Re-imagining and reshaping the city

Re-imagining and reshaping the city

Michael Bradford University of Manchester AQA sponsored lecture GA Manchester 2012

‘Auda-city’ to dare you to think of positive and negative words ending

in city

Positive Authenti city, perspica city domesti city, ethni city feli city, iconi city histori city, saga city preco city, publi city recipro city, vera city viva city, synchroni city

Negative fero city, dupli city atro city, compli city incapa city, inauthenti city, menda city, sala city, toxi city

Positive and

Negative views

BEETHAM TOWER

HILTON HOTEL

AQA specification: specifically relating to

Option 4. World Cities: urban decline and regeneration within urban areas Option 6. Contemporary Conflicts and Challenges: Conflict over the use of a local resource (e.g. land, buildings, space)

outline

The state of play pre-1988 How the city has been re-imagined and reshaped since 1988 CMDC, recovery from IRA Bomb (1996) Issues and problems with that re-imagining the neo-liberal city The neo-liberal city continues beyond financial crisis. The need for new thinking and subsequent reshaping

In a nutshell: Beetham Tower

Icon of change High rise (completed 2006) Power, confidence in the future Leisure, tourism and residences Business, high income, prestige, private investment Part of geographical extension of city centre

View from Beetham Tower towards city centre

Arndale

Town Hall

New offices

Spinningfields

Great Northern Warehouse

St John’s Gardens 1970s Wimpey housing

The city

Where many live, work and play. People’s context: identity, heritage The central city especially significant for: iconic buildings, feelings of belonging, pride, social cohesion

types of crisis of cities 60s onwards

economic social political built place

disinvestment, closure, long term unemployment, deindustrialisation net out-migration, riots, high crime legitimation, fiscal dereliction, decay identity - what are large cities for?

types of intervention

consumption: leisure and tourism; spectacle skills, welfare to work; community involvement (NDC) new forms of governance (UDCs), deregulation, co-ordination (URCos) property-led, urban design

economic social: human capital social capital political built

The re-imagining late 80s

Bring back some residents to the city centre Attract private investment again in housing (restore a market), offices, leisure and tourism and retail. Compete amongst global cities (market) In short, city to go from mainly oriented to production to mainly oriented to consumption, especially individually based.

National Government input

Central Manchester Development Corporation A later UDC 1988-96. ‘Property-led regeneration’ Market the property and market the city Use public monies to lever in private investment Built-form change and environmental improvement Underlying Idea: ‘trickle down’ from rich to poor

Central Manchester Development Corporation 1988-1996

Goals: extend the city centre both functionally and geographically Leisure (pubs, clubs, hotels) Housing Offices Retailing Industry Environment So if they succeeded they would change the type and area of land use for the city centre.

Leisure: pubs

Duke’s 92, Rochdale Canal, Castlefield

Clubs

Malmaison Hotel, the old Joshua Hoyle (Dept Store) building,

diagonally opposite Piccadilly Station

Housing Conversion

Affordable housing

Whitworth Corridor. e.g.India House. Housing Assoc.

New build by water: intended to be mixed land use

Piccadilly Village, behind Piccadilly Station. Early housing development on the Ashton Canal.

Views from apartments varied

Piccadilly Village [1990] and occupied warehouse knitwear

Castle Quay a mixed development, Castlefield

An eg of enveloping.

Castle Quay from road: transforming a gateway

first non-subsidised housing in city centre

Slate Wharf new build, Castlefield

Offices: conversion

Eastgate offices, Castlefield. Roman wall alignment of entrance.

Castlefield: Eastgate and Bass offices Bridgewater Canal

Conflict I. CMDC v British Gas New offices: British Council

Costed at top of the market

west of Oxford Rd Station

Now City Council Offices but …

Old British Council Offices 2007

Barbirolli Square, 21st century offices, Bridgewater Hall

Accountancy and Legal firms move out from old core

New build, extending city centre

Environment: canals and towpaths

Bridgewater Canal, Castlefield

CMDC outcomes: successful on own terms

Housing and people back in city centre – mostly richer people, varied ages; a market. Much hotel, clubs and office development (leisure, tourism and commerce) Environmental success with canal towpaths Not successful for retail or hi-tech industry (but some creative industry) Marketing of property and place > Olympic bids >City Pride and Commonwealth Games 24 hour city – the young

Conflict II: development v conservation

Conflict II

Deansgate Victorian terrace, now includes city centre estate agents

Conservation v Development (built env

E.g. The Great Northern Warehouse Conserve elements of ‘First Industrial City’ or develop for now? Civic Society set up to oppose initial plans Other changes to old buildings: eg Printworks, the Triangle (Corn Exchange); other warehouses (loss of cheap space for crafts) under viaducts of railway lines.

