Dale Thomson

Urbanist in London, United Kingdom

Dale Thomson

Urbanist in London, United Kingdom

What is urbanism?

Does it start with a capital letter?
Maybe......
Urbanism.
Urbanist.
Urbanista.

Anyone can be an Urbanist - you don’t need letters after your name, you don’t need a flash job title. You just need to care about the environment in which you live.

Urbanists have a social conscience.

Let’s be clear, Urbanism is about places and the spaces in between the places - not just places. This is all about the built environment, urban realm, buildings, infrastructure of all kinds – cities, towns and, yes, suburbs too. Don’t forget the suburbs!

Urbanism is about we - not me.
It is not just about architects.
It is collaborative, consensual, communicative.
A team sport.
The ‘master builder’ can build nothing if he, or indeed she, doesn’t have a team to plan, optioneer, assess, report, approve, measure, mitigate, engineer.
All of these people are also Urbanists.

They all practice Urbanism.
Capisce?

New Urbanism, Re Urbanism, Sustainable Urbanism, Smart Urbanism, Temporary and, my personal favourite, Guerrilla Urbanism - Urbanism has many flavours.

Urbanism is persistent, but not a bully, above all – it is a good listener.

Urbanism does not like privatised public realm.

Urbanism has poets – Lemn Sissay, Ian McMillan, Roger McGough, Billy Connelly, no really.
And it’s got a myriad of musicians – Doves, The Jam, Gil Scott Heron (see also poets) and Elbow.
Station Approach, New York Morning.
I nearly forgot the Clash.…Anarcho-Urbanism?
Gershwin. Yes, you know the one.

Good Urbanists dream but do not, should not, fantasise.