legacy. the end of regeneration

8/8/2019 Legacy. The End of Regeneration.

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Legacy - Urban Research Collective 1

LEGACYhe end of regeneration


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2 Legacy - Urban Research Collective

Legacy was produced by Urban Research Collective and commissioned by Monika Vykoukal for BlackCountry creative advantage (BCCA), a two year project of the Centre for Art, Design, Research andExperimentation at the University of Wolverhampton in partnership with the Longhouse scheme of

arts organisation Multistory based in West Bromwich and supported by the National Lottery throughArts Council England . is initiative aims to investigate how arts practices can relate to or impact uponregeneration practices to support a more democratic involvement of local people in culture, public planningand developments where they live.

Legacy was written aer a series of visits by Urban Research Collective to West Bromwich. ough informedby these visits, the publication is about themes common to towns and cities around the UK. We wrote this

publication through the lens of West Bromwich but we could be discussing any town, from Teesside toPortsmouth, Dundee or Salford.

e photographs, all taken in and around West Bromwich, are a photo essay collaboration betweenphotographer Dave Gee and Urban Research Collective. More of his work can be found here:www.muoophotography.co.uk

Updates, more information and photographs from Legacy can be found at: http://urbanresearch.tumblr.om

CreditsWords and layout: Pete Abel and Jonathan Atkinson of Urban Research Collective

Guest article: Heather Ring, http://waywardplants.orgPhotographs: All photos Dave Gee, www.muoophotography.co.uk, except Public Ruin: Heather Ringanks to: Monika Vykoukal and everyone who took part in Black Country creative advantageMore on Urban Research Collective: http://urbanresearchcollective.wordpress.com

Urban Research Collective, 2010

is work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 UnportedLicense. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

ISBN: 978-0-9563457-2-1


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Legacy

Legacy literally means inheritance, somethingequeathed by one generation to the next. is

pamphlet examines legacy in the context of ourowns and cities. We look at actions carried out inhe name of tackling the legacy of the past, andxamine the legacy our generation is leaving forhe next.

Recent regeneration/gentrification of our citieshas been justified as tackling a legacy of neglect and

poor planning. Litter, crime, anti-social behaviour,poor health, worklessness, have been put down to1960s permissiveness , failed utopian ideas, crookedouncillors or just a perception that poor people

simply arent able to look aer themselves.

In the name of progress our soul (and cities)were sold to the markets and big developmentwhilst issuing promises of renewal and renaissance.But the legacy of the long boom isnt mixed

neighbourhoods, healthy communities and happy,productive workers. Instead were le with public,personal and corporate indebtedness and a sinking

eeling that things are about to get a lot worse.

ose involved in the regeneration businessmight reason that doing something was betterhan nothing, how much worse things might have

been if nothing had been done. But inequality roseuring the Blair/Brown years. As more resources

were targeted at the rich, regeneration functioned

instead as a mask, a distraction, those with the leastwere bought off with false hope and the promise of abetter deal tomorrow.

e changes in our communities sometimes seemo just go on around us. Flats go up and librariesome down and we have no ability to decide, changer even input into whats going on. Perhaps we

reason, they must know what theyre doing andhave our best interests at heart. In this pamphlet

we argue that for the mistakes of the past not to berepeated it is essential for people to have a say inhe destiny of our towns and cities, we need to be

involved.

rough these articles we hope to shed somelight on regeneration and the re-shaping of oururban areas in order to enable people to betterunderstand what is going on and to take action. Wexamine the processes of urban renewal, exposing

some of the myths and looking at the role of artistsand designers. We take a critical look at some

f the promises made and speculate on thingso come. Finally we ask the question, is progress

always something to be desired? What might thealternative look like?


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Legacy 1: Living through end times- the rise and fall of tall buildings

e cranes hang silent, houses boarded upawaiting demolition, hoardings aged and brokenprotecting land once earmarked for developmentnow gone to grass.

It appears we are approaching the end of theolden era of regeneration. e economic crash

has thrown old certainties in the air. When thingssettle well be counting the costs of empty promises,

unfulfilled dreams and damaged communities. Nowis the time to reflect but whilst some may blame thebankers perhaps guilt needs to be spread around abit.

e game weve been playing is called market-ledregeneration, it goes like this. In the 1980s councils

were more radical than today, municipal socialismruled; houses for all, 10p on the bus got youanywhere, the doors of council buildings were open

o all. Whilst Labour ruled in the cities atcherruled the country and as a consequence budgets

were cut and council rates capped. Limits wereplaced on spending reserves, council houses weresold off and local authorities were unable to fundnew developments.

atcher offered the cities a deal - work withbusiness to facilitate projects, transfer lando developers, use public money to prepareevelopments for the private sector. Councils could

steer the course but developers would borrow, fund,build and ultimately profit. And Britains inner cities

presented a wealth of prime development land.

ings really got going under the Labourovernment from 1997 onwards. Using schemes

such as Urban Renewal and SRB (SingleRegeneration Budget) Labour advocated the idea

f city living. Councils competed for governmentand European money to enable development, areas

f cities were earmarked for development and theresidents slowly driven out/bribed/evicted, boardedup houses became the norm. A lot of the funding

was aimed at helping residents create a vision for theuture of their communities, but areas such as the

Lyng estate on the edge of West Bromwich centreemonstrate that aer residents are re-located fewan afford to return.

Developers were able to access cheap credit frombanks to throw up buildings and blocks of flatsbecame the prized homes of (now heavily indebted)wenty-somethings seeking to sample urban life or

just somewhere to live. Co-incidentally flats provedar cheaper to build than houses and generated more

profit from less land.

Property prices spiralled as more people soughto cash in on a rising market. You would be mad

not to put your pension into a buy-to-let! Manyevelopments sold out before theyd even been built,

purely on the basis of the plans and few artists

impressions of the real thing. Developers madelots of profit, building cheaper, selling higher. Bankslent plenty of money to both developers and home-wners and bank managers got rewarded through

bonuses. Residents felt wealthy but ended up moreand more in debt, local authorities saw their citiesregenerated, the old estates gone, scant few of theld residents returning.

But like any other asset bubble the housing market

was unsustainable. e end to boom and bustnded with the biggest bust of all when bad debt wasalled in and the bottom fell out of the market.

Developers and bankers spent the profits and nowhe public are asked to cover the bad debt. Aer 15

years of a housing boom we have a social housingrisis as it becomes apparent that the new build flats

are of poor quality, too small for families and dontven meet basic housing standards. And if councils


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Legacy - Urban Research Collective

had built properties wouldnt that have deflatedprices for the private developments?

On reflection, in a decade of rising inequalities,an local authorities honestly point to the

regeneration programmes as having transformed ourities? e same economic, health and education

problems exist only now we dont even have thehope of something better to come.

In this the designers of the system, local andnational government are as complicit as the bankersand developers. Even the mainstream media playeda part, from T V-programmes like Changing Rooms

and Homes Under the HammertoProperty Ladderommunicating the idea that housing was the way toet rich quick and anyone who didnt play ball was a

mug. And many people fell for it, they signed up tohe 125% mortgages and now they are living withhe reality.

For us to move forward, to re-imagine and

re-design our cities, to take ownership of themurselves, we need to understand the reality ofhe past. Local councillors, young couples, elderly

residents, journalists and estate agents - we all lethis happen, now we need to ensure it never happens

again.


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Legacy 2:Going Very Awry (GVA) - or the mirage

of economic development and how itmelts away under further inspection.

Economic growth and jobs - the planningapplications and regeneration masterplans forsupermarket-led developments talk grandly abouthow many jobs they will create for local peopleand how much they will increase economic growth

r the Gross Value Added (GVA) figures in thelocal area.

e plans for the Tesco (140,000 sq ) beingbuilt in West Bromwich claim that 700 jobs willbe created,i but how many jobs will be createdompared to those lost and what are theownsides to focussing too heavily on GVA

and economic growth?

Whats the problem with GVA?

GVA is an economic measure of the value of goodsand services produced in a specific region (orindustry or sector) of the economy. At a nationallevel GVA is defined as output minus intermediateonsumption (the value of goods & services used in

production by enterprises, including raw materials,services and other operating costs). It is oenonsidered as a regional variant of GDP (Gross

Domestic Product). Regional and local authoritiesprovide data comparing the GVA figures for specific

regions and areas and focus strategic planning onincreasing economic growth and GVA levels.

However, as a number of economists andrganisations, such as the New Economics

Foundation (nef ), have highlighted the GDP andGVA measures of economic growth do not tell usanything about our quality of life.

ese measures effectively assign a value of zeroo the environment. ey are not measures which

an tell us much about sustainable development.For example, it has been argued that they fail to takeinto account:

non-monetarised costs and benefits e.g. householdlabour, environmental degradation;

capital depreciation (the reduction in value overime);natural and human capital;income distribution;defensive expenditures e.g. divorce, protection,

war;that well-being is not the same as wealth.

e GDP/GVA measures effectively countpollution as a positive contribution towards the

conomy. Higher pollution levels would meanadditional resources spent on equipment to deal

with the pollution, health service expenditure toeal with the outcomes etc. More pollution couldherefore increase GVA levels. A more practicalxample is provided by Hurricane Katrina. e

stimated $15 billion cost of the hurricane thatevastated New Orleans and the surrounding area,

would have increased the GDP measure for theUnited States but says nothing about the pain,misery, dislocation and environmental damageaused.

Unsurprisingly, most regeneration plans rarelymention the limitations to economic growth norhat increasing GVA levels do not necessarily

increase quality of life and well-being. Or putmore bluntly, buying more stuff from ever largersuperstores does not make us happier.

Regeneration masterplans always highlight howmany jobs are going to be created and present

projections for the increases in GVA that these newevelopments will deliver. e public consultationocuments rarely discuss how many jobs could be

lost as a result of the new development and theproposed GVA increases oen warrant a closerinspection.


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Many jobs createde proposals for the West Bromwich re-

evelopment and Tesco superstore have claimed

hat 700 jobs will be created. i But experiencesrom other areas have shown that such claims are

not always what they seem. For example, in GreaterManchester, Tesco have recently been granted

planning permission to build Tesco Extra stores inStretford (166,847 sq ) with claims that 600 jobs

will be created, in Pendleton, Salford (130,000 sq )with 600 jobsiii and Hattersley (98,000 sq feet) with450 jobs.

But, the headline job figures in the regenerationplans will typically include many part time jobsand the number of full-time equivalent (f.t.e) jobs

will always be much lower. For example, the recentplanning application and regeneration masterplan

or the Old Trafford Cricket Ground and TescoExtra claimed that the 166,847 sq Tesco store

would create 526 jobs.

However, 466 (88%) of these were listed asgeneral assistants and most of these were partime. e number of full time equivalent jobs was

predicted to be 371.

...worth how much?e predicted GVA benefits are also commonlyver-stated to help sell the development to localommunities and politicians. For example, the Old

Trafford plans claimed that the GVA benefit forTrafford would be 7.8 million per year. is hadbeen calculated using the higher headline job totaland an average GVA per employee of 43,177 - andhere you were thinking that supermarket jobs were

low paid!

But back in economic real life, the Offi ce forNational Statistics provide the actual figure for theGreater Manchester sub-regional GVA per head

value as 18,027 (December 2009). As the majorityf the jobs on offer would be fairly low paid general

assistants this is still probably an over-estimate.However, using this figure together with the number

f full-time equivalent jobs gives a GVA total of 2.4million per year. It would seem that both members

f the Planning Committee and local communitieshave been misled and that the local council failed toadequately assess the projected GVA benefits. Nothat surprising, given that the local council was a

vocal supporter of the development.

...but how many jobs will be lost?So whilst the economic benefits were overstatedby up to three times what they are likely to be, the

planning applications rarely acknowledge how manyjobs will be lost from the local retail sector. Research

arried out for the Department of Environment,Transport & Regions (DETR) and published in

1998 showed that for every 20 jobs created bybuilding large supermarkets up to 30 local retail jobs

were lost. iv

Based on the findings of this research thesurrounding district centres could see up to 550 jobsbeing lost in the local retail sector. So maybe now,he beautiful artist impressions and the economicrowth figures in the regeneration plans used to sellhe re-developments dont look quite so attractive

time will tell.


