Why Would Anyone Say That Leeds Was The “Best City”?

17 comments

1. So do we quit now? There is nowhere to go when “it’s the best”. Hype is not aspiration, it’s just cant, and disrespectful marketing at that.

   Everyone lives in their own home city – and “home” has “best, better, can do, must improve, bloody awful”. This is life and that makes getting up each day real, sometimes terrifying, often enjoyable, and gives something to strive for at every level.

   We can just get on with the striving.

   There is no Thrusting, Driving team at the Helm in any city (and I can say this, as a long-term Londoner, and more recently a hard-working Leeds import) unless the city is Gotham, deluded or in some other ‘50’s US dramcom, where usually someone comes to a sticky end at the hands of City Hall, Union Hall, or Alien Forces.

   Realities – cities, City Hall, communities – are so much richer and random than that, thankfully. And the Bald Soprano always has a say. In fact the Bald Soprano may actually be in charge, of Beeston, my recent Leeds home.

   I have always mistrusted empty straplines after 15 years in the retail / brands industry. Always go with a good strong name and human/place identifier, I say, with all of the magic or mischief that could come along with it. People and stories make a city.

   Think on it. “Leeds: Never Knowingly Oversold”? Or – probably the best strapline ever – “Leeds: just do it”.

2. I strongly adhere to, and, through my day job, am putting my money where my mouth is in working towards making Leeds the best city in the UK.

   I can see why people might think Leeds is simply OK. After all, it’s not like we have:

   – a thriving cultural scene (theatre, cinema, opera, galleries, music, ballet, museums etc);
   – exciting and eclectic clubs, club nights and bars;
   – beautiful parks (Gotts, Roundhay etc) and countryside, including stately homes (Temple Newsam and Lotherton);
   – any history to speak of (industrial, ethnic, medieval);
   – a world class arena;
   – a thriving and diverse business sector;
   – exceptional city centre archiatecture; and
   – a wide range of shopping venues, including major retailers, independents and a beautiful market with exceptional heritage.

   Anyone else wondering what the Romans ever did for us?

   I am also aware of the real challenges that we face as a city, not least poverty and housing. Tonight I am at the opening of an event for an organisation which provides food bank facilities for people in Leeds. Whilst we are not alone in that situation, we have an absolute duty to face these challenges.

   And that is why I do subscribe to the ambition to make Leeds the best city in the UK. It is why I will always proudly proclaim that I work for that ambition. WWithout that ambition, without being able to see a half-full, and not always half-empty glass, then we will simply never be any more than better than we were.

   Better is not good enough. Better did not build the Civic Hall as a means to pull Leeds out of the economic downturn. I don’t want my community just to be better – I want it to strive to be the best. Better doesn’t drive Usain Bolt, Nicola Adams or the Brownlee brothers to become Olympic medla winners.

   Just as a reality check too, I am aware that it is impossible to define ‘best’ in many contexts, not least in the one we are discussing. But what harm will it cause if we do have that ambition? The dislike or wrath of other cities? You know what – I can live with that. The fact that not everyone in the city will buy into everything that their city has to offer? Again, I can live with that – there will always be cynics.

   But to not be ambitious for our city, to not strive to want to be the best, to not push ourselves forward to ahcieve more than we think we can; that would just be letting ourselves and furture Leodensians down.

   Susan: I believe London does have a: “…Thrusting, Driving team at the Helm…” in the form of the Mayor’s office. Like or loathe tham, they certainly make a great deal of time and effort to push London’s case. Maybe that’s how they got the Olympics?

   1. And I agree with all that … just don’t understand why “best” is the best word to describe what we want.

      Why not “Great City”? “Good City”? For heaven’s sake why not “Paradise City”? There can be any number of great, good and paradise cities (ok, I’ve not quite thought that one through, but you know what I mean).

      My problem with “Best” is not what we are doing. It’s how we are describing it, and how we are coming across to others outside Leeds. If “Best” makes locals cringe and people who live in Sheffield want to thump us, then I can’t see that it’s a good word to use.

      Again, “best city” simply provokes antipathy. “Best city” means people won’t look at actual achievements and aspirations, they’ll seek to immediately contradict … and there’s an infinity of counter-examples from other cities that people think do better. There’s no way that argument can be won.

      No city is “best”. “Best” just makes us sound self-aggrandising, deluded, and ridiculous.

