0:09

Hello and welcome to Talking Property

0:11

with CBRE. I'm Kathryn

0:14

House, your podcast host, and I'm delighted

0:16

to be joined today by one of the world's leading

0:19

urbanists Professor Greg Clark.

0:21

Based out of the UK, Greg has worked on

0:24

strategic planning with around 400

0:26

cities, including London, New

0:29

York, Barcelona, Hong Kong, and

0:31

Auckland. He was in Sydney last

0:33

week to headline the Property Council of Australia's

0:35

Future Cities Summit, which tackled

0:38

some major issues such as our current

0:40

housing shortage, the long-term impacts

0:42

of the pandemic, decarbonisation, where

0:46

Australia's cities rank on the world stage,

0:48

and the ongoing need for reinvention.

0:51

I'm also joined by CBRE's New South Wales

0:54

Director of Government and Industry, Ash Nicholson,

0:57

who was one of the moderators at the summit. She's

1:00

a passionate advocate for the 24-hour economy

1:03

and creating cities that work around

1:05

the clock. This was a really

1:07

interesting conversation, so it's a little longer than

1:09

our normal podcasts, but I think if you

1:11

stick with us you'll agree there are some great

1:14

insights. Greg, I was

1:16

lucky enough to attend last week's summit and

1:18

it provided some real food for thought, particularly

1:21

when it comes to future population growth.

1:24

By your estimate, some 10 billion people

1:26

will live in about 10,000 cities around

1:28

the world by 2100. In

1:31

Australia, the government's intergenerational

1:33

report predicts that 40

1:35

million people will be living here by 2061

1:38

with our population to rise by 15

1:41

million over the next 36 years. How

1:44

we accommodate that growth is clearly a huge

1:46

challenge and we're currently well behind the

1:48

eight ball. So, can you give us

1:50

a sense of which cities globally are

1:53

leading and lagging in providing for this

1:55

future population growth and how

1:57

does Australia stack up?

1:59

Well, firstly Kathryn, thank you very much for

2:01

inviting me on the show and great to be

2:03

here with Ash and last week's conference

2:06

did indeed get into all of

2:08

these issues. Let's frame

2:10

it then, like this. Australia has

2:12

to add 15 million people. That's

2:15

the equivalent of Greater Sydney,

2:17

Metro Melbourne, Brisbane, and

2:19

Southeast Queensland and the whole

2:21

of metropolitan Perth over

2:24

the next 30 to 36 years.

2:27

So, you've only really got four

2:29

options in how you can add that

2:31

kind of population in a country. You

2:33

can either decide to let sprawl

2:36

be unbound and allow every city

2:38

to sprawl. You could build new

2:41

cities in new locations as

2:43

you did when you created Canberra.

2:46

You could allow existing

2:48

cities to densify and become

2:50

very high within their city limits. Or,

2:54

you could create a networked model

2:56

of cities and towns where you have distributed

3:00

densification with more

3:02

compact cities and towns working

3:05

together through shared transport systems.

3:08

And if you look around the world, the

3:10

model that's being pursued in the cities that

3:12

are doing really well, let's take Singapore

3:14

as an obvious one, but you'll see a same

3:17

thing really in Vienna, in

3:19

Austria, you see the same thing in the

3:21

big Nordic cities, including Stockholm

3:24

and Oslo and Helsinki. What they're

3:26

really doing is some combination of

3:29

number three and number four in

3:31

my model. So, they're building

3:33

new infrastructure to enable

3:36

smaller cities and towns that are close

3:38

to large cities to develop,

3:40

to optimise, to become specialist

3:43

locations. And that infrastructure

3:45

enables a larger overall

3:48

housing market, labour market, investment

3:51

market, infrastructure platform.

3:54

And when they do that, they usually combine

3:56

that with densification in

3:58

the city centre as well. So

4:01

whether you look at what's been happening

4:03

in Singapore with the growth, for example,

4:05

of the Jurong District and One North,

4:07

the New Towns coupled with

4:10

the very successful development of Marina Bay

4:13

Sands, or if you look at Vienna

4:15

where there's been limited densification

4:17

in the centre, but they've essentially built

4:20

a new city on the edge of the city at

4:22

Aspern connected by high speed

4:24

rail. Those are the models that

4:26

seem to work in the cities that

4:28

are able to then also

4:31

provide affordable housing

4:34

in large scale with specialist

4:37

locations for new industries and

4:39

a high amenity set for citizens.

