I spent the weekend reading Leo Hollis’s book, Cities Are Good for you. Leo is introducing a film at Hyde Park Picture House this evening that he chose as part of our #cityseriesleeds programme and I wanted to write something to encourage people to come along to the event – and read the book, it’s really good. I left the office late Sunday with a wad of notes and quotes and a thousand vague ideas floating around in my head.
The traffic as usual was bad – eleven lanes of traffic to cross before I got to the pavement I needed to be on – but I’m used to dodging cars and guessing how many seconds till the green man turns red, so when I finally got to the south side of New York Street I’d already drafted the first paragraph of my review. It was, incidentally, quite brilliant. If only I’d written it down.
As I was negotiation my passage by the bingo hall – the bus stop outside the Mecca bulges into the street and you have to be careful walking too near the wall as the punters on the balcony above think nothing about flicking their still burning fag ends down on your head – I could hear a commotion further along the street. When I got to Outlaws Yacht Club I could see the traffic had stalled at the junction near the Penny Arcade but it was hard to see why. It wasn’t until I reached the junction that I understood what was going on.
There was a man, probably in his fifties, certainly the worse for wear, sat bang in the middle of the road with his legs splayed to oncoming traffic, shouting incomprehensible Scottish at nobody in particular. Directly in front of him was a Private Hire car. Behind that was seven or eight stationary buses and a string of vehicles stretching as far as I could see. People had started to gather to watch the show, wandering over from bus stops, coming out of shops, one or two still carrying pint glasses from the local pub. Some were shouting encouragement, others expressing less generous thoughts, but the atmosphere was merry and good natured. Everyone on the street seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. The people in the cars and buses probably had a very different view.
Leo quotes Jane Jacobs’ famous paragraph about street life being a “ballet”. This was probably more circus or pantomime. And though the atmosphere was festive right now there was plenty of indications that things could turn nasty before long. Several groups of tourists had stopped and were taking snapshots.
The taxi driver had got out of his car and was questioning the protester why he’d kicked his vehicle and then sat in the road. The guy on the ground was making a lot of noise but not much sense. The crowd was beginning to turn; “kick him! Drag him off the road! Run over him!”
The taxi driver, a calm and dignified middle aged Asian chap with a strong accent scratched his head. Someone in a shop doorway, I didn’t see who, threw a can in the direction of the drunk. The cars behind were honking their horns. The air reeked of diesel. There must have been a dozen green lights gone by and no movement.
The guy on the floor was flailing his arms and shouting at some unseen persecutor. Engines were revving. More people had spilled into the narrow street and were jostling to get a better view.
The taxi driver bent down and said something. It was too noisy now to hear anything. A couple of drivers had left their cars and were discussing loudly the options of forcibly removing the obstacle. The taxi driver held out his hand.
I missed what happened next exactly. I was trying to take a picture and struggling to find an unimpeded view but people kept getting in the way and knocking the camera. When I looked up the drunk guy was on his feet, propped up against a wall, looking sheepish and deflated and the taxi driver was getting back into his car. The tourists had already dispersed. People were returning to whatever they were doing before the fun began. The traffic lights turned green and things were back to normal.
Leo says in his book that there are three essential ingredients that make a good city and that make a city good, sustainability, trust and equality; “These three factors are interlinked; you cannot have a green city without trust and more equality; you cannot have equality without trust; there is no city at all without trust. Trust is a process that comes out of the smallest of gestures, the everyday performance of neighborliness.” Leo goes back to what Jane Jacobs said about the street being the crucible of neighborliness; “It is the people that matter, the way they are allowed to interact, intermingle and connect. In addition, that the street is the essential, energetic life of the city. As Jacobs reminded us, if we make sense of the street, we can then hope to reconstruct the life of the city in a way that is for the benefit of all.” What I witnessed in that little drama on a normal street in Leeds makes me think Leo is right.
So, I’m looking forward to listening to him introduce the film tonight and finding out why he choose The Arbor, about the playwright Andrea Dunbar who grew up on the Buttershaw estate in Bradford. There’s still some tickets left and we’ll be in the Brudenell after for a chat about the film and about Leo’s book.
“Leo says in his book that there are three essential ingredients that make a good city and that make a city good, sustainability, trust and equality; “These three factors are interlinked; you cannot have a green city without trust and more equality; you cannot have equality without trust; there is no city at all without trust. Trust is a process that comes out of the smallest of gestures, the everyday performance of neighborliness.”
I may be an old cynic but this seems completely naïve to me – given that without major reforms to national energy policy, political culture and social and economy policy none of this these aims, however, desirable are remotely obtainable.
Take just one measure of greenness – recycling Leeds does not strike me as being particularly progressive when compared to other cities.
Trust – I don’t feel particularly trusted by the powers that be when I am routinely observed by Safer Leeds CCTV
Equality – well as the city sees itself as a retail and entertainment centre we can only expect more folks on zero hours contracts.
However well I get on with my neighbours is not going change any of this.
In relation to Buttershaw I hope he made the point that many of the issues in the area are due lack of funding for social housing and not an absence of neighbourliness.
Kind regards
Sour
Yes, all very fair points. And that’s one of the things I was thinking after I read the book – sustainability, trust and equality aren’t the values that are actually building most cities. And neighbourliness is often a rearguard action against rampaging development.
Where is sustainability, trust and equality in Victoria Gate?