Liveability and citizen engagement are key to the success of modern cities and urban areas in general. All over the world, cities are enjoying a renaissance, people are moving back to cities, their place in national life has never been more emphasised. One notable trend is a growing preference for smaller and medium-sized cities. We hear mostly about the mega cities and their challenges and the place they have in the world economy, but actually, the more innovative cities, the cities that are growing and are doing most to transform their economy and the economies of their hinterlands, are the smaller and the medium-sized cities. Here, Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, and I would also include Wrexham, have great potential. They’ve already done much—and I don’t want anything in today’s debate to take anything away from that—but I think that we need to recognise what great assets they are, and do even more work with them.

Another key factor is the issue of sustainability. In the last generation, I think we’ve seen this concept being deeply embedded in our national consciousness, and the need for sustainable, good urban design and vision is now, I think, accepted by all. To have that, there are some key qualities that we require: access to clean, open spaces, for instance, and I don’t just mean Bute park, though that is a magnificent example, but also those neighbourhood parks, particularly, perhaps, in the poorer parts of cities and urban areas, where there is the chance for recreation, particularly for younger people and children. This, I think, is often overlooked, whereas quite small interventions can open up the spaces that are there, can enhance the ones that have existed for many years, and we need to place a real priority on that.

Air quality has been discussed quite frequently in the last months here in the Assembly, and I’ll just touch upon that, but it’s always a challenge. In an urban area, you’re going to have more potential pollution and the result of that, if it’s not properly controlled or if unintended consequences of certain public policy like encouraging diesel 10 or 20 years ago is not effectively managed, is that it’s the very young, the old, the most vulnerable who suffer and are effectively driven out of the urban area.

High-quality eco-friendly housing—I think that’s probably one of the areas of particular renovation that we have seen. There are some good examples in Wales, but I think we need to realise that Cardiff, Swansea and other cities could really be marketed as places to come to see that carbon neutral, or carbon minus, even—I’m not quite sure if I get that term correct—housing is possible. Deputy Presiding Officer, the National Assembly itself as a building remains one of the most eco-friendly public buildings in the world, and I think we should be very proud of that. Green is best. Green really interests people as well, and if you’re achieving these great national priorities, and being green about it, I think that is a sign of great quality, which is not overlooked when people come and see us in action.

I was interested that some American cities now are turning very much to this concept of marketing themselves as green spaces and areas where there is this great potential for a green economy. Pittsburgh, which some of you may know, in Pennsylvania, this old steel-making town and a coal mining area around it, and was for many years regarded as perhaps the hardest city to turn around, has now gained much in recent years from marketing itself as the USA’s greenest city, or the greenest emerging city, and it has stressed that it has the first green convention centre, the first green children’s museum and the first green public arts facility. I think that’s the way we need to be looking at, for example, Cardiff. We can really aim for that and be leading the way in Britain and, indeed, in Europe.

This brings me on to the whole concept of design quality. There are some cities around the world that have invested in design particularly, so they, for instance, give support when people are designing whatever it is—small housing estates, public buildings or commercial buildings. You can have help hiring architects, for example, that will place a lot of emphasis on the design quality. Those are the sorts of schemes, I think, that we need to be looking at.

Can I turn now to transport, because I think this is, perhaps, one of the things that traditionally has let down a lot of cities, because of the choices that were made after the second world war in particular? But there’s also a lot of hope with new modern systems that are available to us, and technology also improving. I think public transport is itself enjoying a remarkable comeback as people see the advantages—a lot of people don’t really need to own and run a car. I’d be delighted if I could get rid of my car. It’s not quite feasible, given my job at the moment, but living in Penarth, it would be quite feasible for me to have a very full life without a car, just relying on public transport or occasionally hiring a car if I needed specifically to do that, and also relying on active transport like walking and cycling. The south Wales metro offers a great prospect of an integrated transport network that will do much and do much for some of the poorest in our society. The upgrading of the Cardiff rail network and the resignalling that’s going on—. Just another point here on transport: electric vehicles will revolutionise much of what happens, not only cutting pollution, but you’ll need a new tax base, for a start, because you’ll no longer be able to tax petrol and diesel. It is likely that concepts like road pricing—I’m not talking about ridiculous levels, but that’s more likely to be the way that motorists will get taxed, and that opens up all sorts of possibilities of managing more effectively the flow of traffic in cities.

I want to talk now about citizen involvement, because I think that’s something that is at the very heart of achieving the sort of change that citizens really want, and giving back urban places to people, to our citizens, because I think there was a trend not to see the citizen as central, really, to the life and work of cities. Here, I’d like to stress some schemes we’ve had for a while now, but I still think they are very, very effective—community asset transfers, for instance. I was pleased to see recently that the Welsh Government is stressing the need for best practice here to be more aligned with the objectives of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, but it can empower communities, and I think it’s very, very important. Incidentally, there, I would like to see systems whereby we can get, perhaps, some of the wealthier neighbourhoods to twin with some of the poorer ones and transfer some of the knowledge base that they have, and perhaps some of our grant mechanisms ought to be depending on that type of lateral thinking.

Neighbourhoods, I think, should be involved in identifying priorities. Is it litter reduction? Is it ensuring safety and perhaps having a few more police on the beat? Speed limits—perhaps they’ll want a 20 mph speed limit as a top priority in their neighbourhood. Why, indeed, do we have 30 mph as the assumption in urban areas? Why should it not now be 15 mph or 20 mph? Or they may emphasise playgrounds. I’d like to commend here the work that’s been undertaken in Atlanta, Georgia, which has made citizens central to their urban strategy. They call it the Atlanta BeltLine, where they try to integrate transport, open spaces, public art and affordable housing—all taking note of and involving citizens and the citizens’ priorities.

Can I conclude by saying that I think the policy framework is pretty strong, but we need to make sure that it’s integrated and works together effectively? The future generations Act, I think, is very, very important. Co-operation with the UK Government: we look at the Cardiff city region deal, for instance, and the Swansea bay and the north Wales growth deal. These are very, very important developments. Vibrant and viable places: I agree with the main focus there, with job creation and investment to be levered in, and people assisted into employment. So, there’s good scope there, but I think now that we need to raise our ambition also. Our cities can not only be best in class, they could be amongst the best in the world. There’s a lot of potential, but there’s also a lot of competition, not only internationally, but within the UK. I do believe that there’s going to be a profound adjustment in the levels of economic activity currently crowding into the south-east, as a lot of those in the new generation—those people who can’t afford family homes—will be wanting to move to places where they can enjoy a much better quality of life. So, I think, for all these reasons, we should be optimistic, but we should also realise that our game needs to be raised, and our ambition greater. Thank you.