4:41

So, we've come to the point in our century

4:44

of urbanisation where the

4:46

existing models that cities have been using,

4:48

and this is true for Australian cities,

4:51

have become saturated. And

4:53

what we have to do is break out of the existing

4:56

model by adding new

4:58

dimensions to the city, often by

5:00

creating additional locations within

5:03

the same metropolitan area.

5:04

So, when you talk about creating new models and breaking out of models, I guess one of the issues that we have in Australia is that we are very dependent on that large family home. That's the whole Australian dream, car dependent. It's not a model that's necessarily seen in other countries around the world and our cities are quite unaffordable. So, you know, of Australia's big five cities, we're in the 25% most unaffordable cities around the world. So, what other housing models do you think we could be embracing here to really help future-proof our cities?

5:38

Yes. Well, urban populations are elastic

5:41

and they're growing very fast. Urban land

5:43

is inelastic and finite.

5:45

So, if you have a model that uses

5:48

the car as the main form of transport

5:50

and has as the main form of living the

5:53

quarter acre block, the single-family home, the

5:55

only way you can grow the population

5:57

with that model is sprawl. And

5:59

the problem with sprawl is that it

6:01

produces very high commuting times, very low

6:04

amenity sets, leaves people very

6:06

dissatisfied, and it's bad for

6:08

productivity, it's bad for health, actually,

6:10

it's almost bad in every way.

6:13

So, you do have to break out of

6:15

that. But breaking out of that doesn't mean that

6:17

you abandon the attractiveness of the

6:20

well-facilitated suburb with the nice family

6:22

home. What you have to do is complement it

6:24

with other things. And that essentially

6:27

means that what you want is to densify

6:29

and improve the amenity set in

6:31

your towns so that suburbs

6:34

surround towns where there's good

6:36

amenities, great connectivity, high capability and

6:39

high capacity and reliable public transport.

6:43

And if you are able to do that, you

6:46

are able to achieve what I would call a

6:48

kind of cohabitation of the

6:50

old model of low density living

6:52

with a garden or a paddock that many

6:55

people want with other

6:57

forms of density, including medium

6:59

density in towns and high

7:02

density in city centres with different

7:04

kind of amenity offers that essentially provide

7:06

people with choice. And if you look at

7:08

what's happened in the Canadian cities over

7:10

the last 20 years, and there are some

7:13

parallels between the Canadian cities and

7:15

the Australian cities, what you see is

7:17

this rather unusual combination

7:20

of low-density suburbs with high

7:22

density cities. And if you

7:24

can make that work with high-capacity public transport,

7:26

that's a mix that provides people

7:29

with choices. But I don't

7:31

think you have the option simply to continue, the

7:34

Australian model of this domination

7:36

of the owner-occupied single-family home

7:39

with every journey being by

7:41

car. Because if you do that,

7:44

you get locked into a low productivity model. And

7:46

if it simply means

7:49

that everybody decides, if they can,

7:51

if they have a job where it's

7:53

possible that they want to work from home, you also

7:55

end up, with all sorts of

7:57

other risks about job security into the

8:00

future. So, changing the spatial model

8:02

is very important in order to continue

8:05

Australia's last four or five

8:08

decades of success.

8:11

Yes, and I think it is good to see we are

8:13

starting to see new models emerge. Build-to-rent

8:16

is starting to grow quite quickly in

8:19

Australia, and that's a model that you've

8:21

seen in the UK for quite some time now.

8:24

So, it is good to see choice

8:26

emerging, but I think we do still have a long way

8:28

to go.

8:29

Let me say one more thing, Kathryn, if I may, which is

8:32

simply to say that in the cities that

8:34

have the highest economic success,

8:37

but the lowest housing affordability challenges,

8:40

there's a huge spectrum of

8:43

different types and tenures and offerings

8:46

in housing, which is very important

8:48

not just to give people individual choice,

8:51

but because the modern urban economy requires

8:54

for people to be available to work in

8:56

different locations for different durations

8:59

and different levels of intensity. And the

9:01

idea that people are going to live in the same city for their

9:03

whole life and therefore that they want to store

9:06

up all of their personal equity in

9:08

a single-family home is a bit of an old

9:11

idea in the modern economy. So, a

9:13

much broader spectrum of housing choices

9:16

is actually much better for labour market

9:18

and economic productivity.

