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Glasgow Residents Network
Oct 30, 2008, 11:17:12 AM10/30/08
to Glasgow Residents Network Mailout
For all Glasgow's Residents' Movement News, Views and Community
Commentary: http://glasgowresidents.org.uk
--
SUBMIT YOUR NEWS / EVENTS TO OUR MAILOUT
Email: glasgowresi...@gmail.com
Reach more residents campaigners and interested Glasgow residents
--
THE CLYDE GATEWAY: A New Urban Frontier
[Originally Published in Variant Magazine:
http://www.variant.randomstate.org//33texts/variant33.html#L3]
By Neil Gray
"Not only does 'urban regeneration' represent the next wave of
gentrification, planned and financed on an unprecedented scale, but
the victory of this language in anesthetizing our critical
understanding of gentrification in Europe represents a considerable
ideological victory for neo-liberal visions of the city." Neil Smith1
"The Clyde is now one of the largest and most visionary renewal
projects being undertaken in Europe. I believe that this is only the
beginning of this tartan tiger's awakening." Stephen Purcell, Glasgow
City Council leader2
Glasgow's urban regeneration converges most symbolically around the
�5.6 billion Clyde Waterfront project to transform 13 miles of the
Clyde river corridor into an "�internationally competitive 'central
belt' for business, employment, living and tourism."3 The Clyde
Gateway project, an ancillary development situated in the east of the
city, is deemed a vital part of this broader long term project to re-
brand and transform Glasgow's image from that of recalcitrant 'Red
Clydeside' into that of consumerist 'Glasgow: Scotland with Style'.
The scale of the Clyde Gateway project � which includes the site for
the 2014 Commonwealth Games � is enormous: Stewart Maxwell, the
minister for Communities and Sport, recently described the development
as: "The biggest regeneration programme in Scotland."4
City boosters have been quick to point to poverty, deprivation and
dereliction in the east of Glasgow to legitimise large-scale
regeneration. They argue that the Clyde Gateway initiative will ensure
the provision of jobs and housing, the remediation and reclamation of
contaminated land, and bring wider benefits to the local and national
economy. Above all, they argue that the project is essential to ensure
Glasgow's 'edge' in the competitive global economy. Yet, the over-
arching reality is that urban regeneration has for some time been writ
large as a global urban strategy of gentrification and capitalist
accumulation. The disjuncture between the triumphal neo-liberal
ideology of the city � of successful self-regulating markets achieving
optimally balanced economic growth � and the everyday reality of
uneven development, intensifying inequality, and generalized social
insecurity is ever increasing. [...]
[More: http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/the-clyde-gateway-a-new-urban-frontier/]
--> If you liked this aritcle you may also like:-
* The New Bohemia - http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/the-new-bohemia/
[An investigation into the privatisation of culture and leisure
services]
* Glasgow City Council's Forth And Clyde Canal Local Development
Strategy -
http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/local-development-issues/glasgow-city-councils-forth-and-clyde-canal-local-development-strategy/
* "The Scottish Executive is Open for Business -
http://www.variant.randomstate.org/26texts/CCollins26.html [The New
Regeneration Statement, The Royal Bank of Scotland & the Community
Voices Network]
--
NORTH KELVIN MEADOW CLEAN-UP
15 November 2008 at 11AM
Assembly point: The Clouston Street entrance to the former Clouston
Street playing fields
Please join us on 15 November to clean up the disused land between
Clouston Street and Kelbourne Street in Maryhill. Bin bags will be
supplied and the rubbish we collect will be uplifted by the Council.
The clean-up is the first step in a campaign to turn this land,
formerly the Clouston Street playing fields, into a community-run
green space for the people of Maryhill. The campaign, called the North
Kevlin Meadow Campaign, was started on 13 October after Glasgow City
Council rejected out-of-hand the results of a survey of local
residents which showed that they overwhelmingly support the creation
of a green space on the land.
Visit www.northkelvinmeadow.com to find out more - and please join us
at Clouston St, G20 on 15 November at 11am.