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Support your local shopsere are political choices to be campaigned forat the international, regional and local level to

nsure that economic policies create a sustainableand progressive economy. Such changes will nothappen overnight but if local people support theirlocal shops more money (and jobs) will remainin the local community. Each person choosing toshop local may seem a drop in the ocean whenonsidering the size and power of multinationalood corporations, but the New Economics

Foundation compared the multiplier effects ofshopping for fruit and vegetables in a supermarketand from a local organic box scheme. e resultsshowed that every 10 spent with the box scheme

was worth 25 for the local area, compared withjust 14 when the same amount was spent in asupermarket.v To paraphrase a popular marketingslogan every little spent in local shops helps builda stronger community.

References

. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, Position Statement on

Work & Skills, (accessed 01/11/2010), www.wmleadersboard.gov.k/media/upload/Economy%20&%20Skills/Skills%20Position%20S

tatements/Sandwell%20Work%20%20Skills%20plan.pdf

i. Public Property UK.com, Tesco charged with building 7m policetation, 15/09/2010, www.publicpropertyuk.com/2010/09/15/

tesco-charged-with-building-7m-police-station/

ii. The Business Desk.com, Salford Tesco scheme approved,2/10/2010, www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/80760-alford-tesco-scheme-approved.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_edium=email&utm_campaign=NorthWest_22nd_Oct_2010_-

_Daily_E-mail

v. Hillier Parker, C B, and Savell Bird Axon, 1998. Impact of LargeFoodstores on Market Towns and District Centres. London: HMSO.

v. New Economics Foundation, Plugging the Leaks, September 2002,ttp://www.pluggingtheleaks.org/downloads/ptl_handbook.pdf


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Legacy 3:Development of the spectacle

- selling the myth of regeneration.Regeneration bodies spent millions promotingand selling new developments. As promises turno dust, what role did artists and designers play in

pulling the wool over peoples eyes?

Rent it. Love it. Buy it.Now the partys over come home.Everythings gone green

Committed to regenerating West BromwichA sense of pride for everyone

For the past decade, regeneration schemes havebeen far from shy in making claims and promises.Billboards and hoardings proclaimed the future

was on its way and it looked like a concrete andlass, four storey tower block. Smiling faces, arm

in arm, pulling together as a community. For thosef us living in areas of multiple deprivation at

he height of the boom it was part of the routine,nding a pile of brochures on the doormat outlining

xciting new plans for the area, in the supermarketa consultation on the future of the area, a new

evelopment meaningless and thrusting. Online aselection of partnerships, development bodies andlocal agencies offered interactive, animated guides toheir activities - though precious little informationn their structures, accountability and funding.

Day-glo colours abounded, this was no time forsubtlety, introspection or doubt. ings would behanging in your problem area, a bright, positiveuture lay ahead usually involving a new, spacious

and light apartment, a flat screen TV and aninordinately huge sofa.

As money became cheaper to borrow and so moreavailable the gestures became grander. Manchesters

New Islington (formerly the Cardroom estate)staged an Urban Folk Festival for Urban Folk, and

very town promised their piece of public art wouldbe the new Angel of the North.

In hindsight many of the images of conspicuous

onsumption and community unity appearridiculous, even cruel. But why was such emphasis

placed on image and marketing which oen seemedrossly inordinate in comparison with the end

product?

One reason is legitimacy. Regenerationevelopments were typically overseen by

partnerships and agencies, public/private bodieswith little, if any, constituency or track record.Peoples houses were bulldozed and public landffectively given to agencies few had heard of

and fewer understood the purpose of. Privateevelopers were soon building flash new homes in

your community. A blitz of marketing, good newsstories and feel-good publications helped give muchneeded legitimacy to developments and objectors

were labelled as kill-joys and luddites stuck in thepast.

Secondly, this kind of marketing has the simpleunction of selling real estate. Despite assuranceso the contrary, new developments were routinely

beyond the reach of existing tenants and residents.Developers sought the aspirational, propertywning classes able to secure mortgages and cheapredit required to buy these new flats at inflated

prices. And lets face it, who wants to move intoan area full of poor people and muggers where

he previous residents were evicted kicking andscreaming from their homes?