9:21

So, speaking about labour markets and

9:23

working in different locations, it's probably

9:25

a really good segue to switch tracks

9:27

and talk about the aftermath of the pandemic.

9:30

It's been a driver of worldwide

9:32

city change. It's accelerated

9:34

some trends, halted others, and

9:37

it's also put that debate about working from

9:39

home well and truly on the agenda.

9:42

I guess that debate has been exacerbated

9:44

to an extent in Australia by the fact that we are

9:46

car reliant, even though we have had some really

9:48

big investments in infrastructure, our

9:51

public transport still has its

9:53

flaws. Give me your thoughts on

9:55

the working from home debate. Greg, I've

9:58

seen you quoted in a few publications on that front.

10:00

I'd love to hear what you think some of the

10:03

critical considerations are as we evolve our cities.

10:05

Well, Kathryn, I think the key thing to say first

10:07

is that we don't yet know what the

10:09

full effect of all of the changes

10:11

that the pandemic brought will be. And

10:14

of course, hybrid working, virtual

10:16

working is only one of them. It's

10:19

given rise to the very interesting phenomena,

10:21

of course, of there being lots of digital

10:24

nomads all over the world at the moment. People

10:26

who live in one continent but

10:28

actually work in another because they work virtually.

10:31

And that's an interesting thing for cities to

10:33

think about. But in the more general case

10:35

of hybrid working and working from home,

10:37

there are two or three things that we don't yet know.

10:40

Firstly, we don't know how long it takes

10:43

for the social capital that is

10:45

created by people working together

10:48

in a workplace to really erode. And

10:50

we don't know whether we can

10:53

approximate that social capital that

10:55

produces the high levels of creativity,

10:58

cooperation, and trust in a

11:00

virtual model. That's the first thing. And when

11:02

you look at this from an economics point of view

11:05

there's a big difference between what is individually

11:08

convenient or efficient for

11:10

a single worker and whether she

11:12

or he prefers to work in a certain

11:14

way versus what we might call firm

11:17

level or sector level productivity,

11:19

where we know that there are huge advantages

11:22

from interaction and collaboration. So, two

11:25

things I think we can say then about this,

11:27

that firstly, the return to

11:29

the office has been much faster in

11:32

Europe than it has been in North America. And

11:35

this is partly explained by the

11:37

fact that in Europe there's much better public transport

11:39

systems on the whole than there

11:41

is in North America. We notice a

11:44

very, very high return to the office

11:46

in the Middle East, in Southeast Asia,

11:49

in China, where if you like

11:51

the urbanisation process

11:53

is in full flow. And in Latin America,

11:55

the return to the office is back to

11:59

a higher level than it used to be because

12:01

there's a strong sense of the office

12:03

as being a place for social interaction

12:05

as well as for productivity. Now,

12:08

North America is the outlier

12:10

in the sense that the return to the office has

12:12

been most slow, but North

12:14

America is a place that's different

12:16

to the rest of the world anyway. In

12:18

North America, more people move home

12:21

and move jobs more often than

12:23

in any other continent. There's already

12:25

a high level of take up of technology

12:28

and there's, as it were, an enterprise

12:30

model that really encourages people to

12:33

do things their own way. What

12:35

we see when we look at the data is

12:37

that Australia seems to be following the

12:39

North American model rather

12:41

than following Europe or Latin America or

12:44

the Middle East or Southeast Asia or

12:46

China or any of the other regions of

12:48

the world where the return to the office is faster.

