Jessica Bowles

Greg Clark 

We were so delighted to hear that Jessica Bowles is one of our enthusiastic listeners. Jessica inspired the idea that we should have a series of shows where our listeners come and talk about what the podcast series has meant to them and which cities they'd like to see us do in future episodes. So, Jessica, welcome. Thank you for the inspiration. Please tell us what you've enjoyed or what you found meaningful in The DNA of Cities podcast series so far.

Jessica Bowles 

When I first started listening to the series, it just gave me such a brilliant framework to put around things that I've been thinking about for years. So I've worked in and around cities in the UK, I've travelled to other cities as a tourist and I've always been curious about why places are like they are and what they might become in the future. I think what you've done so cleverly is not just talk about history and geography, but also talk about this very intangible thing about the traits that cities have developed over time and I found that totally fascinating and compelling.

Greg Clark 

Well, we're so happy because that was the whole intention. This idea of the traits of a city and how that relates to the notion of a genetic code in the city is something of course, we're still exploring, and we hope all of our listeners will share their thoughts about that. So, let me ask you the second question, Jessica, which is having listened to quite a few episodes in the series what does The DNA of Cities mean to you? How have you started to crystallise in your mind what this means and indeed, how you can use it in your work?

Jessica Bowles 

I think this notion of both what's happened over a long period of time that has infected the way that people think about a place and hand that down through generations, and hand it to the people who come and join the city, but also the geography that sort of shapes that to start with. I think this sort of combination of factors about time and space and people talking to each other and working with each other and coming into contact with each other and the stories they tell is what gives this DNA. It's really hard to say exactly what that is because it's quite an intangible concept. What I found brilliant about the series is that it allows you to access a whole range of cities. It helps you picture them, think about them, both those that you've already been to and those that I've never been to. There's loads of cities, you've talked about-- Philadelphia, Istanbul, where I'd love to go, but I never have and also those where I have been. It's given me such a lot of context but also richness of ideas about places. So I mean, I think that it's quite an intangible thought, this DNA question, but it does for me, draw together that long sweep of time, that physical attributes in a place and the storytelling, the way that people interact with each other.

Greg Clark 

I really love what you're saying and of course, we are trying to find a way of synthesising what we might call geography, history, anthropology, sociology. You've captured that brilliantly in this idea of time and place, and how those two things interact with the word, you know-- you use the word story several times there. I think that the time-place-story equation is something that we're trying to get at. I love your thoughts about this kind of intergenerational passing on this sort of inheritance that happens. That's very much kind of the forefront of our minds. So Jessica, I know you know many cities well and you work in lots of cities. But pick one city for us and tell us about why this city is dear to you and what you see to be its DNA characteristics as you perceive them.

Jessica Bowles 

You wouldn't be surprised for me to say that I'd love to talk about Manchester and I'd love to hear you thinking about Manchester and bringing Manchester to life through The DNA of Cities framework and idea. Part of why I love the podcast is that I'd been working in Manchester for 15 years and I've known the city for longer than that, although I hadn't lived here before that. I'd always had this sense of history and geography around the city because it's a very clear monocentric city region. Everyone knows in Greater Manchester where the centre of it is. It's Manchester. There's not competing cities within the city region, it's got a really clear geography. That has defined a lot of its history actually and the way that the city has grown over time. Of course, the history of the city, if we look a certain distance back is the Industrial Revolution and its role at the heart of the UK and its role at the heart of the world as a cotton producer. But actually, if you look a little bit further back, you really understand it was a trading town. It was a town where deals were done, and merchants gathered, and people did business. It was a commercial city, not just a manufacturing city. I think that is absolutely critical to how Manchester developed over time. So, the centre of Manchester isn't, you know-- there are some mills, and there were early mills there but there were also showrooms and warehouses and places where people gathered and traded. If you look inside the town hall, on the ceiling of the Grand Hall, you see all of the names of the cities and countries Manchester traded with through the Industrial Revolution, it's a very outward looking trading place.

