Reimagining and reshaping the city Michael Bradford University

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 BEETHAM TOWER Negative views 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

Arndale Town Hall New offices View from Beetham Tower towards city centre

Spinningfields Great Northern Warehouse St John’s Gardens 1970 s 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 60 s 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 • social: human capital work; community social capital involvement (NDC) • new forms of • political governance (UDCs), deregulation, coordination (URCos) • property-led, urban • built design • economic

The re-imagining late 80 s • 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 west of Oxford Rd Station Costed at top of the market

Old British Council Offices 2007 Now City Council Offices but ….

Barbirolli Square, 21 st 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 1970 s 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

Since 2001 New Islington, Manchester Methodist Housing Association 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 (4 th), income (5 th, employment (7 th), crime (7 th). • 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 café 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 'decile‘ 1 2 3 4 5 Total sentenced 0 2 3 1 8 Poverty 'decile‘ 6 7 8 9 10 Total sentenced 11 6 11 13 26 Some have written recently of an overclass, a toxic part of the elite

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 2000 s 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-tolive 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 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 worse better low Income Inequality • The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett 2009. • US Dec 2009 new subtitle: "why greater equality makes societies stronger“ • Ppb 2 nd edition UK Feb 2010 sub-title, “Why Equality is Better for high Everyone” Health and social problems are more common in more unequal countries.

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 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