Roger Kitchen "Wolverton is not the kind of place you can boast about living in. I know that when I tell people who live elsewhere in Milton Keynes that I live here I can see a look of pity come into their eyes and yet I wouldn't live anywhere else.

What's kept me living here for the past 41 years? Well, I believe it's got something that money can't buy -- a great sense of community.

But just what makes it a community?

In my TED talk I'll be exploring what I and others who live here think are the special ingredients that help to make Wolverton a community and whether it's possible to replicate these ingredients elsewhere, particularly in the new communities of Milton Keynes."

Roger Kitchen is a Wolverton resident who has been involved in community development in Milton Keynes for more than forty years. He came to the new city in 1971 and worked as a community worker on the first Development Corporation housing estates, then, as Director of Inter-Action Milton Keynes and later co-founder and General Manager of Living Archive, used the arts and heritage as vehicles for building communities.
He is passionate about listening to and recording people's stories and is an accredited trainer for the British Library and Oral History Society.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)