Local value, local values
What is local value and what does it depend on? 2
Four ingredients of local value
The magic potion that brings dead cities back to life 3

16. Commercial value:
new routes to market
‘The starting point is giving great people a chance.’
(Anthony Blackburn, Handpicked Hall)

17. Civic value:
leadership as ‘place stewardship’
‘A healthier and happier city - a city that is fit for children
and inspiring for all - one city in which we all play our part
to eliminate poverty and isolation.’
(George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol)

18. Cultural value:
local identity built on local passion
‘It is through the performance of creative acts, in art, in
thought, in personal relationships, that the city can be identified
as something more than a purely functional organisation...’
(Lewis Mumford, The City in History)

19. Community value:
the city belongs to all of us
‘We’re suffering a catastrophic failure in understanding what
the public realm means. The key issue is not whether we can
rethink retail but how we use the people assets of a place.’
(Diarmuid Lawlor, Architecture + Design Scotland)

20. The 21st century agora
‘High streets and town centres that are fit for the
21st century need to be multifunctional social
centres, not simply competitors for stretched
consumers.’

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1
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Welcome home
How can we build belonging in an era of rapid change? 1
Local value, local values
What is local value and what does it depend on? 2
Four ingredients of local value
The magic potion that brings dead cities back to life 3
Growing local value
Stories of change that take us from models to mindsets 4

22. Growing local value:
link production with consumption
Two thirds of the £20m people spend on food in
Totnes, Devon, goes to just two supermarket chains
(Totnes Local Economic Blueprint)

23. Growing local value:
build community enterprise
‘Startup Street is... taking all the good stuff that already
exists in Stirling and connecting it together in a new way.’
(Startup Street Stirling)

24. Growing local value:
recycle money locally
The WIR currency in Switzerland is used by 60,000
businesses - 16% of all Swiss enterprises
(Margrit Kennedy, Bernard Lietaer and John Rogers,
People Money)

25. Growing local value:
rethink public services
The Cheviot Centre in Wooler, Northumberland,
contains a community hub, library, tourist information
centre and affordable housing.

26. Growing local value:
animate the in-between
‘This isn’t a veg scheme, it’s a behaviour shift
scheme.’
(Pam Warhurst, Incredible Edible Todmorden)

27. Growing local value:
create places to live in
In 35 years, Coin Street Community Builders has turned
13 acres of derelict land on London’s South Bank into a
thriving neighbourhood, with cooperative housing,
businesses, gardens and a riverside walkway.

28. Growing local value:
widen access to land and property
‘We are exploring a new form of ownership, one which
looks back to 19th-century models of mutuality and self-
help as well as forward to 21st-century models.’
(Peter Hirst, Hebden Bridge Community Association)

29. From models to mindsets:
look for the chefs, not just recipes

30. Welcome home
‘The soul of the city - the strength which makes it
breathe, exist and progress - resides in each one
of its citizens.’
(Jaime Lerner, mayor of Curitiba, Brazil)
Thank you
more from me: @juliandobson
www.urbanpollinators.co.uk