Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
The City the Baba Podcast where we bring together top actors in the smart city arena, sparking dialogues and interactions around the stakeholders and themes most prevalent for today's citizens and tomorrow's generations.
I am your host, Tamlin Shimizu and I hope you will enjoy this episode and gain knowledge and connections to accelerate the change for a better urban life.
Smart in the City is brought to you by Babel Smart Cities. We enable processes from research and strategy development to co creation and implementation. To learn more about us, please visit the Babel platform @Babel SmartCities EU.
Welcome back everyone to another episode of Smart in the City. This episode will be hosted by one of my colleagues on the ground, so I hope you enjoy the change of voice and pace and I'll catch you next time.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Smart in the City, the Babel Podcast, recorded today at the next European Talk here in Berlin.
I'm your host of the day. My name is Alex Alexander Schmidt. And today we'll talk about retrofitting, planning rules, local policies, whole life cycle carbon, and whether our current tools for measuring retrofit savings are really good enough. And I'm super, super happy to be joined here by a person out of my favorite city in the world who will help us to unpack all of this. I'm very, very pleased to have Aldemc Gregory Jones, KC of the City of London, my favorite town in the world, joining us here, Greg. So thank you very much for joining us.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: It's fantastic to be here in Berlin. Perfect.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Thanks so much for coming.
Maybe before we get started into our regular schedule, would you mind unpacking for our listeners the difference between the City of London, London, Greater London Authority. There's so many different Londons and I love all of them. But maybe you can explain to us what the difference between them is.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: That's right. And that's before you get on to the Londons that are overseas. But this is essentially the same place. But the City of London is the old, basically the old Roman city, which is sometimes known as the Square Mile. And it's the area that is predominantly part of the financial sector of the UK and England.
So it centres around the Guildhall and it's roughly a square mile.
It has its own form of governance that predates the Parliament in Westminster. And it has two chambers, the Court of Aldermen. I'm an alderman, which is kind of like a senator. We're elected for six years.
And the Court of Common Council, and they are elected every four years.
There are 25 wards in the City of London. So it's divided in that way.
And a bit like America, the warden wards are not all equal in either size, geographic or in terms of their electorate.
So I actually represent the largest ward, Farringdon without, and it's called without because it's without or outwith the old city wall. So it's where the City of London expanded.
And I have 10 common councillors, others with a much smaller electorate, all have an alderman and at least two common councillors. So a bit like being the state of Delaware or somewhere.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: That's very good. So you are at. That's very central part of London, so to say, and just outside, as you say, the old city walls where the Romans originally studied.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: Yes. So the City of London is predominantly the old Roman walls and the gates, old Aldersgate, Newgate, all those places were originally gates Founder without, which has the temple where the barristers. And I'll explain later, I'm a barrister type of lawyer.
They were outside. They kept all the things they didn't want outside. All the Nazis, lawyers, butchers. So in the north of my ward is Smithfield meat market, which was also a place of execution.
And so we are located just at the west end of the city. And just as you're going into the West End, so very close to Covent Garden and the boundary, you'll see if you go to Fleet street and the Strand, where the Royal Courts of Justice are on the Strand. And St. Clement Danes, which is of the famous old rhyme nursery rhyme oranges and lemons.
St. Clement Danes is one of the bells there. And that's on the western side. So that's in Westminster and we're just next to that.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Brilliant. A lot to learn about my favorite city in the world.
No, let's get started because the topic that's very important for you right now is retrofitting.
[00:05:19] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: And before we go into the history and background, a little bit of why that is so important for the City of London.
If we would give you a magic wand and there is no kind of hidden reference on Harry Potter in that one, and you could instantly retrofit one type of building in every UK council.
Which one would you choose and why?
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Good question. One that I had to think about, but I would come up with distribution sheds, modern distribution sheds. I think they're going to be a challenge for the future.
So maybe not waving the wand to turn them into something else now, but waving the wand so that in the future they can be retrofitted for useful purposes.
If you think in Many cities, London, of course, with the Dockland development, the old warehouses.
New York has had the same sort of development.
Old warehouses have been converted into luxury apartments or restaurants.
I struggle to see how the modern distribution warehouse can be easily converted into another use. So with your wand, I think we can do it.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Brilliant. Hopefully we'll get back to that later.
Lots of our listeners also have or are planning journey in public sector. So it's always very interesting to hear about how you became an alderman and what was your journey towards that position. Maybe share a little bit of it.