--
RESISTING REGENICIDE : STRUGGLES IN THE CITY
Further Info: http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/resisting-regenicide-struggles-in-the-city/
"Our relationship to the built environment is perhaps the most crucial
element to the quality of community life."
GLASGOW event - Saturday 1st November 1-5pm
CCA : The Centre For Contemporary Arts, 350 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow,
G2 3JD
http://www.cca-glasgow.com
(free but ticketed - please collect free tickets from CCA box office)
MAP: http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2796008-centre_for_contemporary_arts_cca_glasgow-i
Free discussions bringing together representatives of community &
activist groups - including local groups from Glasgow, Edinburgh,
London and Manchester - to share their experience of community-based
engagement in the planning processes of urban regeneration and the
built environment.
In the British-wide context of gentrification, and with a failing neo-
liberal economic model, questions surrounding the ownership and
management of social space have never been more relevant. The language
of regeneration in fact sugar-coats the reality of gentrification: the
privatisation of essential infrastructure is a policy of liberating
the forces of greed.
It is important to remember that "ideas have consequences", and
important to question what happens when these are tested in the real
world. In response, we need better ideas and solidarity strategies.
The worsening financial crisis provides the public with an opportunity
to redefine what constitutes 'the public interest' and to reassert its
claims over how finance should be managed and allocated and in whose
interest.
Film excerpts will be used to inform the discussions: a strong
dimension connecting the diverse groups is their shared interest in an
engaged film making practice as a basis for connecting people.
Anthony Iles - Mute - http://www.metamute.org
Mark Saunders - The Spectacle - http://www.spectacle.co.uk
Martin Slavin - Games Monitor - http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk
Jonathon Atkinson - Urban Research Collective
Neil Gray - Variant - http://www.variant.org.uk
Libby Porter - Planners Network UK - http://www.pnuk.org.uk
-----------------------------------------------------
For all Glasgow's Residents' Movement News, Views and Community
Commentary: http://glasgowresidents.org.uk
Commentary: http://glasgowresidents.org.uk
--
SUBMIT YOUR NEWS / EVENTS TO OUR MAILOUT
Email: glasgowresi...@gmail.com
Reach more residents campaigners and interested Glasgow residents
--
THE CLYDE GATEWAY: A New Urban Frontier
[Originally Published in Variant Magazine:
http://www.variant.randomstate.org//33texts/variant33.html#L3]
By Neil Gray
"Not only does 'urban regeneration' represent the next wave of
gentrification, planned and financed on an unprecedented scale, but
the victory of this language in anesthetizing our critical
understanding of gentrification in Europe represents a considerable
ideological victory for neo-liberal visions of the city." Neil Smith1
"The Clyde is now one of the largest and most visionary renewal
projects being undertaken in Europe. I believe that this is only the
beginning of this tartan tiger's awakening." Stephen Purcell, Glasgow
City Council leader2
Glasgow's urban regeneration converges most symbolically around the
�5.6 billion Clyde Waterfront project to transform 13 miles of the
Clyde river corridor into an "�internationally competitive 'central
belt' for business, employment, living and tourism."3 The Clyde
Gateway project, an ancillary development situated in the east of the
city, is deemed a vital part of this broader long term project to re-
brand and transform Glasgow's image from that of recalcitrant 'Red
Clydeside' into that of consumerist 'Glasgow: Scotland with Style'.
The scale of the Clyde Gateway project � which includes the site for
the 2014 Commonwealth Games � is enormous: Stewart Maxwell, the
minister for Communities and Sport, recently described the development
as: "The biggest regeneration programme in Scotland."4
City boosters have been quick to point to poverty, deprivation and
dereliction in the east of Glasgow to legitimise large-scale
regeneration. They argue that the Clyde Gateway initiative will ensure
the provision of jobs and housing, the remediation and reclamation of
contaminated land, and bring wider benefits to the local and national
economy. Above all, they argue that the project is essential to ensure
Glasgow's 'edge' in the competitive global economy. Yet, the over-
arching reality is that urban regeneration has for some time been writ
large as a global urban strategy of gentrification and capitalist
accumulation. The disjuncture between the triumphal neo-liberal
ideology of the city � of successful self-regulating markets achieving
optimally balanced economic growth � and the everyday reality of
uneven development, intensifying inequality, and generalized social
insecurity is ever increasing. [...]