Great Northern Warehouse (2007)

Note multi-storey car park

1996 IRA Bomb

What and where? No loss of life. Structural damage. Loss of many retail outlets But an opportunity New design of part of the older city centre Re-focused on imminent competition of Trafford Centre But independents replaced by multiples; discount stores by up-market retailing.

Now

The location of the IRA bomb.

now

The late 1970s Arndale: ‘the biggest gentlemen’s loo in Europe’ Bill

Bryson

The new Arndale

Shops opening onto street rather than having a wall of tiling.

Urban Design

Exchange Square: some controlled public space. The Triangle (Corn Exchange ) discount to up-market retailing.

Leisure and tourism new Exchange Square

The Shambles: the inn has been moved twice.

Overall outcomes by 2001

Plaudits for the City: exemplar of regeneration 14,000 people living in the city centre Although lost Olympic bids, acquired the Commonwealth Games for 2002 – catalyst for regeneration in East Manchester Attracting more investment: Harvey Nics, Spinningfields, and areas beyond the Inner Ring Road eg New Islington

Harvey Nichols

Spinningfields: retail, offices and apartments

New Islington, Manchester Methodist Housing Association

Since 2001

East of Inner Ring Road

Pomona (Castlefield): more apartments

West of Inner Ring Road

Developments: within, beyond the Inner Ring Road

No 1 Deansgate Apartments within Old Core

View along Market St. near Exchange Square

Howard Jacobson from this week’s Newsweek

‘Hotels, clubs, apartment blocks now, the old mills and warehouses have made the change well from temples of ceaseless industriousness to palaces of pleasure’ From production to consumption

BUT

Property based – CMDC no link to Ancoats (east); City Challenge in Hulme (south) or to Training and Enterprise Council (TEC). People? Too easy for City Council to be seduced by its own marketing Increased inequalities in Manchester 47% (118) of its areal units are amongst the 10% most deprived in the country 2010 Only Liverpool (51% 148) and Middlesbrough (47% 41) have greater proportion .

Eg Harpurhey, 3 miles north of city centre

Second most deprived ward in England (MDI) 2010 Very poor on health (4th), income (5th, employment (7th), crime (7th). Lack of skills (People aged 16-74 who have no qualifications. Harpurhey: 51% England: 29%) Many on incapacity benefit City centre very close but do not feel part of its boom “Trickling down” idea does not work – a myth

Has urban regeneration reduced social exclusion

poorer residents of East M

economic social political spatial/ access

cannot afford new city centre services; loss of discount stores. Jobs not for them. Not comfortable with caf? lifestyle; for young and commuters not involved in regeneration since privatisation of buses: dearer and poorer service Result: separated from CC.

2000 Impact of future regeneration

Velodrome already in East Manchester – local people never used – not for them Feared regeneration for Commonwealth Games would just be corridors along which visitors would travel. ‘legacy for them?’

Michael Young, ‘The rise of the Meritocracy’ 1958

The rise of the meritocracy 1958 predicted that as a new powerful meritocratic elite arose so an underclass would emerge as it is increasingly disenfranchised. The elite controls what merit constituted. The underclass would take to the streets. Educational inequality and income inequality reinforce each other in a generational feedback loop. Privilege accrues wealth and they devote more resources to the educational achievement of their children by paying fees or private tuition or moving to postcodes in order to attend the best schools. Access to best universities for entry into professional elites.

Deprivation and resistance

One third of the people convicted in connection with the looting in Manchester summer 2011 came from the most deprived wards.