      1. The aspiration to be a ‘great’ city would be something I could understand and support. The professed aspiration to be the ‘best’ city is at best misguided and at worst patronising, meaningless bullshit.

   2. Just to clarify, was that description of what makes Leeds uniquely best borrowed from Sheffield, Nottingham, Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol or Portsmouth?

      I agree with Phil on this one: make your home city as good and distinctive as you like, but where is ‘best’ will depend on what you value most.

      Ironically, you could say that one of the worst things about Leeds is it’s cockiness about being the best. It’d be warmer and friendlier without it.

3. How WE are describing it? Don’t want to turn into a Lone Ranger bore, but … who’s we, kemosabe?

4. I don’t do the “surely we” either, @leedscitizen. Nor that ghastly term “the community”. Thank heavens there are more than enough of us to be a bunch of “I’s” and “communities” as well. And we all have our own ideas of good, better, best. (If we’re gonna do X Factor cities, why then Capetown clearly wins: the best view in the world, failing that, Manhattan. Both are clearly flawed claims, but made daily.)

   London has MANY “communities” and we boost ourselves in tandem with each other, when we feel like it. We amiably wait for, work with, dismiss or challenge City Hall – and we sure didn’t wait for the top table to go out and get the Olympics @DavidJIsrael, either! Many many people worked on this bid. We love the place and we know it has huge flaws – so we make a plan.

   I’ve done lots of work with the old LDA and since then with other London agencies eg DFL – and if one of them had started off with “Well, London IS the best city, you know!” they would have been greeted with a round of laughter. There are many Londons, and there are many Leeds.

   Leeds is not just a city; it is a collection of stories and people: it has many unique, wonderful features and much that is stable, thriving, structurally strong and active. There is an amazing buzz, sense of public conversation and general bolshiness I think is terrific. There is a concatenation of sharply distinct areas with genuine diversity. Leeds has very welcoming people, enough people for me to argue with anyway, an excellent business sense, and a stunning surrounding countrywide. That’s good enough for me.

   As an adopted Leeds citizen, here to try and do something with one of Leeds most extraordinary sites (and sights!) Temple Works, working with hundreds of people all of whom have their own opinions, I never say “best” – I say “uniquely inspiring”, then I make sure everyone notices there are no toilets just to dampen the hyperbole and get stuck in.

   My long-ago home country Canada is full random hamlets with signs on the edges of town proclaiming of “Home of the biggest Lobster”, “World’s Largest Ball of Twine” “The Town that Invented Cheese”. Both Margaret Atwood and Carol Shields frequently mention towns known mainly for making gloves or buttons. In fact my extended family comes from not far from Buttonville, Ontario.

   The smaller the burg, the more liminal the industry, the bigger the claim to be best in class.

   Buttons yes, cities no.

5. I work for Leeds City Council where the mission statement is “to be the best council in the UK and to help Leeds become the best city in the UK”. When I first heard that’s what it had changed to I thought – wow, bit of a tall order there then, aspirational yes, a bit arrogant even, how will we know and did it mean be best at every service we have?

   And I’ve been in discussions where we’ve agreed that being the best that we can possibly be, especially in the current climate, is what we will do. What more can anyone do than that? I’ve brought my kids up along those lines; to be the best they can be. And it’s more about attitude and standards they set for themselves, and in what they aspire to and how they go about doing things. I’m happy with that and so are they.

   I agree with previous comments; where and what is ‘best’ will depend on what you value most. I’d love Leeds to be on the coast, but it isn’t and I can’t change that so I’ll work on what I can change and enjoy the times I go to where the coast is. I also agree that the words ‘best city’ can provoke the wrong sentiment. I’ve been to events with work where tongue-in-cheek comments have been made along the lines of “ah that’s right, you come from the ‘best city’ ”. Water off a ducks back by the way but at least it got us talking…. about Leeds.

   When I worked in the oil industry, there was a saying in the line of work I was in – “it’s good enough for seismic”. It referred to the fact that the tolerance of errors was greater than for example in construction surveying where we are talking millimetres. It wasn’t good enough for me. And looking back, it also brassed me off when I got my school reports and all the teacher could be bothered to write was ‘Satisfactory’; no clues on how I could improve then or be the best I could possibly be?
   There have been many debates where I work about what ‘being the best’ is, and what straplines there should be and how helpful they are, whether it be best council, best city, one voice, one ambition whatever.