Finally the reason for the marketing blitz washat the regeneration we saw in the UK wasnt a

new phenomenon, the model had been refined andweaked over 30 years. Market-led regenerationin its current form originated in the United States

f the 1970s. As slum neighbourhoods in NewYork were demolished and public parks annexed,

residents rioted, refusing to accept developers new


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plans. Twenty years of nuanced development to themodel meant that the regeneration model we facedin the UK was heavily mediated. Mass marketingampaigns held out the (false) hope of something

better, splitting communities between those whowanted to take the money and run and those whowanted to stay. anks to empty promises there wereno regeneration riots in the UK, just a collectivesigh and a shrug of the shoulders.

Looking back on the legacy of urban renewalits diffi cult to say the hype was justified. Can wereally point to happy, healthy and mixed incomeommunities where once there was deprivation?

Some might blame that on the economic crash butthers would argue that property led speculation

and a price bubble were one of the key causes ofhe crash and an indicator of local and nationalovernment that had sold their soul to the markets.Artists and designers who worked in the

regeneration industry and for developers need toaccept responsibility for their role in this. Creativepeople, artists and designers, took the money andasked few questions about the claims they helpedlegitimise. Whole creative industries grew up inresponse to regeneration cash. ey gave false hopeo people and communities that had precious little

and now have less.

But this isnt the end of the story. In 2010 the

bank is bust but its even more important to re-imagine our cities, to create new dreams. Artists and

esigners have a role to play here, but not as paidstooges for investment capital but as collaboratorsand partners with citizens and communities. In the

past visionaries have imagined garden cities andurban utopias. Its time to reflect on past mistakesand deal with the legacy of the immediate past butalso to create a new co -operative, creative and justlegacy for the future.


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Legacy 4:Big Society Bigger Supermarkets?

West Bromwich town centre is undergoinga fundamental transformation. e new

evelopments include a massive retail park,ocused on a Tesco Extra store, the new police

station, college and changes to the Lyng.

But to what extent do those developments meetlocal needs and how much say have local people hadin the plans? e new government have spoken of

putting the planning powers in the hands of localpeople but what does this rhetoric really mean andwill it make a difference?

Having already removed the strategic regionalplanning mechanisms (regional developmentagencies, regional spatial strategies etc.), except ofourse in London, which apparently still requires

a strategic planning function, the Big Planningidea is to introduce neighbourhood or local plans.

ese are to be developed from the bottom up byhe local population and it is expected that these

local plans will also:

Introduce a presumption in favour of sustainableevelopment as long as a (yet unspecified) tariff is

paid.at significant local projects involve the

neighbourhood and a collaborative design process.Fast track consents where agreement has

been reached with neighbours. is couldinvolve payments to offset any impact from the

evelopment(s).

How this last differs from buying off objectionshas yet to be explained.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting to see the actualetails in the Governments Decentralisation and

Localism Bill (DLB) but the expectation is that theBill will have passed through all the Parliamentary

stages and received Royal Assent by November2011. In relation to planning, many of the proposalsxpected to be included in the DLB are laid out

in the Open Source Planning1 Green Paperpublished in early 2010. e Green Paper includedsuggested measures that would:

Amend the use classes order to permit the use ofland and buildings for any purpose allowed in thelocal plan .

Limit the scope of appeals to cases where anabuse of power or failure to apply the local plan arelaimed to have occurred.

Planning Inspectors will not be g iven the remit toamend Local Plans if they have been arrived at byair and proper process.

Some of these changes may start to come intoffect before the Bill is passed as the Government

has already indicated that local planning authoritieswill be able to work in new ways on local plans inadvance of the passing of the Localism Bill.

Despite the rhetoric about bottom-up andneighbourhood collaborative design thereappears to have been little discussion on what, ifany, resources and support will be provided to helpommunities develop these local plans.

