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Problems and Aspirations in South Yorkshire and Beyond

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I picked up this tweet from the inimitable and award winning Tom Bloxham MBE, Uber Prize Winning Guru of UK regeneration

Urban Splash’s refurb is turning one of the republic of Sth Yorkshire’s biggest problems into an aspirational address

Now ain’t that regeneration as it plays out here in the UK?

  1. Find a ‘problem community’ in an area with easy access to the city centre
  2. Refurb it to take it from a place where only the poor would live to an ‘aspirational address’.
  3. Replace a problem community with one that already has ‘aspirations’ .

The same recipe plays out all over the place.

Drive the poor people out, tart the place up.  Increase the property values and encourage the creative classes to move in.  Secure an immediate GVA increase, eliminate a whole bunch of costs, attract a community of shiny happy people and another award wining development is completed.

Everyone is a winner.  Developers, politicians, treasury.

Everyone except the displaced, who can no longer afford to live close to the city that is their home.  Who are driven out.  Who are economically excluded from the city.  Whose communities are broken up.

Regeneration is not economic cleansing.  It should be a process of inclusive community building.

Surely its time we awarded prizes for some other kind of ‘development’?

Leeds – ‘Knightsbridge of the North?’

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John Baron over at Guardian Leeds is running an interesting poll at the moment, asking about whether Leeds City centre is sanitised and sterile, whether we should welcome the development of yet more retail space in the city and whether Leeds should aspire to be the Knightsbridge of the North.
And I am genuinely surprised that the majority of pollsters seem to think that the ‘Knightsbridge Strategy’ makes sense….(NB the poll is still open so perhaps things will change).
As one who remembers when the Merrion Centre was new, and has seen several new developments ‘revolutionise’ the retail experience in Leeds, I am far from certain that they have helped to achieve any real progress for the city.
I can think of worse fates than to be the ‘Knightsbridge of the North’ – but not many.
It will commit us to a long term strategy based on retail infrastructure development and we will witness the ‘old’ centres going to the wall as newer, bigger more glamorous centres come to take their place.  The centre of retail gravity will shift around the city as too much capacity fights for too little footfall.
Developers, planners and builders will be happy.  So too will the politicians as they can keep announcing the ‘creation of new jobs in construction and retail’.  And those of us that can afford to buy our way to consumption fuelled temporary contentment may enjoy it for a while, before the more or less inevitable existential crisis, or whatever we use to keep it at bay, eventually gets us.
When I am working with people on their personal and professional development I ask them three questions:
  1. What do you want to have?
  2. What will you do in order to have it?
  3. If you do that what will you become?

In the case of Leeds the answers seem to be:

  1. We want to have – A prosperous economy based on tourism and retail (finance may still be crucial but is no longer flavour of the month), creating lots of low paid jobs and providing a great playground for those with disposable income
  2. What are going to do so that we may have it – Pursue ever greater retail and leisure development projects.  Allow our city to become a giant retail hoover to suck up capital from across the north and put it in the pockets of retailers and developers who can afford to play the game.
  3. What will we become if we do this – The ‘Knightsbridge of the North’. A northern simulacrum of a London suburb where the ‘haves’ can flaunt their wealth while the ‘have much lesses’ work the tills and warehouses and the ‘have nots’ are pushed out of sight. A city where the gaps between the rich and poor continue to rise, but GVA, like exam results, continues a relentless rise.  Where we rely on trickle down and Victorian philanthropy to retain an air of decency.

Often with personal and professional development the secret to getting a better future is to start the process with question 3.

Then, ‘what we do’ and ‘what we have’ might just serve our dreams rather than sabotage them.

That is why it is so important that we get a Vision for Leeds that works for all of us in the city.

Green Grows the Economy – O

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Is ‘sustainable green infrastructure that supports our economic development’ an achievable goal?

Sustainable economic growth on a finite planet?

Sustainable economic growth in a finite city?

Some say ‘Yes’ – Carbon capture and storage creating thousands of jobs, hydrogen powered buses and carbon emissions reductions

Other say ‘No’ – It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism

How will this play out in the Vision for Leeds?

The Regeneration Game – Builders, architects and developers

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Yesterday I asked the twitterverse:

Why does nearly all regeneration work in Leeds have at its heart buildings, architects and developers?

It produces some interesting, and necessarily brief responses:

Because Leeds is full of banks, and banks only sell money and property guarantees money. making bankers feel safe!

@councilhousekid

Buildings provide a container for loads of good activity, somebody has to make sure they perform effectively?

@lexmarksmith

People associate regeneration with the fabric of the city, not with people, even when it’s supposedly about making lives better…or maybe it’s because we need a tangible output from the investment rather than seeing regeneration as a process.

@LouiseEbrey

Your wrong! Nearly all regeneration work full stop is about buildings and architects – what else could politicians open?

@EnterpriseIain

Because that’s where regen grants are targeted? In infrastructure rather than people?

@gedrobinson

Didn’t you get the memo? Regeneration is a synonym for new building project 😉

@amcewen

because that’s where the cash is?

@philkirby

Definition of regeneration http://tiny.cc/sonul I really like the moral revival or rebirth definition. Real social change…

@BatleyGreen

Your thoughts?

Comments?