URBLOG

First city of the future

The Observer special features on Beijing

'I am Chinese but my life is westernised in a city in which history survives in isolated fragments, sporadic pieces of tradition ruptured by modernity. We want to preserve our traditions and promote our value systems but we don't know what either of them is. After 30 years of this explosion of power, there are no rules, no plan for this city. We are crossing the river by feeling the stones beneath our feet.'

 

 

Beijing has rebuilt itself faster than any city on earth, turning from a warren of alleys into a capital fit for a superpower. No wonder the world's top architects - from Foster to Koolhaas - have flocked to make their mark on it.  Deyan Sudjic:

"Very few architects say in public that they will not build in Beijing. The only notable dissident is Daniel Libeskind of Ground Zero fame, who has questioned the seemliness of building for an authoritarian and undemocratic regime, under which construction workers endure the most primitive of conditions, with minimal safety provisions and poor wages."

FOOL'S GOLD

2012 Olympics will break 'legacy' promise unless rules are changed quickly.

Fool's Gold, the new report from the New Economics Foundation, shows that unless cast-iron guarantees are built into plans for the 2012 Olympics, the Games will fail to leave the promised positive local legacy for the poorest residents of East London. The report identifies the ‘trickle down’ economics that underly the approach to regeneration at the heart of the Olympic bid as the root cause of the problem.

Travellers, land and home

Our view of house and home allows no place for Travellers

Libby Brooks in The Guardian:  considers the 'land grab  hysteria' and concerns of identity and home in the traveller community. "Settled people are told all they need is a house, and to encounter those who don't share that absolute can be baffling."

What legacy?

How will the claims made for the Olympic Park really play out in the lives of East Londoners?

The Olympics site is eating into east London's green spaces and few local residents will be around to benefit from the area's vast redevelopment, says Tony Lloyd-Jones.

'A new "green Olympics" site development will be of little more benefit to local residents than the current vast blue-fenced building site they will have to suffer until the Olympics is upon them, and for several years after as the legacy sites are redeveloped.'

MIGRANTS: mapping, marginality & the metropole

Mobile masculinities: Men, migration and low paid work in London

The latest paper from the Global Cities at Work programme.

Also available online:  Brazilians in London. A report for the Strangers into Citizens Campaign.

Show Invisibles? migration / data / work

The latest edition of Mute examines invisibility, the campaign for a migrant amnesty, and the attempts to 'destroy the legal and informational grey zones in which the poor shelter and organise'.

A controversial and stimulating read!

"An amnesty might represent a real and substantial gain for migrant communities and a limited number of individuals, but at the cost of the re-inscription of life into the state and the legitimisation of the state's role in managing the tension between, and circulation across, borders and boundaries."

The regeneration game

Why cities' plans for renewal often sound strangely familiar

'Why do city councils have the same ideas about how to grow? One reason is that they have the same people advising them. '

'...it would be good if the government put some power back into the hands of the regeneratees themselves. '

Lord's debate Olympic legacy 17th January 2008

'Things imposed on people by central bodies or external agencies do not work, nor do the more cosmetic kinds of regeneration initiatives that we sometimes find. Local participation and ownership, the right kind of infrastructure, a good quality built environment, the best kind of public space; all of these help to build sustainable communities.' Bishop of Newcastle

Delhi cleans up for Commonwealth games

Randeep Ramesh in The Guardian
Businesses, farmers and drivers in India enraged by plans for 'world-class' city by 2010 .

".....the games are just under three years away, India's capital is being reshaped as the city prepares for the biggest sporting event in its history. The Delhi government has begun putting up posters saying the capital will be transformed into a "world-class city" by the 2010 deadline....campaigners say that the rush to modernise is bringing "unsuitable" development to many parts of the capital. "

Is it all coming together in Thames Gateway?

THAMES GATEWAY DELIVERY PLAN LAUNCHED

The government has announced, More than £9bn is to be spent on projects along the Thames estuary on Europe's largest regeneration project,

Lucy Reynolds asks: Is it too ambitious?

"Thames Gateway is clearly an ambitious project and is very challenging because there are a number of different sub-regions within it with different characters, and it is not helped by the fact that there is a plethora of agencies involved."

Size is everything ....

...to a mayor consumed by edifice complex

Simon Jenkins
Friday September 28, 2007  The Guardian

  "There has been no public debate or consultation on any of this. There is no vision or declared ideal of how new and old should marry in the future city. It will just happen because no authority has the guts to set individual developments in any wider context."

Fair Play for Housing Rights: Mega-Events, Olympic Games and Housing Rights

Mega-events and Olympics

"The Olympic Games have displaced more than two million people in the last 20 years..."

The Olympic Games have displaced more than two million people in the last 20 years, disproportionately affecting minorities such as the homeless, the poor, Roma and African-Americans, according to a new report, from the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions.

NEW Comment from George Monbiot 12th June