   I’ve had it both ways – ‘good enough’ and ‘best’ – my take is that in trying to better ourselves, whoever we are, wherever we work, study, rest or play and however we badge stuff, the ‘best’ place to be is the place where we want to improve things and where we can have a good old debate about it. #thatleeds

   1. My problem isn’t with what anyone is doing. And I’m not council bashing. I just don’t get how the “best city” thing helps.

      It triggers negativity. I bet nobody nods and goes, hmm, you’re right! when they hear the “Leeds is the best city” thing. The spontaneous response is, no it’s not … and it gets them thinking of all the wrong things about the place.

      Yes, it might spark a conversation, but I’m not sure I want to be in that conversation. It puts Leeds on the defensive. And in denial.

      And how can we feel good about saying it in other cities?

      I still can’t imagine ever saying it.

6. Best city – still some way to go

   As Anthony Clavane wrote in “Promised Land” – a city full of aspiration and under achievement.

   But worse than this we have:-

   Police corruption from David Oluwale to Savile’s Friday Club

   Dodgy property deals from John Poulson’s International Pool to Simon Morris investor rip-offs

   Racism – Bowyer/Woodgate to the EDL

   Council incompetence from Hunslet Grange to the Supertram

   Cultural icons from Dirty Leeds to Jimmy Savile

   Heritage guardians celebrating Victorian squalor and inequality

   I could go on

   Only a city with a massive identity deficiency would say it wanted to be the “best”.

7. I take on board everything Phil Jewitt says – it’s all fair comment, from the heart, and thank you Phil for not engaging even for a minute in marketing speak.

   But the question remains – why is it up to the Council to “make Leeds the best city”?

   Why not just stick to aspiring to being a good Council and doing your own job in the best way possible? That’s a tall enough order in itself, and you would agree I think that there is still some way to go. That’s not a cheap shot – I would say the same thing about my home city, London – and earlier home cities in Canada. Leeds is full of holes as previous writers pointed out, and slogans will not fix this. Just everyday hard work and mutual respect between Council and citizens will do the job. By comparison, the “ONE VOICE” LCC marketing bumpf doing the rounds at public expense is utterly risible.

   A Council is not a city. A Council does not run a city. A city -composed of people – runs itself, with help from the Council: who are answerable to the people of the city.

   Even aspirational slogans are just straplines. Shouldn’t the Council have always aspired to be good? Do you not think the people of Leeds have similar aspirations every day, from tiny to huge – to do the best they can? That’s just life. No need for a strapline. One of the things I like best about Leeds as an arriviste (Canada via London) is humour and self-deprecation (apart from the fact that Yorkshire is God’s Own County of course). To be self-deprecating and grandiose at the same time is fun, it’s funny. It oils the wheels. Everyone gets it.

   Sometimes the best slogans are the most modest.” Keep on trucking”. “Just do it”. Not suggesting for a moment that LCC adopts the old tokers’ rallying cry from the ’60’s, or Nike’s timeless strap which itself was based on sports as a way out in the ‘70’s Chicago ghetto. But this illustrates the difference between the ironic spirit of something –“ keep on trucking” , the boot in the rear to a disenfranchised people who felt they had no options, “just do it” and the sheer weightlessness of a pointless strapline – “the best city”.

   Running a very complex – and aspirational! – enterprise in Leeds, I have a lot of time for individual officers at the Council who do their very best every day, who cut my own enterprise a lot of slack when needed, who phone up and offer help in tricky situations – who come by with cake – who come to our shows – full honours. They are often the most “lowly” employees, with no agenda. They just do a terrific job. THAT is doing the best. They help make “civic enterprise” (another LCC slogan which needs examining!) possible. And my thanks are duly recorded to each one of those officers, they know who they are.

   Thank you.

8. Good challenge as ever. Phil I see you as my Thesaurus. You’ve made me think carefully about words, as well as deeds.

   Some facts.

   1) The ambition is not just the Council’s. It was agreed two years ago by the group of partners in the city called Leeds Initiative. The idea of “best” came from the Chamber.

   2) It is deliberately forward-looking and ambitious. But it is long term. It implicitly accepts we’re not currently the best. Hardly arrogant.

   3) It’s purpose was to try to set out a vision for a group of organisations in the city. One of them is democratically elected. None of them claim to speak for everyone in the city. So it’s important in one sense of trying to unify activities by those organisations. But that’s all it is. It’s not meant to usurp the beautiful federal diversity of Leeds, or impose a single view of the World. “Best” is helpfully ambiguous and allows for many views. It’s just a word on a strategy document.

