Back in the 90s there was a major program of regeneration in many cities across the UK, less than half succeeded, obviously. The regeneration of Birmingham, my home town, originally started out as an all enclosed city within a geosphere with transport links integrated coming in at around 6bn. Instead we got yet another Mall costing 1/2bn with no civic amenities like Opera, Theatre, performance halls, or youth facilities yet alone transport links instead we used tax payers money to build shops that at a stroke rendered Birmingham's existing shopping areas redundant. At least we recovered the commanding views of St. Martins that the concrete carbuncle of the last incarnation of Bull Ring obscured. More like just plane Bull with a certain 'Ring' about it.
The reasons given for pulling down that last incarnation were poor access and insufficient elevators. Now, on a busy shopping day you still have to queue for an escalator. Architects scratch their heads in disbelief at the New Bull Ring. Rather than revelling in the Iconic design of Selfridge's they turn it around and ask why wasn't all of the design as bold and sweeping in its lines, instead of producing yet another series of internal boxes within bigger boxes. I watched its construction and wish they'd stopped short at the hole they dug for its foundations, at least that cavernous space was interesting to look at. As for those infernal shiny Aluminium discs masking an otherwise cheap blue plastic construction, it ain't the Guggenheim clad in Titanium is it.
Are we really nothing more than a nation of consumers, shoppers and service industry workers - is there nothing more left in the pot of our national creativity? Small wonder at the next generation who can't find a means out of their impoverished boredom than to resort to violence to settle their desputes. Our Olympic medal harvest is the product of the poor man's tax lottery funding rather than a grass roots investment in facilities for youth. Our modern architecture is nothing more than monoliths to the socially excluded: more shops, more debt, more deprivation and bad jobs for the bored. |
Carry on like this and we'll end up with a Detroit on our hands that can only be fixed with the invention of super-casinos - the absolute last stop for urban regeneration programs like the one in Blackpool in attempt to stave its collapse as a resort. They do bring money and masses of it as they have in Detroit - but social problems too. Europe has prided itself post-war with providing a safety net to ensure that Detroit can never happen here. Our taxation regimes of an extra month of tax each year per head provides the revenues for our Medi-Care programs like the NHS and the dole; once a city is lost it can't be brought back. People talk in the UK and all we do is talk, of fixing the tubes and busses to get a public transport system. Back in the 80's they actually did it in New York, it cost tens of billions of dollars then imagine the cost in rip-off Britain now? I dare you to try and elect a Government who would admit that, they just won't. We'd love to fix Britain but we can't afford to.
The Chinese just spent £23bn on the Olympics and London 2012 has a budget of £9.3bn. Seems reasonable but consider how much bang you get for the equivalent Chinese bucks compared with Sterling given that we actually have a Health and Safety Executive. What does 9 billion buy anyway? We are spending 1bn on elongating UK train platforms so that there's more space to wait for the late trains they don't record. How many times have I stood waiting for a train that the display tells me ran on time and has been and gone only without me. In some Einstein relativistic way, was it the train platform that moved or the train? Lets see Alfred or the IOC figure out that little scam. Chinese military spending is kept on a par with the US China spends in ¥ what the US spends in dollars. Now compare that scenario with having a budget ¼ the size of China's for the Olympics in our currency, its a one-way ticket to nowhere's ville.
I've been contemplating my travel plans for 2012 currently they vary between an unfit for road use electric motorbike and walking off-road to the East of London Olympic Village or to Wembley. I think we can safely rule out travelling there by car or 'public transport' by which I mean mobile commuter battery chicken runs. Maybe a narrow boat, 5mph will still outrun the M25. Forget it, I'm going to roller blade down the M25 |
