"Great" Glasgow - The Dreaming City

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"Great" Glasgow - The Dreaming City

Postby Fat Cat » Wed May 23, 2007 9:28 am

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Postby Schiehallion » Wed May 23, 2007 9:45 am

Spot on! Said the same a few weeks ago when we were debating the Beco building. For regeneration read 'throw up yuppy flats then install barriers everywhere to create residents' parking and restrict movement.'

How long have we waited for something worthwhile to be built at the Clydeside. Something other than hotels, a casino, call centres and flats?

GCC aren't happy - there's a shock! Bet their friends of at the Evening Times are raging too! Good stuff.
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Postby govanboay » Wed May 23, 2007 9:50 am

A classic case of shooting yourself in the foot. Hire some London bigwigs to slap your back and congratulate you on your vision and shockingly they round on you!! ::): ::):

Of course the cooncil will just continue as before until the whole city is clad in aluminium.
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Postby Sharon » Wed May 23, 2007 9:53 am

Come along to the Mitchell Library tonight and hear what they have to say. There's been nearly 2 years spent on the Glasgow 2020 project, with nearly 5000 people involved in some way from all around the city.

The project has tried to capture what peoples hopes and aspiations are and how from that perhaps some new ideas for how Glasgow can go forward and indeed how it can thnk of itself. Regeneration needs more than the physical, obviously those involved know that, but does it ever hurt to take on board any potential new ideas that may better inform the process.

And for the GCC "spokesman" to dismiss it as a purely academic exercise is disingenuous.

http://www.hiddenglasgow.com/forums/vie ... php?t=6079
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Postby Sharon » Wed May 23, 2007 3:19 pm

Beware of yawning dogs.
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Postby Roxburgh » Wed May 23, 2007 5:29 pm

Thing is .... you cannot "legislate" regeneration. Councils in general, and Labour councils specifically, are addicted to high visibility projects. This makes it look like they are doing stuff. In reality it's just window dressing. It does very little for Glaswegians in general.

How many footbridges do you need over the Clyde?

Regeneration comes from the little things. For example, sweeping crime off the streets, getting great schools (great teaching not great buildings), building affordable homes in the city and not out in the schemes, having great and affordable public transportation, sweeping the litter off the streets, etc. etc.

Do the little things and both people and businesses wil be attracted back into Glasgow.
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Postby Delmont St Xavier » Wed May 23, 2007 5:45 pm

I think I would have to agree with you (Roxburgh)

We are thinking of selling up and moving on to another part of the country, simply we are fed up with our little part of our neighbourhood being neglected and looking rather worn and run down.

We have the wonderful Whiteinch Lesser/Burgh Halls, which are being allowed to crumble. The previous developer wasn't allowed to do much with them because of their listing - but give it time the roof will cave in or there will be a fire....

Also, whilst the Harbourside is the star attraction and adding to folks wealth our street is looking like downtown Basra - pot holes, litter pockets, double parking that would prevent the fire services from getting through and tired old school buildings and the park with dead trees (reported but ignored) and there are those who claim that Glasgow's administrations past have really worked for the whole of Glasgow - not so folks!
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Postby hazy » Wed May 23, 2007 6:22 pm

Absolutely agree with Del and Roxy. Far to much tarting up going on around My city. Too many old buildings going on fire and new lego boxes being built. Why is that I wonder. Who can tell ? :?
Thank you. And why not.
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Postby Sharon » Fri May 25, 2007 9:37 am

The publication can be read here >

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Dreaming%20city.pdf

Would anyone be interested in a hard copy of the book?
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Postby Dugald » Fri May 25, 2007 10:47 am

" Regeneration comes from the little things. For example, sweeping crime off the streets, getting great schools (great teaching not great buildings), building affordable homes in the city and not out in the schemes, having great and affordable public transportation, sweeping the litter off the streets, etc. etc. "

Roxburgh, that's not just good common sense, it's good common sense and good town planning in a nutshell! Good stuff!
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Postby escotregen » Mon May 28, 2007 11:48 am

With sincere regret I’m really disappointed at the outcome so far of the whole 2020 and Dreaming City project. So much money and Demos prestige invested to tell us what we already know – that regeneration ‘led’ by professionals and senior politicians under the existing system does not work, because those individuals cannot or will not engage meaningfully with the residents or members of communities.