Poverty Total 'decile‘ sentenced

Poverty Total 'decile‘ sentenced

Some have written recently of an overclass, a toxic part of the elite

1 0 2 2 3 3 4 1 5 8

6 11 7 6 8 11 9 13 10 26

The ‘neo-liberal city’

Profit motive above all else. Not people. Private investment and development. The market ‘About properties, not the public spaces between them’. In early 2000s boom in apartments over half were said to have never been occupied – just investment for resale. Exchange not use value. Later, the buy-to-let culture rather than buy-to-live e.g. Jackson’s Wharf. Even where public spaces often temporary buildings for profit e.g. ice-rink; restaurant

Jackson’s Wharf, Castlefield : unsuccessful pub

Conflict III

‘Buy to live, not buy to let’

‘Cities for people, not profit’

The Christmas Market, Town Hall Square

Temporary use of public space

Temporary land uses: ice rink

Spinningfields: the screen and temporary restaurant

Boom to crash (2007/8): reactions

Skyline full of cranes to none Difficulty with apartments for sale, but still good market for renting Financial crisis: institutions sell off office blocks in Spinningfields, at a big loss, for cash flow slowing down schemes eg Spinningfields and New Islington And moth-balling BUT still the Neo-Liberal City

Hardman Square: credit crunch sale of offices

The delayed Avenue in Spinningfields upmarket retail

Ancoats and New Islington

New Islington

New Canal built linking Ashton and Rochdale Canals for CHIPS

Mothballing 2008, north of Mancunian Way

View looking north from mothballing

Potato Wharf 2008: left block developed, right mothballed

Near Castlefield ‘A devt with soul in a city with attitude’

Potato Wharf 2010: one developed, one mothballed with fake sides

Re-imagining: hope for the future

All kinds of movements: ‘Occupy’ Wall St. ‘Cities for people, not for profit’. Book Ed Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, Margaret Mayer 2012 Routledge Will they succeed?

Co-operative Group – new HQ Rochdale origins, ethical and sustainable

ethos Corporate identity with city

New Co-op Group HQ outside inner ring road

Re-imagining: hope for the future

The Neo-Liberal city – city is viewed as a product or commodity to be marketed and re-branded not as a ‘process’ or ‘a gathering of lives’ Need greater diversity of residents in city centre? They will attract other types of services Reduced inequalities – better for richer as well as poorer – message of book title Book ‘The Spirit Level’

Key ideas and Spirit Level

Fairness Social justice Inequality

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett 2009. US Dec 2009 new sub-title: "why greater equality makes societies stronger“ Ppb 2nd edition UK Feb 2010 sub-title, “Why Equality is Better for Everyone”

Recent research headlines

‘Pursuit of materialistic values is linked to lower wellbeing e.g. quality of life, less positive sense of self, poorer mental and physical health, and dysfunctional consumer behaviour.’ ‘Strong materialistic values are linked with feeling less satisfied with life, experiencing more negative emotions and feeling greater anxiety and depression – across age groups’

Will Self, Guardian 22

2.12

‘How can we move from a divisive, inegalitarian and stultifying neo-liberalism towards a more equitable and nurturing society?’ ‘Seems an unasked question, let alone an answered one’. I am asking this about cities.

Ways of thinking

Theories and approaches to thinking and policies are useful ways of structuring our ideas but they also limit and constrain our thinking which in turn means we live our lives in more limited, constrained ways often without being aware that that is happening to us. E.g. ‘re-branding the city’ even on an A level spec.

Military urbanism

Not just the excessive concentration on the market as a solution Paralleled by Stephen Graham’s military urbanism in ‘Cities Under Siege’ 2010 – exposes the hidden corporate and military structures behind everyday life Eg tracking, surveillance and targeting – cities centres for war on drugs, crime and terror. Eg CCTV cameras to make shoppers feel safe become anti-terrorist surveillance systems

Recent research headline

Anti terrorism measures - policy ‘is seen to be targeting wide swathes of its own citizens producing forms of disengagement which have potentially serious long term consequences relating to social cohesion, equality and citizenship’ (my italics) Recipro-city, ‘brotherhood of man’ community.

challenges

How your students re-imagine the city and enact that thinking will create new geographies – reshaping future cities One challenge you face is how to facilitate some creative thinking and stimulate a re-imagining – and not just an acceptance of the Neo-Liberal and militaristic status quo. Thank you for listening and creating and thank you to AQA as sponsor.

references

‘Cities for people, not for profit’ Ed Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, Margaret Mayer 2012 Routledge ‘Cities Under Siege’ by Stephen Graham 2010 Verso ‘The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better’. By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett 2009 Penguin

1 St Peter’s Square: to be New Office Block as part of regeneration of

square

KMPG

Studentcastle 33 storeys Gaythorn

GMEX, Manchester International Convention Centre, Great Northern Tower

apartments, Radisson Edwardian Hotel (old Free Trade Hall site) after CMDC

Hacienda apartments replaces basement club