[00:07:04] Speaker C: Very happy to. It's an elected position, so I'm a member rather than a public civil servant. So I'm elected, I'm a politician. I. But I would say with a small P, because one of the great attractions to standing for election in the City of London, the Square Mile, is that by and large we all stand as independents.
There is no political party that operates or rules. There's no whipping.
By whipping, I mean the political discipline of making party members vote the way the party wants.
So it's a bit like I described it as being in some ways like being an MP in the 18th century in the English Parliament. In other ways, not like being an 18th century MP, but in that respect, 18th century MP.
So it was attractive to me at a time in my career. I, as I said earlier, I'm a barrister, which is a type of lawyer. I'm fortunate enough as well to become a senior barrister, what we call in England a KC King's Council. I was a QC until obviously the Queen late Queen died and then we were automatically changed to cases.
So I was looking to expand out of my.
My area of work that I've been doing for nearly over a quarter of a century, 25 years, into wider areas of public service. And so that's why I stood initially as a, and got elected as a common councillor. Someone came and asked me to stand and I was elected in that way. So the City does give that opportunity to continue your career in your business, bring that and give public service.
By way of being an elected member without having to become involved in the formal political process.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Very interesting. And how did the topic of retrofitting kind of become so prominent in your elected council work?
[00:09:32] Speaker C: Well, first of all, it's. It's an area of my practice. I do infrastructure planning and environmental law.
And so retrofitting is something that I have an interest in. I also have an interest in. With some colleagues, we've set up a startup company that's looking to promote a more sophisticated way of assessing and certifying the benefits of a particular retrofit project. We know the retrofitting can help reduce CO2 emissions and other nasties, but it's very important to ensure that that's measured accurately.
In terms of the City of London, we have a retrofit presumption that's challenging for the square mile in terms of our space and needs to be a competitive global city.
But that is something we've embraced along with a wider sustainability agenda. It's very, very important to show that we are reducing carbon emissions.
And clearly, given the pressure for development in the City of London, reducing the amount that is emitted by way of construction and 7% of the global carbon emissions are the result of construction industry is obviously key to the Corporation of London fulfilling its sustainability strategy.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Very interesting. And because it is your background and because you've been working on this topic for quite some time, politician and entrepreneur. Now, in this. Yes, now, entrepreneur, you know the planning policy, particularly the national planning policy very well.
How helpful or how much does it slow you down in the actual execution of retrofit?
[00:11:36] Speaker C: So, as it happens, and I'm not here to plug the book because. Because I know you're Mark, I have just published a book that I co edited with a specialist team of not only lawyers, but from my chambers Francis Taylor Building, but also from wsp, wide range of engineers, civil engineers and others on the National Planning Policy Framework. That is the overall planning policy that the government sets for England. So it's not the United Kingdom, it's for England.
And your question in respect of retrofitting, there's only one mention in this whole national policy buried in a paragraph. So the starting point is positive in the sense that what it says is good.
The government wants to encourage retrofitting. It's got the net zero targets it's got to reach, but the policy is very limited in what guidance it gives. So at a national level, it's disappointing. And I think when we're looking to review the MPPF or the framework, as it's sometimes called, and I know the government are looking to do that, particularly in terms of facilitating more house building data centers, I think we should also look about expanding a little bit out on a planning policy for encouragement of retrofitting, give a bit more guidance.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: And if you look specifically now into your council and the City of London, so to say, what is the main challenge then there, if it's not the policy to kind of accelerate meaningful retrofit in the existing buildings?
[00:13:29] Speaker C: So at the local level, not just the City of London, but a number of local authorities at the local level in bringing forward their statutory development plans. So each local authority has by law to have a development plan, and that development plan has to be in conformity with the national plan, but is more locally focused. There have been some encouraging attempts, Westminster, as I've said, City of London, Lincolnshire as well, to flesh out the encouragement of retrofitting. So, for example, in one of the local plans, there's a presumption against demolition.
The City of London has challenges because, as I mentioned, we're a global city in financial, professional and maritime and legal services, so we're competing globally.
And the area in the center of the city, around the Eastern Cluster, as it's called, where you see the Gherkin and other iconic buildings, is limited in size.
We want to preserve our historic culture, our heritage, which includes not only the built environment, but iconic views of St Paul's Cathedral.
We have, in our plan, protected views, and that also appears on a Greater London level.
So it is challenging. Our presumption is to retrofit first, but where that can't be done, we'll then be looking for compensation in terms of sustainability.
