brave new brum

Reneration is defined as the 'the process of reversing economic, social and physical decay in our towns and cities'

This sounds better than degeneration and urban decay but during our travels so far we have noticed there is some concern over the process of regeneration ; whether the interests of land developers and housing speculators are the priority and concern that once the process is finished that the poorer households displaced originally are then priced out of the market.

Outside the world of the glossy corporate brochures and the hefty government manifestos there other voices that are raising questions. The voices of residents like those in Middlesborough who are wondering how the council decided that demolition was the necessary solution to the run down properties in their area and the voices of organisations like the New Economics Foundation who are wondering if supermarkets and multinational retail outfits are really the best solution to helping local economies.

Voices from people who work for the NHS in Liverpool wondering why a new health centre isn't accessable by public transport, and groups like Shelter who are concerned that some of the housing led regeneration processes are actually increasing homelessness.

There are some other voices too, often from surpising places, that have important things to say like a source from Reneration Services in Birmingham City Council who reports that

"..we need to consider whether these policies are actually the right policies, if we consider the causes of deprivation to be at a regional, national or international level, then perhaps we need to be looking towards national policies such as the minumum wage, interest rates, the welfare system, tax credits, international trade arrangements to actually make an impact on deprivation, rather than area based initiatives, which are dealing with factors outside their control, and simply tackling the symptoms."

There is a lot of talk amongst the regeneration tzars of 'sustainability'. This sounds promising as the definition of sustainbility from the UN is

"development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"

sustainable future?

but one thing we have noticed that different groups use this word often in the same conversation but they mean very different things. Environmentalists probably are most happy with the above definition. The business community seem to prefer the following definition:

"emphasise 'business as usual' patterns of economic growth in the name of social and environmental progress."

or business as usual?

Like in 2002: 'A perfect illustration of greenwash can be seen with the Business Action for Sustainable Development's (BASD) decision to fund 'grassroots sustainable development projects in the most needy communities in Africa' as a 'memorial' to the Earth Summit. They encouraged companies to invest in this project as a way of 'off-setting their C02 emissions'. The 'grassroots sustainable development projects' included several nuclear energy projects and an oil and gas pipeline.

Lovely!

So it might be worth clarifying what sort of sustainability is actually being talked about before getting too excited about living in a sustainable world :-)

There is one other voice too that might be worth listening to, the voice of the Post-Oil crew. They are saying that we need a totally different form of regeneration as we cannot rely on the basis of our society , cheap oil, to be available in 20 years time and consequently this affects everything from energy generation to transport and from food production to housing and urban planning.

This website will soon contain rescources on all this future stuff , but for more information on here and now try: