🗺️ Where Fresh Thinking Meets Britain’s Oldest Bottleneck
Land is key to economic growth and equality of opportunity, yet in Britain we’ve done almost nothing in decades to unlock our most limited resource. Is it any wonder houses are unaffordable, productivity has stalled and social mobility has flatlined?
Co-founded by Francis Irving, co-creator of TheyWorkForYou, and Henry Morris, founder of the social mobility charity upReach, Land Talks is a series of evenings to inspire and connect high-agency people to reimagine land for everyone’s benefit.
⚡Lightning Talks, Lasting Ideas
Each evening features six sharp, informative and inspirational lightning talks. The six brilliant speakers and their provocative talks booked for the seventh evening of Land Talks are:
🚶 Streets Ahead: What Paris, Barcelona and New York Figured Out by Archer Thomas
The tools New York used to transform Times Square: orange traffic cones, 376 beach chairs, six months. The tool London built for a similar job: an ambient benefits calculator. Archer tells the story of how Paris, Barcelona and New York reimagined their streets for this century, and what London can learn from their mistakes as much as their successes.
🛗 No Lift: How Social Housing Chokes Social Mobility by Zach Martin
Social housing was supposed to loosen the grip of background on destiny. But local eligibility rules mean a tenant who moves loses their place in the queue, and a tenancy is worth far more in productive London than anywhere else in Britain. Zach quantifies the state-made chokehold, then asks what would have to change for social housing to actually improve social mobility.
X Marks the Plot: The Free Map that Turns Land Data Into Community Power by Kate Swade
A community food project searching for forgotten common land to cultivate. A housing campaigner counting how much social housing their borough really owns. Both need the same map and until recently, neither could afford it. Kate introduces Land Explorer, the free solidarity-funded tool that finally opens Britain's land data to everyone, and tells the stories of the people already using it to change things.
➕ Three further speakers & talks to be announced soon
📋 How the Evening Will Run
Arrive from 6.00 p.m.
Talks plus questions: 6.30 p.m.
Finger food: 7.00 p.m.
Talks plus questions: 7.45 p.m.
Chat with your fellow groundbreakers as long as you like!
👯 Join the Groundbreakers
Whether you’re an analyst, policy wonk, programmer, policymaker, activist, or simply passionate about a brighter, more abundant future, join us at the seventh Land Talks to make Britain’s land system work harder for everyone’s benefit. In the meantime, find out more at landtalks.org.