Block the bid
- Thread starter k-punk
- Start date
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
HMGovt said:
I see no grounds for such optimism.
Well, I think there are strong parallels between Statford and the Zone.
..sounds good to me. Regenaration is the LAST thing Stratford needs....
B
be.jazz
Guest
Los Angeles 1984 - Atlanta 1996 - New York 2012 (?)luka said:
k-punk said:
One incongruous thing I did pick up on watching Stalker - the militia drive around in British Land Rovers. Maybe it is set in a ruined UK after all.
henrymiller
Well-known member
What's the FIRST thing it needs? Sure the Olympic bid won't be great, but there's a difference between a location being given a poetic treatment (there aren't any *people* in the Zone are there?) and somewhere being a place to live in.
ihttp://www.portcities.org.uk/london/upload/img_400/H2637.jpg
henrymiller
Well-known member
bugger, anyway that was beckton gas works, a site of great beauty in certain hands.
I don't know whether Stratford needs regenerating as I've not been there in years, but lets just say we do get the Olympics:
1. Does anybody seriously believe that the regeneration of Stratford will be done in line with the needs of the local residents?
2. How likely is it that, once the Olympics have packed up and pissed off, this new infrastructure will be given the support it requires to stop it all crumbling?
Unlike K-P I really enjoy the Olympics, but I very much doubt that staging it in London would constitute a net gain to the country. In fact, I doubt that it would constitute a net gain to London.
1. Does anybody seriously believe that the regeneration of Stratford will be done in line with the needs of the local residents?
2. How likely is it that, once the Olympics have packed up and pissed off, this new infrastructure will be given the support it requires to stop it all crumbling?
Unlike K-P I really enjoy the Olympics, but I very much doubt that staging it in London would constitute a net gain to the country. In fact, I doubt that it would constitute a net gain to London.
Randy Watson
Well-known member
It's no good, Jenks, they'll never hold them in Leigh. 
henrymiller
Well-known member
1. I don't know either way. But this is probably true of all regeneration projects. It's not a strong argument against regeneration as such.
2. GOTO 1.
Agree totally with sentiments regarding new labour's appalling record regarding big public spectacles and the likelihood that the lea valley complex would be mediocre at best but there is a possibility, and I don't think it's misguided optimism, that london would get an infrastructure boost that under this current political climate would take years to happen otherwise. This is what happened in athens - it galvanised a whole raft of improvements to public transport and pedestrian-centric urban lanscaping - ie urban regeneration in its real sense not as a euphemism for gentrification - not all of these are 100% successful and many were rushed but I am positive that without the games the situation would have been worse. Like athens before the olympics london has a dismal transport system and is hostile to the pedestrian. Staging the olympics can expose these weaknesses and force change.
Yeah, block the Olympics, it will ruin London.
One of the main things that London has got going for it is that it hasn’t been at the mercy of any ‘masterplanning’ exercises (at least in recent times). It’s growth and modification has an organic feel where change takes place building by building or site by site – take a walk down moist of London’s main thoroughfares and you’ll see how most buildings bear no relation to each other and come from a different time, context and style. Compare this to a lot of provincial towns where a few architects/planners have remoulded huge areas, deciding how and where people live, work and play.
The 2012 Olympic Vision centres on a huge masterplanning scheme between Stratford and Hackney – an attempt to smooth the edges of places that the authorities see as zones of no fixed use. But it is for reason that I find these places are attractive, liberating to be in etc.
One of the main things that London has got going for it is that it hasn’t been at the mercy of any ‘masterplanning’ exercises (at least in recent times). It’s growth and modification has an organic feel where change takes place building by building or site by site – take a walk down moist of London’s main thoroughfares and you’ll see how most buildings bear no relation to each other and come from a different time, context and style. Compare this to a lot of provincial towns where a few architects/planners have remoulded huge areas, deciding how and where people live, work and play.
The 2012 Olympic Vision centres on a huge masterplanning scheme between Stratford and Hackney – an attempt to smooth the edges of places that the authorities see as zones of no fixed use. But it is for reason that I find these places are attractive, liberating to be in etc.
henrymiller
Well-known member
But this 'organicism' can easily be read as the results of the free play of capitalism -- nothing organic about that. You can be sure that 'how people live, work and play' is just as determined, it's just that here where there was *no provision at all* by the state till about the 1890s, people were at the mercy of capital. The arguments against planning in architecture and town planning are the same as arguments against economic planning, and have the same conservative bases. I can understand them in the Walter Benjamin/Arcades sense, but to preserve what 'free play' has done in some cases seems wilfully anti-change.
bun-u said:
what about the rebuilding of vast areas of mostly east london after the blitz?
Most of the rest of london was built by capitalist property speculators with scant regard for public space. A lot of the squares in London were or still are private property. The whole of bloomsbury was a gated community when it was first built. I share sympathy for the quirks that 'organic' piecemeal urbanisation has thrown up but find it hard to ignore the problems it has caused
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
From the Economist today:
'SMILE please. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is in town this week to assess London’s fitness to hold he games in 2012. The proposed budget S £2.4 billion, underwritten by the treasury but paid for chiefly by the poor through a lottery) and the disaffected Londoners, who are already highly taxed). The games might end up costing more, though: the latest estimates from the Greek government are that the Athens games cost €8.8 billion (€6 billion)— almost double the original budget.
London has some fine plans. But the three main arguments for the bid have holes. First, the Olympics would prove hat the city can hold a big sporting event. But, as Athens shows, a city has to want to boost its reputation very badly for the games to be worth it. Second, it would promote sport. Fine, but why not subsidise people who play sport, rather than those who watch it? Third, the games would force the city to fix its transport system and regenerate a drab bit of east London. But if this is worth while, why not do it anyway? Similar claims were made in Athens, where extensively constructed showpiece sites re already decaying.'
'SMILE please. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is in town this week to assess London’s fitness to hold he games in 2012. The proposed budget S £2.4 billion, underwritten by the treasury but paid for chiefly by the poor through a lottery) and the disaffected Londoners, who are already highly taxed). The games might end up costing more, though: the latest estimates from the Greek government are that the Athens games cost €8.8 billion (€6 billion)— almost double the original budget.
London has some fine plans. But the three main arguments for the bid have holes. First, the Olympics would prove hat the city can hold a big sporting event. But, as Athens shows, a city has to want to boost its reputation very badly for the games to be worth it. Second, it would promote sport. Fine, but why not subsidise people who play sport, rather than those who watch it? Third, the games would force the city to fix its transport system and regenerate a drab bit of east London. But if this is worth while, why not do it anyway? Similar claims were made in Athens, where extensively constructed showpiece sites re already decaying.'