12:51

And I'm on record as saying why

12:53

is Australia doing this? Is

12:56

it because actually people

12:58

in Australia are able to

13:00

be equally productive when working

13:02

from home and there won't be any loss

13:05

of a firm level or sector

13:07

level productivity? Or is it because

13:10

Australians are fed up with the very long

13:12

commutes that come from the

13:15

dominant model of car use and single-family

13:17

homes that we spoke about a few minutes ago? So, I

13:20

have two worries. Firstly, I

13:22

think that Australia's embracing of

13:24

the working from home model could prove

13:26

to be a bit of a historic mistake. An accidental,

13:30

as it were, shift into

13:32

something that will in the end will

13:34

be low productivity. And secondly,

13:37

I'm also concerned about whether in the

13:39

long term it will increase job insecurity for

13:42

Australians. And so, I would

13:44

rather see that Australians feel

13:47

that they have the option to be

13:49

back in the office as much as they want to, especially

13:51

the younger professionals who need

13:53

to learn from each other and need to become

13:55

part of the corporate culture and learn from

13:58

their mentors. And what I don't want

14:00

is Australians to feel forced to

14:03

work from home because the commute

14:05

to work is so unpalatable

14:07

that they don't want to do it. So, what we've

14:09

really got to do, I think is accelerate the

14:12

transport reliability and experience,

14:15

come to a more mature settlement

14:17

about how many days a week Australians

14:19

should be in the office versus which

14:22

days and hours in the week they

14:24

need to be doing something else. But really

14:26

think about this, because productivity

14:29

and job security are things we don't

14:31

want to give up lightly, even if

14:33

we seem to be taking an option that

14:36

feels like it's personally more

14:38

convenient.

14:39

Yes, it's interesting you make that point about Latin

14:41

America and that they're coming back potentially

14:44

for the social aspect of it. And

14:47

I think it's that whole idea of

14:49

making work a place that you want to

14:51

go to, or the office a place that you want to go to.

14:53

So, the experiential side of offices

14:55

and giving people that

14:57

sense of choice. And clearly,

14:59

I don't think hybrid working is going to

15:02

go away. We're never going to be back to, you know,

15:04

that full-time piece. But if

15:07

we can create that sense of experience, I think

15:09

that's so important.

15:10

And if I may say, Kathryn, I think you're absolutely

15:13

right. All I would say is that every

15:15

sector is slightly different in terms

15:17

of what we might call the attendance quotient.

15:20

And of course, every role within every

15:22

firm is slightly different in terms

15:24

of who needs to be in and who needs to be out. And I

15:27

think you are absolutely right that it's the

15:29

experience of being at work,

15:31

the experience of the office, the experience

15:34

of the district around the office, and

15:36

the experience of the journey to the office

15:38

that we have to work on. I said at

15:41

the conference last week that I thought that the net

15:43

effect of the pandemic overall on

15:45

cities was a shift away from

15:48

cities simply trying to service corporates’

15:51

consumption and commuters, and

15:54

instead cities realising that their value

15:56

add in the long term lies in

15:58

their ability to be great places to live. So,

16:01

habitat. It relies in their

16:03

ability to curate new creative

16:06

and productive activity, which I would

16:08

call innovation. And it also lies in

16:10

the quality of experience that they

16:13

offer to people. So, if the experience of traveling

16:15

to the office, arriving at the

16:17

office or being in the office is not an

16:19

engaging and fulfilling experience, people

16:22

will not want to do it. And if

16:24

they've got the choice, they'll choose not to. But

16:27

there may be other intended consequences to

16:29

that as I've spelt out.

16:31

Yes. Well, as we talk

16:33

about experience, one of the areas

16:35

that we covered off in the summit was the need

16:38

to make our cities true 24-hour

16:40

destinations. And so,

16:42

it is not just about the corporates and

16:45

the consumer needs to be considered in

16:47

this whole debate. Ash, that

16:49

was one of the sessions that you covered off on

16:52

the summit. How do you think we're

16:54

doing on that front in Australia in terms

16:56

of creating these true 24-hour districts. In

16:58

closing the summit, Greg, you gave a

17:01

really great summation of that session as being about

17:03

the four I's.

