Smarter urban development

Researching, sharing and promoting urban development that is visionary, viable and popular

For over 40 years we’ve championed a smarter model of urban development grounded in social equity, resource efficiency, and a natural balance. Drawing on Nicholas Falk’s and URBED associates’ work, we focus on practical strategies that make better use of a city’s existing assets —strengthening transport, supporting sustainable growth, and empowering communities.

We believe thriving cities are built through decisive leadership and genuine collaboration across public, private, and civic sectors.

Our aim is simple: protect natural assets, enable innovation, and put in place the policies that create vibrant, inclusive places where everyone can prosper.

Explore our work

What is the URBED Trust?

The URBED Trust is a not for profit company with charitable aims set up to promote research into the future of urban areas, and to disseminate best practice.

The trust was reconstituted after Nicholas Falk and David Rudlin won the 2014 Wolfson Economics Prize for showing how to build new Garden Cities that are visionary, viable and popular. A group of expert board members are overseeing different projects, in partnership with other public bodies.

URBED was originally founded as the Urban and Economic Development Group in London’s Covent Garden.

About the URBED Trust

Key projects and publications

Podcast microphone and person to the side

Listen to an AI summary of Building Social Cities

In this virtual podcast built with NotebookLM, the speakers explore Nicholas Falk and colleagues’ comprehensive strategy for revitalising British urban development by adopting successful models from continental Europe.

The UK’s housing and infrastructure crises are solvable – but only with genuinely proactive planning and the political will to fund it properly, including through state investment banks. Better local connectivity and mass transit can make cities both more productive and more liveable. Crucially, rising land values should help pay for public services rather than simply enriching landowners. The vision is essentially a modern take on the Garden City idea: compact, well-connected, greener communities built and managed by people who actually know what they’re doing.

Listen now:

Postcards from the Future

“I have seen the future and it works”, Lincoln Steffens, 1919.

Our views are shaped by what we see (and hear). In setting up URBED in 1976, I wanted to spread good practice in urban regeneration and local economic development. But despite advances in digital media, are cities getting any better at learning from each other?

I am going to experiment with a blog on what I have learned from different cities. So let’s start with a study tour to Paris last September, an initiative to transfer lessons on cycling from Copenhagen to London, a short trip to learn how Leipzig has revived its economy, and an event to consider Oxford Futures.