Well yes, so now we all have more pointless fun moaning about yuppies (do real people still use that term?) etc. But kicking the agencies and the politicians is the easy and popular bit. The hard bit is how we are going to get all the different players to work together for the good of Glasgow’s future.

Why this project is a great missed opportunity is because the project tells us nothing different, or present a significant, feasible and sustainable way forward; a few examples:

The authors criticized the official agencies and professionals for obscure language – but look at the language the authors themselves use... ‘future literacy’… ‘Disruptive spaces’… ‘ Traditional rational paradigm’…‘Imagination deficit’ …’what people do when they encounter a story is test its coherence and fidelity’. Aye, they talk of little else in the Calton pubs.

Nothing of substance on how community and city level politicians for over two decades have had more and more power taken away by national politicians (and given to unaccountable professionals). As a consequence of this system, the local politicians are unwilling to give up and share their diminishing powers with community individuals. No point in ‘blaming’ local politicians for this – it’s an inevitable outcome of central government policy, and voters turn off when faced with local politics that can’t change anything. But the point is, what is to be done about it?

Nothing that I recall on the innapropriate power balance between agencies that are truly city-based and the national ones that determine much of Glasgow's existence.

The authors give the official agencies (arguably justifiably) a kicking for their top-down and ‘big solutions’ approach. But after giving them a kicking, where are the prescriptions as to how they can be engaged with, or made to engage with real communities? On the night of the launch in the Mitchell I certainly experienced rumblings of, at best, real detachment and, at worse, quiet bitterness and alienation on the part of several individuals who work in what we might call the Glasgow economy and civic management sectors. Cynics might enjoy the professionals suffering a bit of what communities have long experienced… but, again, where are the prescriptions for going forward? How are we to enage with the agencies (and more importantly those individuals inside them who do want to work for the city's good)?

If I’m understanding the project correctly, the art and practice of story-telling and mass-imagination are offered as powerful tools in attending to all of these issues. I gotta say I’m not convinced. The ‘story telling thing’ has been welling up over the past few years as a solution around the world; a solution that is lucrative for some. To me it all sounds very similar to the fads and fashions that afflict the corporate management schools and professions. I wouldn’t be surprised to see ‘story-telling’ becoming part of the ‘’Official Future’ that the authors so criticise.

Maybe it was significant that at the launch presentation, one rather exasperated individual asked “aye, you can talk, talk, all you want, but what are you going to do, I’m interested in getting things done?”
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Postby eltor2ga » Mon May 28, 2007 12:06 pm

I was home at the weekend and like every other time, I felt sad at what I saw in Glasgow. They used to call it the finest Victorian City in Britain but I don't think they can still say that now. The west end of the city centre is fast becoming the Croydon of Scotland, full of ugly concrete and glass boxes.

There is certainly a feeling of prosperity in the centre but you don't have to go far to find areas that have a depressing air of neglect and deprivation. The east and north of the city in particular, don't seem to have moved on from the dark days of Thatcher. Trouble is she isn't around anymore to blame for the state of the place.

GCC can slag off people and organisations who dare to point out Glasgow's problems as much as they like but at some point, they will be held accountable for their arrogance. Politics have changed recently in Scotland and while Labour were lucky enough to survive this time, who knows what might happen next time round.
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Postby Dexter St. Clair » Mon May 28, 2007 5:03 pm

They used to call it the finest Victorian City in Britain but I don't think they can still say that now.


So what is?
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Postby crusty_bint » Mon May 28, 2007 5:08 pm

I think we can still claim that :) And Im sure it was Betjeman who said Glasgow was "the finest Victorian city in the World" rather than Britain
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Postby Alex Glass » Wed May 30, 2007 11:31 pm

And when Glasgow was known as the greatest Victorian City in the world please don't forget that it also has some of the worst slum as well.

And before someone says "so what has changed" can I point out that the largest project to improve housing standards has begun through the work of the Glasgow Housing Association, building on improvements that have previously been made by many other housing associations throughout the city. There are still parts of the city where more needs to be done and like everyone I want to see progress made in every part of this Great City.
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