17:05

Yes, in Australia, in particular New

17:07

South Wales, it's one of the cities with

17:10

really strong leadership when it comes to supporting

17:12

the economy round the clock. Politically, we have

17:15

a minister with arts, music, nighttime

17:17

economy, and roads in

17:20

his portfolio, which shows the focus

17:22

on connectivity. We have a

17:24

dedicated 24-hour economy commissioner with

17:27

an expanding team and remit. And

17:29

most importantly, we actually have a

17:31

24-hour economy plan. For a long

17:34

time, I think we've had a real misconception on the

17:37

narrative for 24-hour economy, that it's

17:39

only about entertainment and going

17:42

out at night. But it's really so

17:44

much more than that. It's the key workers

17:46

that keep our city optimised at night. It's

17:49

the healthcare workers, the supply chain

17:51

workers, and of course the

17:54

cultural and place factors that really make people

17:56

attracted to live, work, and play in

17:58

a location. Greg, the four I's,

18:01

I couldn't have put it better

18:03

myself in summing up the session

18:05

in terms of integrating the

18:08

day and night, thinking about the 24-hour

18:10

economy as an asset. Intentional in the

18:14

curation, the safety, the authenticity, the

18:16

mobility. Investing, not just letting

18:20

the night trade or worker environment remain as

18:22

an afterthought of our cities. And of

18:25

course, identity of place, a way that

18:28

it connects people and makes us attractive to

18:30

talent, tourists, and community building.

18:34

So, another thing that we saw on the agenda

18:36

was AI. It's talked

18:38

about in the media probably every day, and

18:41

indeed one of the speakers likened our

18:43

current digital revolution to the fourth

18:45

industrial revolution. Greg,

18:48

perhaps you could talk about what you're seeing

18:50

worldwide in this respect, and do

18:52

you think we're ready for the AI shift in

18:54

Australia?

18:56

Well, whether we're ready in Australia, I'll

18:59

leave it to Ash I think to comment on, but

19:01

certainly worldwide, what we're

19:03

seeing is that AI is basically

19:06

everywhere. It's ubiquitous. AI

19:08

is changing the way we

19:11

organise, manage, sequence,

19:14

and maintain our cities. AI

19:16

is at the heart of our anticipatory

19:19

maintenance. AI is at the heart of every

19:21

time we pass through a security control

19:24

or a visa or passport control. AI

19:27

is there when we are entering a stadium or

19:29

getting on or off a piece of public

19:32

transport. AI is in the operating

19:34

system of every building we walk in

19:36

and out of. So AI is everywhere

19:40

and the large language learning models

19:42

that are now being used have the

19:45

ability not just to create the internet

19:47

of things that we understand very well, or the

19:49

internet of the city, the internet of

19:52

place, but they also have the ability to

19:54

begin to interpret and to make offers, to

19:57

ask them to encourage us to

19:59

do things that we might not have thought of already. So,

20:03

AI is deeply there. AI

20:05

is also, of course infusing the industries

20:08

and the jobs that are created in cities. And

20:11

there's a global competition on not

20:13

just to be the headquarters of

20:15

AI or an AI hub, and

20:18

many cities are vying to do this, but also

20:21

increasingly the use of AI as

20:23

an accelerating device in other industries, medical

20:26

research, convergence technologies,

20:28

in particular, of course all

20:30

of the creative industries that are producing new

20:33

kinds of content. AI is there.

20:35

So, AI is basically re-engineering

20:38

the way our cities work and operate.

20:40

AI is also generating

20:43

new kinds of content and

20:45

new kinds of jobs within our cities. And

20:48

AI is beginning, as it were,

20:50

to complement every aspect of our lives. And

20:53

in a certain way, AI as a tool

20:55

is a very good thing, but AI,

20:57

as it were, as a cloud, AI as

21:00

something that becomes, as it were, a

21:03

second way of thinking about

21:05

interpreting and suggesting our

21:07

lives, also makes us vulnerable to

21:10

external influence and vulnerable of

21:12

course, to various kinds of external exposure.

21:16

So much of the discussion at the conference

21:18

last week was a discussion about trust,

21:21

about transparency, about

21:24

the transition to a more AI

21:27

enabled world, and the need for people

21:29

to be much more conscious of how

21:32

AI operates in our lives, and to

21:34

think more carefully about what we want to share, what

21:36

we don't want to share, where we want to

21:38

be nudged and where we don't want to be nudged.

21:40

And if you like, the risk of

21:43

AI creating robot cities

21:46

rather than the opportunity for

21:48

AI to be an enhancer and a

21:51

complement of our own unique experience. So,

21:53

a lot of work going on there. AI

21:55

safety is going to be a very big issue

21:58

in the world over the next five years. And

22:01

if you like, the next generation of

22:03

cybersecurity discourse is

22:05

all about AI and how that works in

22:08

our lives. So, watch this space, this

22:10

is going to be a very big agenda over the

22:12

next period of time.

