For generations, the course of life for the average person has been to finish education, move to the inner city to work, build relationships, grow older, start families and move as far as is practicable and comfortable from the centre of town. Driven by the desire for safer, cleaner, greener streets, better schools and larger houses, the exodus of families from the city to the commuter belt and beyond has been the general trend for as long as anyone can remember.

For the most part, planning departments and developers carry out their work on this assumption. But as we all know, we are experiencing a period of dramatic change, and many of the old ways of living, working and growing older are being ripped up. Leeds City Council is one place that recognises this and is keen to adapt the way it develops the city to meet the changing ways people are living.