And just so that in planning terms, we fit as a planning authority across the city, within the UK system that has the national policy at the top, and then the Greater London Authority, which is the collective authority for the whole of Greater London, what most people would understand as London, that has its own plan and we fit under that.
And the Mayor of London, Sir Siddiq Khan, is a completely separate body to the City of London and the Lord Mayor of London, who's elected from the Alderman on an annual basis. In fact, we have our first Lady Mayor, not the first woman to be Lord Mayor, but order woman.
Sue Langley has just been elected as Lady Mayor in November this month.
So we have challenges, but we are leading quite a vigorous sustainability agenda at the city.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: But is it then that you would also, you know, if you think about the future of the City of Volume, that you would also always go for a retrofit first approach. Is that that kind of the vision that you're looking for? We've heard that from other cities too.
[00:17:04] Speaker C: It's a approach of a presumption of retrofit first, but it's what we call, as lawyers, a rebuttable presumption.
So it doesn't mean that there will always be retrofit first. And if you look at the plans for the city, there are a number of quite high tall buildings that will be added in the next couple of years to the skyline, there will be new buildings. And if you look as I've done at the skyline, even from 2015 to, or 2019 to the present day, there has been an impressive amount of new development. And that is because there is a demand within the city for that space.
Now that does require us producing new buildings.
They have a carbon impact. We seek to ensure that they will be of the highest operational standard. And of course, by clustering them together in a highly sustainable network, good public transport, good pedestrian and cycling accessibility, we're hoping to ensure that even though we haven't always been able to retrofit, we will ensure that the buildings are as sustainable as possible.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: And this is just from the decision making or from the planning level? Because you mentioned earlier that you fit under the, so to say, Planning Authority of the Greater London Authority. This is something that as a, as an alderman, the City of London, you are able to influence which buildings get to build. So you have the authority to sign.
[00:19:12] Speaker C: Off on, on new buildings? Yes. So we're the Planning Authority for the square mile or our jurisdiction, how it operates is that we will decide whether to grant planning permission or not.
The Mayor of London, so Sadiq Khan, the Greater London Authority has certain powers to intervene in that decision making process.
And there's also an opportunity for developers, if they're dissatisfied, to appeal, as they can do elsewhere, to the Secretary of State to see if the Secretary of State would grant consent.
And what the Secretary of State does usually is holds a public inquiry and appoints an inspector who then either makes a decision for the Secretary of State, delegated powers or reports to the Secretary of State and their Secretary of State takes those decisions. It occasionally happens, but for the most part the decisions are taken by us.
We also make our own plan. So the plan has to be in general conformity with the GLA's overall plan.
But specifically. So, for example, the Eastern cluster is very much a creation of the planning successive plans of the City of London, us, where we sought to concentrate high rise development around that cluster.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: That was a super interesting deep dive into the planning and the legal elements of, of retrofitting as well. Let's come back to the carbon element of this, where you also said you just started up entrepreneurship.
If we look at a building from its life cycle, from the design until the demolition phase, there's different carbon emissions along that life cycles. So where along that journey do you see carbon showing up the most and where. How can we also influence that from a council level so that it's becoming less so.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: To answer the first question first, the big hits are obviously when you demolish a building and when you build a new building, there's some big, heavy carbon and other hits.
So although we've had more recently and rightly, an emphasis on how you operate a building, are the light energy efficient? How is it heated?
Do we need to leave on the office lights? 24 7.
It may look nice on a postcard, but we in the City of London are now imposing conditions on new builds which we have control to restrict their lighting. And we're also where we don't have the power, legal power, we've nonetheless got a policy to encourage office occupiers to turn down the lights. However, you can do all of that, but your energy savings, your carbon emission reductions will still take many, many, many years to make up for that initial hit of demolition if there is an existing building and also the construction of the first building.
The cement industry, I know are reducing their carbon as much as they can, but nevertheless, what I've said remains true.
I suppose the starting point is when you're looking at the whole carbon life cycle is when you're envisaging your, let's say it's a new build to design in as far as you can, some degree of flexibility.
Go back to my magic wand. Your magic wand and the sheds, I don't see that they're designed with an eye to any future other than securing the most efficient and cost effective distribution shed for the current use.
So that's the first thing I would say.
And that requires architects and other urban design planners right at the early stage, because if you look at the graphs, the further on you get in the life cycle of a building, the less opportunity obviously you have to influence it.
And at the end, we've got to then be looking at how we can retrofit a building to make it not only practicable, but something that people want to live or work in.