22:13

And it's the three T's. Trust, transparency,

22:16

and transition. So,

22:18

it was a very broad ranging

22:20

agenda. And I think we can't ignore the

22:23

current conversations around how we decarbonise our cities.

22:25

And that was a huge area of focus

22:28

last week. Property is the

22:30

largest single cause of emissions. And one

22:33

of the comments I noted at the summit was that the challenge

22:35

of our time is how to

22:37

accommodate population growth and decarbonisation at

22:39

the same time. Greg, I know

22:42

I asked you about readiness on AI. I'm going to ask

22:44

you another readiness question. Do you think

22:46

that we're ready here for this decarbonisation

22:49

piece? I was interested

22:51

to hear Green Building Council of Australia CEO Davina

22:54

Rooney say that the huge growth she's

22:56

seen in renewables has given her some

22:58

hope, and she also noted that she's seen more

23:00

innovation on embodied carbon in the past

23:02

eight months than she has in the past 18 years. So,

23:04

we're obviously making some strides,

23:07

but what's our readiness piece do

23:09

you think?

23:10

Well, I think we need to look at this in two ways Kathryn. The first

23:13

thing I would say is, you know, are we ready

23:15

to decarbonise? Are we on a fast

23:17

enough track with decarbonisation?

23:20

But secondly, how ready are we in

23:22

terms of resilience to the effects of climate

23:24

change, which is a different agenda.

23:27

So, on the decarbonisation process, we

23:29

know that if we want decarbonised cities,

23:31

we've got to remodel our cities. They've

23:34

got to become clean in their systems,

23:36

their utilities, their transport. They've

23:39

got to be connected, particularly they've

23:40

got to provide people with low carbon

23:43

transport options as well as being well digitally

23:45

connected, and they've got to be become compact, they've

23:48

got to be frugal in the way we use land and

23:50

other resources. So that, that frugality

23:52

means that we're saving embodied carbon,

23:55

we are saving construction materials and

23:57

everything else. So, if you imagine Australian cities

24:00

moving to being clean, connected, and

24:02

compact, then I think you can

24:04

imagine that the conversation we were having before about

24:07

networked compactness and

24:09

using public transport to reorganise our

24:12

urban form,

24:14

it's quite a big shift that

24:16

our Australia needs to make. So,

24:19

on the energy side, Australia

24:21

is doing well in the shift because

24:23

of the huge endowment of sun

24:26

in particular, but also other sources

24:28

of renewable energy. It's more

24:30

on the urban transition where Australia

24:33

has more to do on the decarbonisation side.

24:35

On the resilience side, obviously

24:38

there are major challenges because

24:40

of global warming and whether

24:42

it's heat, drought, and fires,

24:44

or whether it's the risk of flooding,

24:47

all of the insurance issues that

24:49

come from that, or whether it's other

24:51

risks that are much more connected to health.

24:54

I mean, fortunately Australia doesn't

24:56

have the kind of air quality issues that

24:58

are happening in many other cities around the

25:01

world, but these things are going to become urgent.

25:03

Actually, they're already urgent issues

25:06

for Australia, and you can't solve

25:08

the resilience challenges simply

25:11

by decarbonising because you

25:13

are victims of what's happening everywhere else in the

25:16

world. So, you have to use the decarbonisation process

25:18

I think to accelerate your

25:21

own innovations and to become more productive,

25:23

more frugal, make savings, adopt

25:26

new technologies, and see it as good,

25:28

in terms of the economy and

25:30

quality of life. And then you have to invest radically

25:32

in the things that will increase

25:35

the resilience of Australian cities,

25:37

especially around heat and drought, I

25:40

would suggest.

25:41

Yes, huge challenges in Australia. So,

25:44

Ash, did you have any other key summit takeaways,

25:47

particularly as it relates to the role of government

25:49

in shaping the cities of the future?

