Collocations for Liveable, Inclusive and Sustainable Cities
PLAN • CONNECT • INCLUDE • SUSTAIN
Start the lesson
A liveable city brings housing, transport, public amenities and green infrastructure together so that residents can move safely, access services and enjoy shared public spaces.
Cities work best when planning begins with people: secure housing, safe streets, accessible services and public spaces make everyday life better for everyone.
Explore the readingLexiLink · Urban Life, Housing and Modern Cities B2–C1 80 minutes
Complete the tasks and use SkELL to investigate collocations about housing, infrastructure and city life. Then explain how one realistic change could make your city more liveable.
Teacher-facing timing plan. The sequence moves from lexical noticing and IELTS-style reading to contextual practice, SkELL verification and productive use.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to use B2+–C1 collocations for urban life, housing and modern cities, distinguish close meanings, test language hypotheses with SkELL, and use expressions accurately in context.
Study each expression, its meaning and the synonyms that may fit a similar context. Compare the alternatives carefully: words may be close in meaning without being interchangeable in every sentence.
Read the text carefully or listen to it. Target collocations are shown in bold. The case study and its figures are fictional and created for learning purposes.
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A. On 18 April 2024, the fictional city of Brookdale launched a three-year Liveable Neighbourhoods plan. Urban planner Elena Morris explained that the council wanted to support mixed-use development near existing transport routes rather than allow uncontrolled urban sprawl. A survey of 680 residents found that 54% wanted safer streets and more nearby services.
B. Housing became the plan’s most urgent issue. In a report published on 6 June 2024, housing adviser Malik Turner noted that housing affordability had fallen as rents rose by 12% over two years. The city estimated a housing shortage of 2,400 homes. Its new proposal included affordable housing and support for families experiencing rental pressure, although the report did not promise an immediate fall in rents.
C. Transport engineers began reviewing the public transport network in July. A pilot pedestrian zone opened on Market Street on 2 September 2024, while bus priority lanes aimed to reduce commuter traffic. During the first six weeks, passenger numbers rose by 9%. Transport officer Priya Shah said the figures were encouraging, but further monitoring was needed before drawing conclusions about long-term traffic levels.
D. The plan also included green infrastructure, shared public spaces and energy-efficient homes. On 14 February 2025, local architect James Okafor presented designs for a former warehouse site, combining housing, a library and small businesses. The project could proceed only after the developer received planning permission. Residents asked for more trees and a safe walking route to the nearby school.
E. The council’s review of 30 September 2025 reported that 14 streets had been improved and three parks renovated through urban renewal projects. It concluded that a walkable neighbourhood with reliable transport and useful public amenities could improve quality of life. However, researchers noted that property prices and housing demand would need to be tracked for another two years to see whether the changes benefited all income groups.
Decide whether each statement agrees with the passage. Choose TRUE, FALSE or NOT GIVEN.
Match each statement to paragraph A–E. Use each paragraph once.
Choose the best answer according to the passage.
Complete each expression using its meaning and the context; choose the word that makes a natural collocation.
Choose the missing word in each collocation. Read the whole expression, not just the blank.
Use sentence meaning and grammar to select a collocation that fits the context.
Choose the collocation that best fits the situation about urban life, housing and modern cities, cultural identity or cooperation. Use the contextual meaning to decide; do not classify parts of speech.
Choose the expression that fits the situation and the meaning of the sentence.
Open SkELL. Search housing affordability, green infrastructure, public transport and urban renewal in Word Sketch. Compare authentic examples and meanings. Record two collocations, write an original sentence for each, add related expressions and explain how corpus evidence confirmed or changed your first hypothesis.
Three options in each question express similar meanings. Choose the one collocation that does NOT belong to the synonym group. All options are natural expressions; the odd one out is different in meaning.
Choose the collocation that matches the meaning described. All options are natural English expressions; use meaning rather than parts of speech.
These tests become progressively harder: recognise collocations, choose expressions in context, compare close meanings, and evaluate realistic situations involving urban life, housing and modern cities. The practice score is reported separately from the 115-point lesson total.
Write at least 100 words proposing two changes that could make a city more liveable. Use at least eight target collocations and explain who would benefit and why. The 100-word target is recommended for full writing credit, but unfinished work can still be submitted.
Please compose your paragraph here rather than pasting a prepared text. Normal paste, cut/copy shortcuts and drag-and-drop are blocked in this writing field. This browser restriction supports the task rules but is not a complete plagiarism-detection system.
0 words — 100-word minimum to submit; no maximum
Use the word counter below to review your draft. You may submit unfinished work for teacher feedback.
Your name and group from the student profile above, your SkELL collocations and original sentences, related words, corpus notes, writing paragraph and available exercise scores will be collected in the teacher's spreadsheet.
Auto-scored sections: reading MCQ, True/False, paragraph matching, Matching, Sentence Completion, Odd One Out, Find the Collocate, Multiple Choice, Lexical Cloze and Collocation Repair (100 points total). SkELL cluster (10) and productive writing (5) are teacher-scored. Maximum lesson total: 115 points. The 24-point Progressive Lexical Test is submitted as a separate practice result and is not added to the lesson total.
Vocabulary bank informed by the Lesson 25 topic, “Urban Life, Housing and Modern Cities,” in the supplied LexiLink lesson collection. Definitions, reading and interactive exercises were adapted or written for LexiLink.
LexiLink · Connect words. Build fluency. Lesson submissions are sent to the configured Google Apps Script collector. The teacher must verify the saved row in Google Sheets because the browser cannot read confirmation in no-cors mode.