And that's a challenge.
As I say, we're dealing with at the moment a range of buildings that were of course designed and built maybe centuries ago, but even decades ago when no one was giving thought to any future uses.
So that would be a challenge that we have to meet now. But I think we should also be trying to plan for the future, say for our new buildings, to see what their potential reuse can be.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: So to summarize, as you say, the biggest impact can actually be done in the design phase and designing the buildings for flexible use. That's the.
[00:25:15] Speaker C: You've Got an opportunity there to reduce the need to demolish a building in the future.
I can't say eliminate the need, but I can think of a building and views will differ on this. I'm on the board of the London Museum and we've moved out of our previous premises on London Wall Urban brutalist building, post war.
That building was specifically designed apparently for the museum. Its access arrangements are very difficult, really difficult for the sorts of vehicles we need to bring in some of the things we have in the museum. Some are ancient stones and things easy to transport.
The other thing as well is it followed a bit of the Pompidou center of having exposed pipes, clean water, dirty water. If you're a museum, you get one leak even of fresh water.
We've had a few of those leaks on ancient luggage that we collect all sorts of things. We've got one of the largest shoe collections in the world going back to Roman times in London. But you get some fresh water on that. Water damage is so difficult now. You've got to think about how you design buildings for their current use but also their future use. So that's a design thing that may have looked quite good and quite fun, but actually was not good for the original purpose.
So that's going to be a challenge. And it's controversial because the Corporation of London's planning committee granted planning permission for a development that a lot of the local people in the Barbican Centre don't want and that's being challenged.
So to try and minimize those conflict situations.
I think at the beginning you can do that as much as possible, just try and design inflexibility.
But obviously other ways is then looking at the types of material you're using and ensuring that their materials that if you do need to demolish or remove can be done in the most sensitive and carbon friendly manner. It's not easy.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: And that brings us directly to our next point because if you make decisions on this as an alderman as well. Right, so there will be plans in front of you that have a particular new design, new materials that are mentioning to operate particularly efficiently and they're most of them will be backed up by numbers. So there will be carbon emission reductions that are being put in front of you as calculations.
Do you trust those?
[00:28:11] Speaker C: So at the moment as an alderman, I'm not sitting on the planning committee. I did sit on the planning committee before, but I'm not actually on the planning committee. Could there be other aldermen and common council and elected representatives in that position?
This is with my Entrepreneur hat on a bit. We looked at, when we were looking at another site, not in London, elsewhere in the north of England, and the landowner wanted to do the right thing.
The building had been vacated by one of the global banks and it was tired. There were repairs issues and they were looking, the owners were looking, should we demolish and rebuild or should we retrofit?
And what is the savings if we retrofit? And one of the things that they found was a lot of the methodology. And it's good that the Royal Institute of Child Surveyors have a standard methodology and that's a good thing, that we've got something to follow. But when you look under it, the science below it, a lot of it is still quite dated.
And so what we've done and what we've looked at with the benefit of scientists at Cambridge, is to produce something that is more up to date and uses modern calculations and technology which weren't around 20 years ago, to ensure that we think that there is a more accurate appraisal of the actual benefits of a particular retrofit scheme. Because not all. What is retrofitting is another, say, existential question. Yes, you're not demolishing or you might be partially demolishing, you might, might be altering something if you're altering.
So one size doesn't fit all.
And we believe that we've got something that can be a standardized certification system. So really watch this space and see if it can be properly marketed and adopt it. But we're pretty, pretty confident it is good.
So anyone who's interested wants to find out, please contact me. But setting aside the sort of commercial plug, whatever happens is incredibly important that we actually know what we're doing.
So I'm sitting there, let's say I'm back as an alderman on the planning committee and I've got a development that that is retrofit a building, but has got other things that are not good for the environment, not good for maybe the most efficient use of the square space, square meterage.
How do I weigh out those competing factors?
Well, if I'm going to give weight to the retrofit element of it, I'll give more weight to it if what it's doing is better for the environment.
And how can I know that unless I've got a clear system with up to date assessment methodology to give it the weight that it deserves? Because if I'm just saying, oh, well, it's a bit of retrofitting, I give it the same weight, you could end up getting the balance wrong.
So I think it's incredibly important that we get a very clear and precise, as much as we can assessment methodology which can help decision makers but also help people do the right thing.
So you've got a company and you're deciding am I going to move to building A or building B?
Now building A may be a new build with a fantastic operational environmental rating for em on top.
