I've just read the article by Tim Leunig on the Grauniad website and - shock horror - it is quite logical. I don't agree with it but what he says makes sense.
His basic premise is that Liverpool and Hull, which he singled out, are coastal and as such they grew up based on sea borne commerce. They have declined as commerce has become less tied to this one method of transit for people and goods. He cites Reading and Milton Keynes as successful modern towns, whcih is also true.
The problem with the article is in its assumption that we must engineer changes in where people live or where they work. That's the dangerous part. He speaks of allowing people to move south to live and work if they want to. Well, correct me if I'm wrong but anyone can live anywhere in this country. It just costs more down here, as my groaning bank account can attest.
This article is kind of like the works of Karl Marx (no, stay with me...). The analysis is impeccable but the suggested solution is pants. There, one of the most important political and economic theories of the last 200 years reduced to a single word: pants. This is surely what people mean when they say blogs dumb down - and I agree.
Coming back to the ravings of Leunig, my experience of northern towns is actually quite good. I have friends in Liverpool and I have never been anywhere with a better nightlife. I am planning to go on my annual summer holiday to Gateshead where I will sample the delights of Newcastle city centre on a Saturday, visit the excellent seaside resorts - by metro - and visit beautiful Northumberland. Not much reason to move south from there, then Tim...
Some towns are blighted. I spent 3 years at university in Stoke on Trent. Now Stoke is probably the kind of place the author had in mind when he mentioned depressed northern towns but even benighted Stoke has seen quite a considerable revival in the 20 years I have known it. I spent a year in Sheffield as well and I am told that that town has also improved its fortunes - though it is still too soon for me to return as the scars remain...
One alternative view comes from a colleague who mentioned Bradford being in the shadow of Leeds. It may not always be necessary to redevelop a town or city. It could quite successfully decline into something else, such as a tourist destination. Bradford has countryside, superb Asian cuisine, Saltaire, a fascinating history and good links to other 'destinations' so why not just become a genteel tourist centre. Now that is a leap of imagination!
I also agree with Leunig's criticism of regeneration projects which have variable success. Taking his analysis to an alternative conclusion, what I would like to see is a better application of regeneration by proper regional government within a far more devolved, federal state to recognise and work better with individual cases like Bradford. If local regions could work for themselves we might see a lot better work than can be achieved from a remote centre.
I live in Oxfordshire and our future is planned in Guildford, which could be the dark side of the moon as far as I am concerned. By contrast the Thames Valley region is logical and practical as a region. The 'South East', stretching from Milton Keynes to Dover is a bureaucrat's wet dream and nothing else.
Similarly, Tyne and Wear up to the Scottish border is logical, although Northumberland and Cumbria may share more in common economically as both areas thrive on tourism nowadays. East Anglia, comprising Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridge works too, IMHO. I'm equivocal on Essex. Sorry, Essex but I know little about the county other than that I hate the A12.
So one cheer should go to Leunig and colleague for their analysis but a resounding raspberry for their conclusions, which are lazy and smack of a dirigiste planning age which thankfully has long gone.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
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2 comments:
Actually Tim does not suggest planning mass movements. Quite the opposite really as the whole paper is about freeing up from planning constraints, as well as central government intereference to allow the market in jobs, the global market that is, not the UK regional market, to have its effect.
The proposal to give current regeneration moneys to local authorities themselves to spend on "quality of life" projects is the same as your idea here about Bradford - that instead of being told, as in the Pathfinder projects in Hull, Liverpool and Rochdale to knock odwn and rebuild as many houses (because the only reason people don't live there apparently is the housing itself) and instead produce "quality of life" projects that may even as you say enhance depopulating areas over time, not try and force them to stay as they once were.
Overall, I think it's a good report.
Jock
(conceived in Warrington, born in Hull, lived oop north for much of my childhood)
Perhaps some focus on the southern towns he cites might be edifying. Reading. A successful town. Well yes, of course, except .......well.....how can I put this.......I used to live there and spent all the time I lived there trying to get out of it. Don't get me wrong. It's a fine town which is buzzing. But the traffic system has been notoriously appalling for decades and to live there is an acquired taste. One of the things that can be said about Reading is that it is surrounding by some stunning countryside and villages/small towns.
In a nutshell, holding up Reading as a shining example of a town which people should throng to in preference to northern cities/towns, is just laughable!
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