I worked for around a decade as a workshop designer/facilitator and mentor on incubator and accelerator programmes for creative businesses. A lot of hype has been spun about the ‘creative city’ and its economic payoff, but my experience on the ground made me doubtful; the benefits seemed to accrue to just a few people who, more often than not, lived somewhere else.

I was delighted when Christine Murray, co-founder and editor of thedeveloper.live asked me to write a critique of the creative city myth.

I’d been working on an ongoing research project for a workplace design studio and had become fascinated by the prospects for the conventional office after the first wave of pandemic lockdowns were over.

Delving into the research I’d amassed and the people I’d spoken to, I wrote this snapshot of the future of the office in late 2020. I’m not sure I dare read it now; it’s most likely choc-a-bloc with poor predictions and outrageous speculations, though still, hopefully, interesting.

The concept of Social Value is currently near the top of the agenda in development and regeneration, but its meaning is contested almost as often as the term is invoked.

Government, consultants and academics have similarly struggled to define how it is measured, settling for monetary proxies that feel reductive and unworkable.

I explored this fractious terrain for thedeveloper.live.

No wonder there’s been controversy about so-called ‘poor doors’, separate access points for tenants of ‘social’ or ‘affordable’ units in mixed-tenured housing developments; they’re divisive and demeaning.

But who is to blame? It turns out claims that differential access is a technical or regulatory requirement are wrong, so something else is going on. I set out to find some clarity in the confusion.

For years, the government has repeated, like a mantra, the annual target of building 300,000 new homes, a goal that has never actually been achieved.

Where did this number come from? Why has it persisted, even when the government’s own departments have convincingly recalculated it? Is it genuine policy, or stubborn ideology?