It is being mooted that where neighbourhoods failo develop adequate local plans then permittedevelopment will become the default planning

policy. Some of the problems with permittedevelopment and the growth of supermarket chains

were recently outlined in a parliamentary debateby Greg Hands (Conservative MP for Chelseaand Fulham). With permitted developmentmany existing retail premises can be changed intoa supermarket without the need for any planning

permission from the local council. Many urbansupermarkets have been established by using thepermitted development route. In many cases

here is little notice and no opportunity for the


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lected councillors to represent the views of thelocal community. Oen, residents and other localbusinesses only learn of the proposed development

when the contractors move in. Despite theseoncerns the view of the Planning Minister, Bob

Neill was that permitted development helped to freehe planning system from bureaucracy and that new

planning controls should only be introduced wherehere is a strong casefor doing so.4

It is very likely that most people were not awarehat a regional planning strategy even existed let

alone whether it was a good or bad thing for localissues which affected them. is lack of connectionbetween local communities and the planning systemis an argument for making local planning moreresponsive and accountable but without adequateresources and support for local plans we may wellsee the spread of postcode planning. Instead of aommon set of national planning guidance policies

we will have a patchwork of different planning rules.Perhaps this is what localism is meant to be, but

he danger is that wealthier neighbourhoods, withaccess to professional skills and resources, will gainontrol of the planning process with acceptable

local plans, but poorer neighbourhoods will end upwith permitted development.

Now is the time for planning to return to its moreradical roots.

References

. Conservative Party, Open Source Planning Green Paper,accessed 01/11/2010) www.conservatives.com/~/media/Files/

reen%20Papers/planning-green-paper.ashx

. Planning Portal, Timetable suggests IPC may stay until April 2012,5/07/2010, http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/general/news/tories/2010/july2010/2010_07_week_3/150710_1

. They Work For You, Urban Supermarkets (Planning)House of Commons debates, 13/09/2010, www.theyworkforyou.om/debates/?id=2010-09-13b.712.0

. Colin Marrs, Planning Review, Planning framework could enablese class review, 14/09/2010, www.planningresource.co.uk/news/

ByDiscipline/Development-Control/1028274/Planning-framework-ould-enable-use-class-review/


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Legacy 5: e Public as Public RuinBy landscape architect Heather Ring

Signature buildings such as e Public attemptedo regenerate communities through their mere

presence in a city. Now that has been shown to bean optimistic fantasy, is it time to embrace decayand turn such buildings over to ruin?

In a grey landscape of empty shops and industrialremnants of a former manufacturing town, brightlyolored banners flap in the wind, promoting a

onspicuous box building with pink blobs cut outor windows. Designed by architect Will Alsop andompleted in 2008, e Public was a demoralizing

attempt to emulate the culture-led regenerationstrategy of Bilbao. Instead, Alsops blobs aggressively

ll the building, squeezing out opportunities forartistic experimentation, denying the communityhe chance to make the space their own and

suffocating any attempts to allow the building tovolve for the shiing desires of the city.

Graham Peet, artist and photographer, andExhibitions Manager at e Public1 has reflected onsome of the limitations of working within such aninflexible structure, e building is so unusual, it is

iffi cult to think of another use for it other than thereative use intended. In many ways this is what has

stopped it being turned into offi ces for commerciallets. If the building had been more conventional, it

would most certainly not be an art centre now.

e Public constrains artistic response withxed-screen monitors and ad-hoc gallery walls, mostf the spaces cluttered with limiting permanent

installations. Digital and interactive art suggestsan exploration with new technologies and formatsonstantly changing. e Public , with its inflexible

spatial organization and fixed presentation modes,seems to have frozen the technology (and the art)

in 2004, when Alsop unveiled his designs for thebuilding.

e building resists any form of creative reuseand is incapable or unwilling to translate itselfinto one of the many new institutions being built in

West Bromwich, such as a supermarket, shoppingmall, or the towns missing public pool. And yet,if e Public closed its doors it would represent amassive set back to an otherwise depressed town.e building is far from inconspicuous with its

esigned-in wackiness turning whimsy, intosomething both heavy and joyless. An attempt inhe age of Signature buildings, as Owen Hatherley

writes in his critique of this form of culturalregeneration, to reduce, a building to a logo.2

e Public was rendered obsolete beforeompletion, and now, trapped as it tries to justify

its drain on financial resources, chugs along withimmense operation costs, putting the curators in theunenviable position of trying to make it relevant.eir current strategy is an uncomfortable hybrid ofart institution, childrens museum, and communityentre. Filled with salsa aerobics, football match

screenings, a caf with the upscale name Couture,and a gi-shop selling tourist schwag like I heartWest Bromwich. A top-down approach, rather thanleaving space for grassroots initiatives, their strategybegs the question, where exactly is the public thate Public is trying to reach?