The other building could be a retrofit, its operations not so good.
But if you've got that certification, knowing that already you're 100 years ahead because you haven't demolished a building and this is how much it's worth, then that should be plugged in to corporations decision as where they should go should also be plugged into.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Funds.
[00:33:17] Speaker C: When either private equity or pension funds are investing in businesses and part of it involves environmental esg, then it's important that that investment decision is made on the right evidence.
So you say, oh, we're investing in this property portfolio that's got all these fantastic new build buildings with great environmental operational certification, but actually better for the environment maybe to be buying these other retrofit buildings. The other reason is I think ironically we could push the market towards a position where we're encouraging more new build and we talk about stranded assets in a different way that these becoming stranded assets but actually they're prime. They may be secondary office accommodation but they're prime for retrofitting.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: Super interesting. And that's a really. That would be a big change. Right, so if you take into account how old and building is into the carbon emission. Right, so if it's been there for a hundred of years, as that pays off lots of it debt already.
If you. Because we are kind of going towards the last few questions of this episode, if you would advise another council anywhere in Europe on what it should do if it wants to start taking retrofitting more seriously as part of its planning, as part of its choices, what would you give them as an advice?
[00:34:59] Speaker C: I hesitate to tell other people what to do because we are very conscious that we're far from perfect and every city is different. I remember the City of London area is much smaller. We're looking really at a central business district for other cities.
I suppose the first thing to do, I'm sure this is being done, is assess the nature of your built development, your housing stock, your office stock, the UK as a whole has a large elderly housing stock.
If you think of the phenomenal development that took place in the UK at the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century.
All those Victorian terrace houses that you see in London, you can see them in Liverpool, you can see them elsewhere.
Those were built in a different age. They can be, they can be changed, they can be made more efficient. So it's important to understand what sort of housing stock you've got.
We've already at the conference today, people have been talking about the retrofitting plans to retrofit urban brutalist buildings of the communist year era in parts of Eastern Europe. In Prague, that would be a different type of challenge to Victorian terraced houses. In the city, we coincidentally do have quite a lot of, in the square mile, post war urban brutalism buildings.
It could be more tricky to get a 1970s replacement or retrofitted window that meets the heritage standards than to get a Georgian one.
They face their own challenges so far as another city.
Find out the nature of the housing stock. Also, I think it's very important to.
It's important that people come with you on the journey.
And so there are two things I think come out. There's got to be short term benefits for people if they're living in retrofitted houses or offices.
So their energy prices have got to be.
It's an obvious way you can do that.
And then secondly, to find out whether people really like these buildings or not.
Don't prejudge with our own taste.
They might not like it, but you might find that surprisingly something that you might think or councillors or might think needs to be demolished turns out to be a cherished building in the community.
So I think in a sense, first stage is assess your stock and then also assess the public opinion and then make a plan.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Brilliant.
And that is good advice for other cities.
Last question. In this segment, you're also working when it comes to retrofit. You're automatically working with a lot of companies that offer solutions in this field. Also innovative solutions, if you could wish. So now, not a magic wand, just a wish.
If you could ask them to bring something at the table that you've seen too little of, what would you ask them to bring?
[00:38:42] Speaker C: I don't think it's their fault, but in it's not the company's fault. It's a change in regulation.
But I would better quality windows in terms of insulation, both for non heritage buildings, but particularly for heritage buildings. We've got to move out of the mindset, the heritage mindset, that you can't have double glazing in a medieval house or a house that dates back to medieval time.
Obviously you don't want to have something that is inappropriate. So it's got to be high quality. But the technology has improved and so I think we don't certainly in England, I can only talk about England, pay enough attention to drafts and holes in walls and the amount of energy that is leaking out of houses and that's energy inefficiency because however you're getting it, and at present some of it is fossil fuel derived, some of it will be gas as well as renewable. But even if it's renewable, we have a duty not to waste it.
Also, it's just not good for the long term future of older buildings.
At the end of the day, buildings are there to be used ideally and that's always a tricky balance, I know is finding a modern use for old buildings.
And so I extend that even to the retrofit. So it could be 1912, 1970. You can now have buildings in England listed as.
Protected for their special architecture and heritage value if they're built in the 1970s. And to me that now seems, that's now within my lifetime. So that seems scary.
But they will be a challenge. And if I, my, my non magic wand but just wish is to ensure better insulation for existing. So a bit of retrofitting for existing buildings.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: I love how often we come back to, to our Harry Potter wand in this discussion. Brilliant. Is there anything that so far we couldn't touch because my questions didn't touch them? Something that you still want to share with the audience before I move into the last few questions?
