For our final week of Design & Technology we had Professor Alastair MacDonald speak to us, he is a researcher at GSA. Before we attended Alastair's talk he asked if we could read a few articles and write down our response to what was being said. One of the Guardian articles was making the argument that electric cars won't save us but a total transport rethink would. 15 minute city's were a potential solution, this would ensure all basic needs such as schools, shops, workplaces and parks are all a short walk away. I think this is a great concept and is one that would severely reduce the amount of cars on the road as I would say I live in a 15 minute city when in Glasgow. During term time, the only point I'll be in a car is typically when I get a lift down at the start of the semester and then one at the end of it. This is because everything is a quick walk or short cycle ride away that I don't need a car for. Contrast this when I'm home in Aberdeen, I need the car for most task such as shopping, seeing friends or going to restaurants. This being said trying to reduce the number of cars on the road will b e very difficult as people like the freedom that comes with one. 

At the end we all split up into groups to try and answer a question, my group picked question 3: "What difference could many individual small-scale community-driven initiatives and land-activism achieve?" I thought this was a really interesting topic to discuss with a few peers and we all agreed that local investment would increase the standard of living. Shown below is some of our other main talking points laid out in bullet points.