Future of the City Centre Network

This exciting new initiative is an opportunity to engage commercial, civic leaders, practitioners and academics to advance thinking and planning of city centres for the future.

We believe there is a need for more shared understanding of how to make city centres more sustainable and resilient, and new forms of collaboration to help ensure that they remain the beating heart of the city as a whole. This needs to be informed by innovative research, adoption of new technology and knowledge, and the sharing of good practice.

Our aim is not to create a blueprint for every city, but to help generate manifestos that ensure city centres as they change and adapt are effective in improving the quality of life and wellbeing of citizens, and contribute to cities being more sustainable and resilient.

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The city centre plays a fundamental and dynamic role in making the urban space a vibrant and liveable place. It is the site of exchange not only of goods and services but also information and ideas, a place where work interacts with leisure and play, and where people’s lives intersect. It is literally the beating heart of the city.

 

But changing patterns of commerce, retailing and residential living, and the need to contribute to responses to climate change are challenging its future character, putting the downtown under immense and sustained pressures. The Future of the City Centre Network (FCCN) seeks to help ensure that city centres can respond positively to these grand challenges.

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