It's also a place of political radicalism. That was sort of part of the history and the acquired traits, I suppose of the city, it had independence from the guilds of the time. It had over time waves upon waves of political radicalism and radical new ideas developed by the people who lived there, but also sort of spurred on, I think, by the industry that happened in the city and some of those innovators and industrialists and leaders in the city. So I think there's something that's massive in it, and you'll have a much better way of kind of distilling that. But it does seem to me that the geography of the city region, its history, but also its pre-Industrial Revolution history, have all led it to a place that was able to be very exciting and radical. Post industrial decline, I think those have been the things that have really allowed it to take its place in the UK as an economy today. You know, that relationship between industrialists, business people, innovators, civic life, civic leaders and the people who live there have allowed the city to really come out of industrial decline in a very direct way. In a way that has been hugely successful. I think Manchester is yet again, in this sort of last 20 year period, made the weather for other regional cities in the UK coming through that post industrial period. I think a lot of that does sit back with its geography and its history. So I'd love to hear your take on it. I think it resonates the way that you described cities and the way into cities you've come to does describe a lot of what I see in this city.

Greg Clark 

I think that's really compelling, Jessica, and all of us involved in The DNA of Cities podcasts are massive fans of Manchester, by the way. I don't have the capacity to comment on what you've just said but I recognise all of it. I think it was brilliantly captured in this idea of Manchester as the ‘Original Modern’ city. But I also think that one of the things that's interesting and possibly unique about Manchester is that there are many cities around the world that call themselves the 'Manchester of' so Barcelona is, you know, the 'Manchester of the Mediterranean' and Milan called itself, you know, the 'Manchester of Italy' and Philadelphia and Chicago have competed to be the 'Manchester of America' and so have Nanjing and Wuhan competed to be the 'Manchester of China'. There's something about being the 'Manchester of' that we've really got to get behind. It's obviously going to take an investigation over a couple of episodes in the podcast to do that. But I love what you've said about the mercantilist tradition in Manchester, in a sense, predating the industrial tradition and the mercantilist tradition in a sense, providing the basis for the unique design sort of inheritance that Manchester has. There's some amazing power of projection that Manchester has acquired, which I think is just unique. So I can't wait to get into all of that and thank you for laying it all out so clearly. Let me ask you then the next question, which I think might build on the one that you've just given us, which is, when we look forward to future episodes, and indeed series' of the podcast, which cities would you like us to address and why?

Jessica Bowles 

Because my work is in this country and in the UK, I'd love you to do all of them. Because I've always felt that, you know, particularly from a London-centric perspective, and I did work in London and in Whitehall for a very long time, the sort of cities of the North and the Midlands are all sort of lumped together as regional cities. Actually, they are all very different. They do have their particular DNA. Having lived and worked in Sheffield for a period and knowing Leeds relatively well, and Liverpool, I know they have a different culture each of them. They are built on the inheritance that they have that is a combination of their history and geography. So I would love to get a bit more under the skin of the UK cities from that perspective, and be able to share that with people who are thinking about investment in those places, and how they play a role in in the UK economy.

If I might be a bit greedy, I'd love you to think about my hometown and it's not a city. So I am sorry, Greg, I'm stretching you into another series of podcasts. But I grew up in Harlow, which is a new town in Essex. It’s much maligned in many ways by many people, but it is an amazing place. I think that the nature of it does draw from its unique geography and the history and the acquired traits that you had of a place that grew out of people leaving very poor dreadful conditions in the East End of London, in large part and making a new life in a pioneer place that was designed and was encouraged to be a place full of public art and the arts and its own economy. I think that seeing that, and it's arc and it's story, which is, you know, sort of coming back and coming through and changing would be fascinating to me. We need to think, over the next 10-20 years of policymaking and delivery, about how we make modern communities really successful, and what is needed if we're going to build big new centres of development.

Greg Clark 

I think you couldn't be more right, Jessica. Firstly, I think we'll do the deal that we're definitely going to do Manchester in the next series. I would love to do at least one of Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield very soon. But over time, I hope we will do all of them. Then, I really like your idea about doing Harlow. I know Harlow well, not perhaps as well as you, but there is something about new towns that are very important to the whole urban world that we're in now. As you said very clearly, we're going to have to make new cities and many of them will begin as towns. There are lessons about what to do and what not to do from the English new towns that I think are worth sharing. Harlow, as you say is such a unique place, almost equidistant between London and Cambridge, next to a rapidly expanding airport, a town that was built, as you say, by people escaping the most abject poverty in the East End of London. It’s a place that has its own sort of character and vernacular and its own myths, doesn't it? As a result, it's a place that is very rich in sort of human spirit and so I think we must do Harlow I don't know whether we'll do it in the next series or in one after but I love your idea.