[00:41:29] Speaker C: Not at all, no. I think you've asked questions. I was expecting ones. I wasn't.
Brilliant.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: That's the mix we are trying to go for.
So before I go to our last recurring question that we ask each of our guests here, I want you to inspire us.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Inspire us just a little bit with a story, a quote or anything that has inspired you recently.
[00:41:59] Speaker C: Something that's inspired me, I think not to be too trite, I think it's the President of Ukraine.
I think you asked me at the outset about my career.
If you look at his career, he was, I think, a lawyer and a comedian.
You end up becoming leader of your country at a time when your family, your personal existence is under constant threat.
You cannot always know what's going to happen.
And I think that resilience and I don't know what the outcome is, none of us know to me is inspiring.
I can't, I don't know the man personally and I don't as I say, know what the outcome will be.
But we live in an age where it's very difficult to have respect for political leaders, not necessarily their own fault, but just the age in which we live. And I think there is someone who cometh the hour, could have taken a helicopter and said I'll be a government in exile and has bitten the bullet.
And I think that is inspiring, although it's all very bleak and a lot of people have lost their lives.
But I do think it is inspiring in an age where someone has taken a difficult decision personally and for their own family, I must imagine for a matter of principle and their country and their people.
And that to me has to be admired.
It's one of those instances where I think it's always important you look back in history and you see people who've done brave things.
You always like to think you would be one of those people. We never know until the hour comes. I think as far as I can see on that decision, he stepped up. So that is President of Ukraine.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: That is, as you said, in a bleak moment, heroism, defending freedom of Europe.
And as you say, something definitely inspiring little to add there. Thank you for sharing. That is absolutely amazing. There is one last question that we ask all of our guests here in the podcast.
As you know, it's called Smart in the city. So we are using the word smart city. And we would be, or I would be very interested in hearing your definition of what a smart city is or should be.
[00:45:24] Speaker C: I can give some descriptions rather than a one line definition. I think a smart city should be a place where first of all it's safe to be.
I think in the City of London we do that. We have our own police force separate to the Met.
I don't, I don't mean to discredit the Met in any other way, but it's nice to have your own police force, I think as well as being safe, which is very important because unless you're safe, you won't feel safe to walk, cycle, go out at night. And I think that's very important for everyone, particularly people who otherwise historically been vulnerable in society. The other thing for a smart city is one that brings together smart people. And that's again, obviously I'm putting a plug here for the City of London. That's one thing that we do globally, we're a global city.
As I mentioned to you when we were talking outside the podcast, on our Common Council, we have elected to quite high position a Dutchman, American woman.
We've had a Lord Mayor. I think he had more nationalities than I've got fingers. But he was primarily Michael Minnelli was primarily American.
We have Irish, we have people from India and elsewhere in Europe.
So I think we want to be a place of smart cities, smart people.
That doesn't mean there isn't a place for people who are not smart or people who are not disadvantaged.
Smart city is one also that looks after everyone in the city.
Now, I say that because it's quite important, because for every lawyer, architect, banker, as Covid shows, unless we've got people who can also look after us, whether it's hospital workers, cleaners, security people, road sweepers, people who work on the landscape, we won't have a properly smart city.
So, yes, we need smart people.
But smart is not just intellectual, it can be smart people in other respects.
But also we need to ensure that there's a place for everyone in that city. So those are some of my. Those are my. Some of the. I'm sure there's more things, but those are my key.
The last thing I would say is not for a smart city. There is two things you need for civilization, as we know from the Romans.
You need to be able to ensure you have clean water and to be able to get rid of your rubbish.
That is a challenge. I've just come back from Indonesia, hugely growing place. Big issue is waste disposal.
And without it, you can't have cities, you can't have education, you can't overcome disease. So that is the basis of any civilization.
[00:49:02] Speaker B: That's brilliant. Thanks a lot for that, Greg. It was brilliant speaking to you. Thanks so much for joining, for joining in.
And yeah, to all of our listeners, I hope you enjoyed this episode, enjoyed what's happening in the City of London and if you want to read more about the projects there, the city has been sharing their project since 2017 on our free to use platform BabelmerSmartCities. EU. Find more out about these smart city project solutions implementations. So, again, thanks Greg. Thank you so much.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: Thank you all for listening. I'll see you at the next stop on the journey to a better urban life life.
