I agree. It's not as much the decline in the physical existence of spaces or the existence of institutions - unions still exist obviously. It's more the decline in participation and engagement - driven by big social, economic and demographic trends - and poor substitutes, some of which are online.

Admittedly this is based only on my anecdotal reading of the situation - my grandparents were members of all of the above, I'm a member of none. So I'd be interested to see more research/data on it. But in any case I don't think either pubs or cafes are the main story here.

I think a decline in civil society spaces has contributed. Lost opportunities for building of social capital, trust in institutions, and sense of control over change. But I think the report is focusing on wrong spaces/institutions. I'd look more at unions, churches, co-ops, working clubs etc.

About three months until the deadline for the @thinkhouseinfo.bsky.social early career researcher's prize - see what winning in 2024 has meant to @michael-s-marshall.bsky.social and get thinking about submitting by checking out the details here www.thinkhouse.org.uk/about/early-...

We mapped 18,000 children’s playgrounds and revealed inequality across England Our maps show some kids have nearer, bigger playgrounds than others.

Our article in @uk.theconversation.com reveals substantial #play inequalities across #England

Paul Brindley & I looked at England’s largest settlements & mapped patterns from +18,000 #playgrounds within them

Serious #socialjustice issues for #children exist!!

theconversation.com/we-mapped-18...

Comment by Italia90: So... to clarify, if your neighbour wants to strap a droning fan unit to the brickwork right next to your bedroom window there's nothing you can do about it? And this is a good thing? 1013 likes

Actually Italia90, to clarify... no.

Heat pumps still have to pass a noise test (called MCS 020) which ensures they do not make a sound above 37 decibels at the nearest neighbouring window.
That's quieter than a library, apparently.

10) Recommendations
- expanded funding for WH:SHF and Strategic Partnerships
- government support needed for retrofit supply chain in rural areas
- engage customers early and provide consistent communications
- social landlords establish forums for customers to inform decision-making. End

9) This was a key theme running through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between Uni of Huddersfield and Together Housing, which is highlighted in the report. In short, reducing refusals shouldn't focus solely on customer behaviour, it requires internal organisational change.

8) Decarbonisation also needs a more engaged relationship with customers to build trust. Examples:
- longer lead up to retrofit
- segmenting customers to understand specific needs
- using smart thermostats to evaluate benefits
- establishing Resident Groups to oversee retrofit

7) To transform their relationship to homes, some landlords are exploring means of turning decarbonisation into a revenue stream e.g. heat-as-a-service, monetizing solar PV. They're also using procurement consortia to deliver VFM. And taking a 'whole-home' approach to planned maintenance.

6) Decarbonisation has to be seen as an opportunity to transform the relationship between social landlords and a) their homes and b) their customers.

5) But more importantly, refusals emerge out of organisational issues including siloed communication, inconsistent messaging, variable knowledge across housing teams, and lack of trust in the landlord due to past service failures.

4) Although comprehensive data is unavailable, social landlords suggested they are experiencing large numbers of customer refusals of retrofit. Some of this is due to the disruption of retrofit and uncertainty regarding the benefits.

3) Challenges:
- Insufficient funding with tight timescales
- Price of electricity hinders heat-pump rollout
- Supply chain bottlenecks (although some easing of this pressure in last two years)
- Landlord processes and systems that focus on discrete components (e.g. kitchens) need overhauling

2) Several challenges mean rollout of heat-pumps is slower than required and social landlords are instead focusing on fabric first and taking homes in EPC bands D&E to EPC C.

1) New report published today by @housingevidence.bsky.social. In the report we discuss the challenges of decarbonising social housing at scale. And the responses from social landlords. 🧵

housingevidence.ac.uk/wp-content/u...

*very* cheeky of the Guardian to illustrate this with a picture of Farthing Down, a site of special scientific interest and thus absolutely not the sort of horrible scrubland the mayor's talking about here

7) Thanks to my co-author (Meng Le Zhang), the editors at IJHP, the anonymous reviewers, my PhD supervisors (Ste Hincks and Ryan Powell), and my PhD examiners (Hal Pawson and Jacob Macdonald). End.

6) Caveats. We only looked at a single year due to the COVID disruption, so theoretically there could have been a lagged effect on council delivery in subsequent years. London was excluded, where we'd expect higher council delivery. And the effect may be attenuated in the post-inflation context.

5) Also suggests if we want more social rent, we need more funding! As a research interviewee once told me, "You'd think it would be obvious, but subsidised housing requires subsidy."

4) Also no discernible effect on total affordable housing delivery (i.e. social rent, plus affordable rent, plus shared ownership etc.). Suggests a trade-off between affordable tenures on sites. So other interventions may be needed to get more affordable housing overall (e.g. land assembly).

3) But the effectiveness of the policy differed by provider type. Housing associations responsible for over 95% of the increase in social rented starts in 2019/20. No discernible effect on council provision.

2) In short, the policy was a success. But there are some caveats. We treat the policy as a quasi-experiment with eligible authorities the treatment group, and ineligible authorities the control. We estimate an additional 59 social rented starts per eligible local authority in 2019/20.

Evaluating the effect of grant on affordable housing supply in England using a quasi-experiment England suffers from an undersupply of affordable housing, in particular the social rented tenure. Long term there has been a decline in government capital grant for new social rented supply, which...

1) New article in IJHP! In the article we evaluate the effectiveness of increased capital grant for social rent. We focus on the MHCLG policy to allocate additional grant to 'high affordability pressure' local authorities in 2018... 🧵 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The @thinkhouseinfo.bsky.social early career researcher's prize has launched! Submit papers by 25 Sept. Previous winners include @anyamartin.bsky.social @antbreach.bsky.social @jelliott94.bsky.social @rachelleearwaker.bsky.social @michael-s-marshall.bsky.social www.thinkhouse.org.uk/about/early-...

Episode 1 of #UrbanRadar is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & many other platforms!

open.spotify.com/episode/2Qas...

In Episode 1, Tom & Beth bring their urban lens to a range of current issues before welcoming @vanesilla.bsky.social & David Dodman for a discussion of cities & climate change.

I would say this as a researcher, but if you misunderstand the system, your proposed changes will be doomed to fail. And I'd argue some of Monbiot's suggestions, in particular not delivering sufficient new supply, would maintain the present system, not challenge it.

Very true. Which reminds me that post 10 in my thread should have been clearer in saying that ‘older people’s housing choices’ are constrained by a lack of affordable options to improve quality of life.

Also, we'll probably never get the evidence to fully test that hypothesis. Yet if we value politically viable and workable policy, getting enough new supply in the right places, with the right mix of tenures, makes more sense than containing supply because we think there's already enough bedrooms.

In my view that underplays the importance of spatial frictions, and the distorting effect of regional economies, which contribute to existence of housing submarkets. If we all paid market rent then I seriously doubt poor widows in coastal towns would swap homes with London's young professionals.