[More: http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/the-clyde-gateway-a-new-urban-frontier/]
--> If you liked this aritcle you may also like:-
* The New Bohemia - http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/the-new-bohemia/
[An investigation into the privatisation of culture and leisure
services]
* Glasgow City Council's Forth And Clyde Canal Local Development
Strategy -
http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/local-development-issues/glasgow-city-councils-forth-and-clyde-canal-local-development-strategy/
* "The Scottish Executive is Open for Business -
http://www.variant.randomstate.org/26texts/CCollins26.html [The New
Regeneration Statement, The Royal Bank of Scotland & the Community
Voices Network]
--
NORTH KELVIN MEADOW CLEAN-UP
15 November 2008 at 11AM
Assembly point: The Clouston Street entrance to the former Clouston
Street playing fields
Please join us on 15 November to clean up the disused land between
Clouston Street and Kelbourne Street in Maryhill. Bin bags will be
supplied and the rubbish we collect will be uplifted by the Council.
The clean-up is the first step in a campaign to turn this land,
formerly the Clouston Street playing fields, into a community-run
green space for the people of Maryhill. The campaign, called the North
Kevlin Meadow Campaign, was started on 13 October after Glasgow City
Council rejected out-of-hand the results of a survey of local
residents which showed that they overwhelmingly support the creation
of a green space on the land.
Visit www.northkelvinmeadow.com to find out more - and please join us
at Clouston St, G20 on 15 November at 11am.
--
RESISTING REGENICIDE : STRUGGLES IN THE CITY
Further Info: http://glasgowresidents.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/resisting-regenicide-struggles-in-the-city/
"Our relationship to the built environment is perhaps the most crucial
element to the quality of community life."
GLASGOW event - Saturday 1st November 1-5pm
CCA : The Centre For Contemporary Arts, 350 Sauchiehall St, Glasgow,
G2 3JD
http://www.cca-glasgow.com
(free but ticketed - please collect free tickets from CCA box office)
MAP: http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2796008-centre_for_contemporary_arts_cca_glasgow-i
Free discussions bringing together representatives of community &
activist groups - including local groups from Glasgow, Edinburgh,
London and Manchester - to share their experience of community-based
engagement in the planning processes of urban regeneration and the
built environment.
In the British-wide context of gentrification, and with a failing neo-
liberal economic model, questions surrounding the ownership and
management of social space have never been more relevant. The language
of regeneration in fact sugar-coats the reality of gentrification: the
privatisation of essential infrastructure is a policy of liberating
the forces of greed.
It is important to remember that "ideas have consequences", and
important to question what happens when these are tested in the real
world. In response, we need better ideas and solidarity strategies.
The worsening financial crisis provides the public with an opportunity
to redefine what constitutes 'the public interest' and to reassert its
claims over how finance should be managed and allocated and in whose
interest.
Film excerpts will be used to inform the discussions: a strong
dimension connecting the diverse groups is their shared interest in an
engaged film making practice as a basis for connecting people.
Anthony Iles - Mute - http://www.metamute.org
Mark Saunders - The Spectacle - http://www.spectacle.co.uk
Martin Slavin - Games Monitor - http://www.gamesmonitor.org.uk
Jonathon Atkinson - Urban Research Collective
Neil Gray - Variant - http://www.variant.org.uk
Libby Porter - Planners Network UK - http://www.pnuk.org.uk
-----------------------------------------------------
For all Glasgow's Residents' Movement News, Views and Community
Commentary: http://glasgowresidents.org.uk
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