That a viable downtown is essential to the health and well-being of the whole metropolitan area may be a given to the ordinary person in the street, but as far as strategic thinking goes, it is still largely not understood by many professionals charged with urban development.

Perceptual gaps in certain quarters as to just how powerful downtown can be as the main generator of wealth, given the right approach, are also only too plainly apparent. Downtown is considered for investment in exactly the same way as any other large site. Downtown though is NOT just a business or retail/leisure investment option, it has fundamentally different qualities.

Even when you do get a city centre focus you do not see plans tied in with the holistic programmes that should aim to maximise on the potential of intensified residential, commercial, leisure and retail being in one place. The current approach simply sees the city-centre only as a passive venue for investment, not the dynamic, generative, central market of entrepreneurial opportunity. Getting downtown to grow is about much more than encouraging major retailers and other inward investors to come, though the principles are as straight forward.

Downtown is the central market place, wealth generator and cultural hub of its metropolitan region. Its dynamic force, when tapped, provides most symbols and imagery that defines the city in the wider world and is the physical and cultural manifestation of its population’s identity, aspirations, enterprise and pride. New thinking about the generative role that downtown has to play must become central to policy initiatives.

What is the Downtown Approach?

The legendary philosopher Bill Shankley once remarked that football was a simple game, complicated by idiots! Whilst not wishing to be quite as cutting about the development community whose plans have shaped and arranged our towns and cities for decades, there is a similarity in application. Setting out the structures for downtown revival are relatively straight-forward, all it takes is a grid system of streets, an appreciation and admiration of the most vibrant and exciting of cities, and the intention to build one! This gives a structure that encourages growth organically and so enables all the other investment strategies, inducements and inward investments, etc to really work.

A thorough appreciation of the generative capacity of cities, and downtowns in particular, can produce, and the exponential growth that a focus on enterprise, de-zoning and development intensification can unleash must become central to economic and planning policy in the city immediately. Downtown Liverpool, while developing some of the initiatives emanating from our work of changing perceptions, will largely advocate the broader context of this basic approach and encourage those actually charged with the work to do it!

Intensively mixing up the myriad of activities provided in city centres, as good downtowns do, unleashes further growth and opportunity that no business park can (for example, would a business park EVER be a good place to live?). The added value of downtown investment to any other is manifold, in extra jobs (and job satisfaction) business opportunities, quality of life, cultural growth and, of course, in its architectural landscapes. This approach provides the optimum environment from which to build business, culture and well-being. More buildings, people and business on every street just means more opportunities for growth!

This is the essence of how city's grow, and at a fundamental level, how wealth is produced. People gathering in cities can help themselves by tapping the resources of the city, resources that aren’t available in lesser places. When two people meet, potential is created. Maximising the opportunities for people to meet, congregate and share ideas is what cities do best. Exploiting the potential generated by human contact creates the quality of life, diversity, range of services and opportunity synonymous with the greatest places to live.

It is just as important that the vast range of business communities downtown develop an understanding and appreciation of downtown, their role in it's growth and that they become enthusiastic Downtowners. A more dynamic approach to development and investment can improve their own long-term growth. For example, there are tremendous opportunities for business if we increase the intensity and mix of development and enable a greater and more diverse number of people to live downtown.

If we appreciate; for example, how much money is not tapped now as the business and the visitors in Old Hall St are too far away from the Retail zone to regularly take advantage of its offer, we then have the inclination to explore ways to resolve it. At present perceptions do not see the mismatch, so do not seek ways of tapping it...Missed opportunity? they are everywhere!

We don't NEED to have downtown segmented off, so why do it?

The downtown approach welcomes and works with the extra dimension generated by discarding many of the old 'town planning' principles like strict zoning along with codes designed to limit or decree the intensity of building downtown. Getting as much activity going, from as wide a base as possible and mixing it all up - no limits - makes the greatest downtowns! Places like Old Hall St itself would benefit greatly from a little more diversity and development than currently envisioned.

Providing a large downtown residential population in general, with its needs and amenity also generates extra income streams, so again, the cry must be, the more the merrier. cities around the globe that have not suffered the vagaries of British planning and consequently still retain large populations, made up from every demographid and income group. They are especially attractive to families. You see this from downtown Lyon to downtown Buenos Airies ...so there's inspiration (and a number of huge, untapped markets) for downtown Liverpool. Having tens of thousands of ordinary residential groups adds further complexity and opportunity for improved amenity, culture and leisure ...to say nothing of further business potential and growth.

Business and entrepreneurial growth has to be a primary focus as it provides the backbone to most other architectural and quality of life factors vital to building a better downtown. It is essential to work with downtown entrepreneurs (and aspiring new entrepreneurs) to explore how to expand and diversify current markets and create new opportunities, improve business-to-business networks and trading, form associations and other ways to support growth.

It is also vital that business needs are fully and properly represented with the strategic agencies, BY THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY. Many, including us, have good ideas that will enable downtown Liverpool to become even more vibrant and exciting, but the best experts on what can work for business are the entrepreneurs themselves, so a platform and forum for them to raise their ideas and concerns must be a priority.

Establishing a whole raft of associations, groups and societies will need to follow. Commercial activity must transcend current command structures with regards to strategic development and the people with the skills to do that are the owners and entrepreneurs that actually generate the wealth of the city. With downtown Liverpool now back in business we have a burgeoning community of brains and experience to take things further forward. The best tactical nous is not found in Millennium House!

The downtown approach is about not excluding anything from the equation, letting nothing be left out from the analyses. From culture and counter-culture, every size and sector of business down to the daily civic and community roles that downtown can provide. Hosting all of these activities, as the best downtown's do, just adds to the mix, building, growing, improving. From the 'incidental trader' or downtown busker to the huge public authorities and multi-national corporations, they ALL have a contribution to make ...miss out anything and you dilute the potential! There are hundreds of areas of life and business that downtown isn't currently utilising (from proper recycling and other green business, to 'intrepreneur break-outs') Everything that is encouraged to grow downtown helps to support what is currently in existence as well as stimulate the potential for new markets.

Downtown improvement and well-being has a much wider impact. People stay/are attracted to cities that offer variety and quality as well as job and business opportunities. In this respect, what’s more important to city living than a vibrant downtown offering a good working environment with lots of choice on the doorstep? Economic buoyancy enables expanded social, leisure and cultural facilities to be provided. It creates an upward spiral of sustainable growth rather than just trying to increase the retail catchment area and competing with out of town malls.

Evidence shows that the fastest growing cities are those that have the greatest business diversity and a sound cultural infrastructure, and not, as is the usual assumption, the hi-tech cites (though, of course, this no reason to neglect that vital and exciting sector ..remember, EVERYTHING goes into the mix with the downtown approach). They are the factors vital to long-term success; it is these factors that attract the high growth sectors in – on the back of local wealth production! A healthy and varied downtown has even been shown to be more important than salary levels with regards to staff retention in studies in the US, so getting downtown Liverpool right is essential to a whole range of other regeneration policy aspirations.

(A new report by Jones, Lang-LaSalle [go note: pdf file] highlights what is most important in determining staff retention levels is easily acquired)

Our wish is to see Liverpool be as vibrant and exciting as it has the potential to be. If we encourage as many businesses’ as possible to be active downtown and have as many people living, working and visiting as possible, then it will work to its optimum, unquantifiable, potential.
It is our aim to do as much as we can to ensure that it happens.

10 great things about downtown

1. Affords its citizens the convenience of undertaking many different activities and undergoing a host of experiences at the same time in the same place
2. Sustaining a buoyant and diverse enough environment to see whole streetscapes that bring delight to the senses
3. Enabling individuals to experience activities and differing lifestyles without being obliged to join in
4. Sustaining a vast range of activities, jobs, choice and interest in one location
5. Giving a metropolitan buzz
6. Giving workers a pleasant lunchtime, non working, environment, indeed a wide range of alternatives to suit the mood
7. Letting people make money
8. Giving people a quality of life unattainable in any other community
9. Being the best medium for tapping the creative juices of its citizens and providing an audience/market for their outpourings
10. The potential to make the city's definitive statements