New national initiative will ask people across the country what makes a place fair, green and healthy, and turn the answers into practical guidance for future development.

Urban Initiatives, working with the LDN Collective and partners including Demos, ECF, UCL and Commonplace, has launched Urban Flourishing, a national review of how towns and cities in the United Kingdom should evolve over the coming decades. The work responds to growing concern that many new neighbourhoods still fail to provide the everyday social and physical infrastructure people need, despite clear climate and wellbeing commitments.

At the heart of Urban Flourishing is the Great Places Conversation, a national engagement programme that invites people to share what helps them feel that a place is fair, green and healthy. Through an online platform and local events, residents, community groups, businesses and practitioners will be able to talk about homes, jobs, transport, social infrastructure, health, culture, nature and local identity in a simple, accessible way.

The LDN Collective is working with Urban Initiatives to frame the questions, connect expert practitioners with communities and make sure that the outputs are grounded in real world delivery. The aim is to combine public insight, data and professional knowledge into a set of principles and models for flourishing places, which will be presented to government and made available as an open resource for councils, planners, developers and investors.

Urban Flourishing is designed as a movement rather than a single report, creating space for an honest conversation about what is and is not working in current approaches to planning and regeneration. It will highlight the practical steps that national and local partners can take to create places that are more resilient to climate impacts, kinder to nature and better aligned with how people live now.

If you would like to take part in the Great Places Conversation or discuss how Urban Flourishing could support work in your area, please contact the LDN Collective team.