To endear the Public to the local community andre-situate its presence as an international spectacle,Id like to propose that we re-conceive e Public as

e Public Ruin. Its already a ruin of architecturalstyle, a ruin of technology and a ruin of regenerationstrategies, so lets let nature break it down, and then

piece it together with new narratives.

In Cabinet Magazines Fragment from aHistory of Ruins, Brian Dillon describes theshiing meaning of the ruin through time. In theRenaissance, he explains, ruins function like texts,

nes we try to decipher, to contemplate their

relevance to our lives. en in the 18 h century, ruins


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were an image of natural disasters and catastrophesf human history. Storms, battles, earthquakes,

and revolutions. During the Romantic age, ruins

were the height of artistic creation. e ruin isetishized and its aesthetic emulated, as fragments

and unfinished works, and in gardens, as fake ruins,ollies in the landscape. And from the 19th centurynwards, we imagined ourselves as already ruined.

e modern city, industry, mining, the extraction ofresources, pollution. And the modern ruin thesempty shopping malls and abandoned cinemas,

remind us of lost futures, of failed utopias.

e Public Ruin would exist somewhere inbetween these interpretations, a dismantling of

purpose, a failed utopia, a building opened to

he elements, to ecological succession and socialakeovers, a strategic work of art, a merging of

art, technology and the environment. It is hard to

imagine a building as inflexible and unsustainable ase Public withstanding the forces of nature, so letsinvite nature in. In its incompleteness, its sudden

potential, e Public Ruin will remind us of pastarrogance and open up possibilities for sustainableutures.

References

. Interviewed by Monika Vykoukal for Black Country creativedvantage, 2010.

. Owen Hatherley, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, VersoPress, 2010.

. Brian Dillon, Fragments from a History of Ruin, Cabinet Magazine,Issue 20 Ruins Winter 2005/06.


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Legacy 6: e case for non-development

Definition: Field

a. A broad, level, open expanse of land.b. A meadow: a field oen of buttercups.. A wide unbroken expanse.. A portion of land or a geologic formationontaining a specified natural resource.

e answer to a citys problems always seems tobe development. Demolish and re-build, bigger,better, smarter. But perhaps the lesson of the last 15

years of hubris is that progress will not always bring

improvements. I would like to make the case for theabsence of development, for non-development, for

elds.

True fields, not sterile, cultivated city parks, arehavens within our chaotic urban spaces. Nature

nds a place in what ecologists describe as refuges,picentres of biodiversity thriving with wild plants,insects, birds, reptiles and mammals, even more so if

hese are linked via wildlife corridors. Opportunitiesor food supply and enterprising urban foragers cannd a feast of fruit, nuts, leaves and fungi.

For the human population wild space allows

pportunities for unexpected exploration. Childrenrun, play and swing, adults hunt and ramble.Psychologists point to the benefits of urban greenspace, benefiting physical and mental health and

wellbeing, providing exercise and relaxation.

Now as our cities warm scientists have called greenspace a citys lungs, helping keep urban areas cool asemperatures rise.

West Bromwich means the little village on theheath of broom and it grew up on the edge of theheath upland. For years towns and villages existedas part of the local geography, if not in balance withnature at least in acknowledgement of it. en camehe mines and factories, the heathland was drained.

Now theyre clearing it again to build a new Tesco,with the hope of jobs and prosperity. Perhaps one

ay more enlightened people will tear it down, flood

he heath and wait for the broom to return.


19/20


Photo creditsDave Gee: Page 4, above: monument, WestBromwich High Street; below, redevelopment,

West Bromwich, Page 6, Sandwell College, WestBromwich, Page 9, vinyl artwork, Wolverhampton

Railway Station, Page 10, above: yard, WestBromwich; below, main entrance to e Public,

West Bromwich, Page 12, e Lyng Reborn,regeneration partnership billboard, West Bromwich,Page 13, above, hoarding around new Tesco

evelopment, West Bromwich; below, marketrader, the Golden Mile, West Bromwich High

Street, Page 15, McDonalds, West Bromwich townentre.

Heather Ring: Page 17, e Public Ruin, photo-montage

Funders


20/20


. . m

legacy. the end of regeneration

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