25:52

What really stood out for me is how

25:54

the sectors have converged into super

25:56

clusters, and that the experience

25:58

and visitor economy is one of

26:01

those that's really at the forefront for our future

26:03

cities. And this super cluster

26:05

really includes everything from a sense of

26:07

place, sport, music, entertainment,

26:10

but also retail, education,

26:13

healthcare, and tourism. Locally, we

26:15

really seem to be stuck in this head space,

26:18

private and publicly, of competing

26:20

across the nation like we're stuck

26:22

in the State of Origin, but for cities. Like

26:25

it's a sport. And we really are

26:27

starting to see other countries, cities, band together and

26:30

work together as networks to really become

26:32

a much more compelling offer to tourism

26:35

and talent in particular. So, what

26:38

I think the opportunity there is

26:40

for us to partner better with government and as

26:42

an industry so that we can really

26:44

unite and put our cities on

26:46

the forefront of being liveable, prosperous, and

26:49

loveable destinations.

26:51

Yeah, I like that idea of loveable. That was something

26:53

that I hadn't really tapped into before,

26:55

but it was talked about quite a few times at the conference.

26:58

So it isn't just about the liveability,

27:00

the prosperity, it's about how loveable

27:03

are your cities.

27:05

I love that. And you do, as a

27:07

person, as an individual. You know

27:09

what you love and what attracts you to a

27:11

place and what makes a place sticky. And

27:14

those things I think are sometimes forgotten about

27:16

when we're talking about urbanisation or

27:18

city shaping, but they're

27:21

so richly important in terms of

27:23

the people experience.

27:27

So that idea of loveability, that

27:29

might lead me to one last question. And

27:32

I know it's probably like asking a parent who their

27:34

favourite child is, but Greg, do you have

27:36

a favourite city or

27:38

perhaps you might not want to single one out, cities

27:40

that you think are leading the way on different fronts?

27:44

Well, Kathryn, it's an impossible question

27:46

as you say. You know, it is a bit like who's

27:48

your favourite child? But I'd like to say three

27:50

things about this. The first thing to say is

27:52

that I think we're in a

27:54

phase now in global urban development

27:57

where actually it really

27:59

matters to all of us that every city succeeds. So,

28:01

I talk about 10

28:04

billion people living in 10,000

28:06

cities by 2100. We can't

28:08

afford really, for any of

28:11

those cities to fail because every time any

28:13

city fails, there are going

28:15

to be big implications for the global economy,

28:17

for our environment, for our air

28:20

quality, for our health, for our resilience.

28:22

So, we’re actually all in this together.

28:25

And I think that increasingly what we need

28:27

to do is to talk about how

28:29

each city can help every city. And

28:31

we need to, as

28:33

it were, reduce the competitive instinct, because

28:36

actually in the end, competition

28:38

doesn't matter. It's

28:41

helping every city to succeed. That's the first thing.

28:43

The second thing to say is, of course, that there are risks

28:46

with a century of cities of

28:48

the type I've described. That cities become

28:50

increasingly the same or

28:53

similar. And I like very much what Ash was

28:55

saying just a minute ago about, you know, each

28:57

city needs to become loveable. I have

28:59

a slightly different way of thinking about this, which is

29:02

to say that actually each city has got

29:04

a kind of unique DNA, a unique genetic

29:06

code. The accumulation of traits,

29:09

characteristics, physical features, cultural

29:12

instincts, behavioural types, the

29:15

vernacular of the built environment, each

29:17

city's got a unique endowment. And if

29:20

you like, we want each of those 10,000 cities to

29:23

figure out who it is and to be

29:25

the city they can be rather than to

29:28

be like other cities. So, we don't

29:30

want copycats, we want each of those

29:32

cities to be unique. And if they are

29:34

unique, it's going to provide a

29:36

much richer experience for everyone. And if

29:38

you're a visitor, then of course you're going to get

29:41

a very distinctive experience in

29:43

each place. So, I like to say that, you know, we shape

29:45

our cities and then they shape us. There

29:48

is a kind of epigenetics to the city

29:50

that whether we're five and a half million

29:52

people in Sydney, or 6

29:55

million people in Melbourne, or 10

29:57

million people in London, we are having a

29:59

collective experience because we

30:01

live together and work together in the same city.

30:04

And that connective experience has an

30:06

epigenetic effect. It begins

30:08

to change the way we think. So, when

30:10

we're in London, we start to think like a Londoner.

