by job78989 » Wed May 02, 2007 11:26 am
Doomsday it may have been in Haghill, HOLLYWOOD invasion welcomed by our City Fathers no doubt! But why? I have never lived in the east end, but for a period of time in the late eighties, I worked in the area with a range of social initiatives aimed at reducing poverty and improving the quality of life. All this in a climate of Central and Local Government spending cuts, most projects failed through lack of adequate financial support.
Haghill followed the usual pattern for these areas, lack of investment in housing and social infrastructure, leading to undesirable housing and an area that is run down and vandalised, mostly by the people who live there, but why? Could it have anything to do with people being brought up in areas where they see, the powers that be, doing nothing to improve the quality of their lives, perhaps leading to a culture of apathy and despair!
Surely not in our great City, 2nd City of the Empire and all that bulls***, but yes way! This has happened in areas all over Glasgow, following our leaders in the City chambers we have allowed this to happen in area after area of the City. From campaigns like Glasgow’s Miles Better, regeneration projects like, GEAR, the Merchant City, Garden Festival, City of Culture, current projects like the riverside developments to the commonwealth Games. We hear the same bull being repeated again and again, things are getting better, all the neo-liberal social gentrification crap!
Is it getting better, where is the evidence? We have admittedly seen some vast improvements in housing in some areas, but the better examples of this are clearly seen where people have taken control of housing for themselves in the smaller community based housing associations, some real good work has been done, demolition of substandard damp and environmentally scary housing, being replaced by the little boxes on the hillside all made out of ticky tacky as the song said. But still better than the former City councils lack of any attempt to improve the quality of the housing, I can think of some wonderful examples.
Wonder whose idea it was to stick wee pointed canopies at the front entrance to multi storey flats, real quality housing investment that, the inside where people live is running with dampness, asbestos, vandalism stairways being used as shooting galleries and drinking dens by the cities excluded and hidden population. But aye lets build a wee canopy that will fix the problem, aye right!
My point?
Yes much has been done in the City, but little has been done to improve the live chances of the City’s Citizens in particular in the working class areas, for far too long we have been content to sit back and watch this decline, we see a generation of Vicky Pollards growing up all around us and we do nothing!
We do live in a so called democracy, but why do we have a political system that excludes and alienates the poor and the young? Could this because they see no point in voting as it makes no difference to them who has power because they are effectively excluded by the system itself?
Some pre election rants, sorry guys!
John
Last edited by
job78989 on Wed May 02, 2007 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Sometimes the people need to speak if they want to be heard.