30:13

When we're in Barcelona, we dream like

30:15

a Catalan. When we are in Sao

30:18

Paulo, we walk in the way that people in Sao

30:21

Paulo walk, and that's the magic of cities,

30:23

right? That we get to have a

30:25

different experience of ourselves because

30:28

we're actually having an experience of a place

30:30

that's different from places that we are used to.

30:32

So, with all of that in mind, I would say to

30:34

you, I don't have a single favourite

30:37

city. Obviously I love

30:39

very much the city I'm from, which is London. I

30:41

love the wonderful livability of

30:44

Vienna. I love the excitement on

30:46

the streets of Sao Paulo. I

30:48

love the chaos of Mumbai. I

30:50

like the night music scene

30:52

in Shanghai. But I want

30:55

to really say something about Australian cities, which

30:57

is to say that in each Australian

30:59

city there is this unique cultural

31:02

endowment of 50, 60,

31:05

70,000 years of

31:07

First Nations. And it seems

31:09

to me that the thing that is critical,

31:12

not just for the way Australian cities

31:14

look and feel in the future,

31:16

but also the way Australian cities think

31:19

and act and are intentional,

31:22

is really the grasping of this very unique

31:24

history that no other group of

31:26

cities in the world share. And

31:29

the more Australian cities can

31:31

be oriented towards the

31:34

cultural, intellectual, and the philosophical endowment

31:36

of First Nations, the more they will be

31:39

distinctive and different. And the more, the

31:41

wonderful sort of loveability to

31:44

use that phrase, that Australian cities have

31:46

acquired in the last 50 years of having

31:48

this great sense of freedom and

31:51

fun and outdoors and climate,

31:53

the more that's combined with something that

31:56

is wiser and deeper, and

31:58

in particular this very long

32:00

multi-thousand year heritage, the

32:03

more Australian cities are just going be the best places

32:05

in the world, and the more people will want

32:07

to come and live here, and the

32:09

more proud Australians will feel of

32:12

being here in the first place.

32:14

I love that. And I love the whole idea of the magic

32:16

of cities. So, Ash,

32:18

a hard act to follow. But do you

32:20

have a favourite?

32:22

< Laugh>

32:22

I'm going local. I really have

32:24

to say Sydney. I absolutely

32:26

love this city. It's why I live here. Greg,

32:29

you mentioned a focus on place capital,

32:32

how we value it, and the need to define

32:34

ways to embrace, shape and integrate

32:37

it in everything we do. When I

32:39

think about Sydney, I think it has such a

32:41

compelling, magical offer that's

32:43

just so beautifully unique to Sydney. We've

32:46

got the beaches, the iconic landmarks,

32:48

the beautiful community suburbs with

32:51

huge amounts of open space, but we also

32:53

have that busy city density as

32:55

well. We're the financial

32:57

capital of Australia full of opportunity,

33:00

ripe for innovation, and we attract the best

33:02

talent. We also have a thriving

33:04

nighttime economy that's blossoming

33:06

away from being dominated by

33:08

alcohol and thriving in the celebration

33:11

of the global cultures that choose to live

33:13

in our city. And we have really

33:16

passionate people working as a community

33:18

to continue to strengthen that vibrancy

33:20

and safety and opportunity of

33:22

the night.

33:25

Well, I think there's a lot to digest

33:27

here today, and it was so great

33:29

to have you on the podcast, Greg and Ash

33:31

and I really did enjoy the conference. I think there

33:34

were just so many takeaways from that.

33:36

Also, thank you to everyone who's tuned into this latest

33:39

episode of Talking Property with CBRE.

33:42

If you like the show and want to check out more, visit

33:44

cbre.com.au/talking-property and you can

33:49

subscribe through Spotify, Apple Podcast, or

33:51

your favourite podcast hosting platform.

33:54

And make sure not to miss our next episode,

33:56

The House View, where CBRE's

33:58

Pacific CEO Phil Rowland and head

34:00

of Research Sameer Chopra, will give

34:02

their quarterly take on the market outlook

34:05

and make some bold predictions for the

34:07

months ahead. I'd also love to

34:09

hear from you with any questions, feedback, or

34:11

ideas for future podcasts. You

34:14

can email me via [email protected]. Until

34:18

next time.