   I’ve seen a few strap lines come and go over the years and they rarely change the World. But they can provide a signal and a sense of direction. Not so long ago Leeds was commonly referred to as lacking ambition and was quietly described as complacent. So something like “best” was needed. “Great” works for me, and my preference back then was that Leeds was the natural alternative to London. That was kicked out, but I’m not precious. My Gran, Mum and Dad were just like Phil’s – be the best you can be.

   All I know is that it’s helped in the Council by starting conversations about how we can be better and also to look elsewhere for who’s doing it better than us. Not something LCC has been good at. And we’re changing for the better by doing it.

   1. It’s not really a question of semantics. It’s more about psychology.

      I’ve been talking about Leeds as “best city” for the past week or so. The two most common responses are flat rejection, and a list of all that’s wrong with the place (see John Sour above), or contradiction (see Clare below).

      I’m all for having conversations, but starting by provoking negative reactions seems an odd strategy. My brother-in-law’s dad is a master of the provocative conversation opener … everyone thinks he’s a complete prat and we all try to avoid his company. I wouldn’t want Leeds to be thought of as the annoying relative at the family gathering.

      I think Leeds is a great city. I think Sheffield is great too. They can both be great, but they can’t both be best.

9. Thanks Susan for your response. I try and keep things simple and a major part of my job is to firstly reduce and then help translate corporate speak that has slipped through the filter.

   However it is phrased, I agree, it isn’t up to the council on its own to make Leeds the best, better or great, but it can and should play a role, with others, and in helping others, in doing so.

   As Tom rightly mentions, to clarify, One Voice and One Ambition isn’t just LCC, and again like ‘Best’ we will have individual views on whether we like it or not.

   Another part of my current role is to connect people (more ‘connect’ with) to help unpick terms like ‘civic enterprise’ and see what it might lead to. In doing that, I have met some of the folk you mention who ‘do their best’ (and eat a fair bit of cake). Not just council employees but people across the city, like yourself, who care about things that contribute to making it a better place and who make time to meet and share views on such things. As you say there are some good people about.

   And actually, everyone who takes time to comment on here obviously cares enough about it to have made time to comment.

   Finally a back at ya Phil. I can see you might not imagine yourself ever saying Leeds is (or could be) the best city, but is this not the conversation that you didn’t want to be part of?

   #philology

10. Edinburgh is better…

11. Just a quick one, as today I’m certainly not at my ‘best’ due to a great wedding anniversary night out last night, enjoying the old and new of Leeds pubs (Leeds brewery’s Crowd of Favours and The Duck and Drake seeing as you asked)

    This from Ed Carlisle https://theculturevulture.co.uk/radar/whats-the-city-centre-for/ asks what’s the city centre for? The playful gathering is on today (Sunday 23rd)and to some degree you could extend the question to parts of Leeds all over. I think this links into the question of ‘Would a best city…’ have more intent to look at how we come together in civic spaces which has little to do with retail spend, and more to do with ‘convivial conversation’

    I like the ambition of nailing your colours to the mast, but it is something we can riff off, and spark debate. I may not think Leeds is ‘Best’ or even have a clue what Best looks like, but I enjoy measuring our own activities and thinking against this very public declaration on intent. It can hold me accountable, and allow me to cheekily engage with ‘the powers that be’ to see if they feel they’re trying to be ‘the best’

    I secretly think we are the best city for openness of conversation, and working together to try and figure stuff out. Those who like conclusions may not agree, those who enjoy shades of grey may appreciate we’re quite different here to other cities in the way in which we’re trying to understand stuff together

12. ‘Why Would Anyone Say That Leeds Was The “Best City”?’

    Interesting question Phil.

    Well we now know where the term came from thanks to Tom but the question still remains why would anyone say that?

    The term ‘Best City’ implies that we as a city are in a competition, so it’s reasonable to suspect that the person/persons/organisations who say this also believe that we’re in a competition, with other cities obviously. So why do they believe that we’re in a competition? Is there a league table of cities hidden from the view of citizens that’s only available for the eyes of the upper echelons of the council hierarchy? Do you get a cup/trophy/shield/certificate when you reach the summit? I wouldn’t have thought so as I believe this boils down to simple ideology. For example if you run a team/organisation/group with ambitions the most simplistic way to motivate them is to set a goal of being ‘the best’. Unfortunately competitions generate way more losers that winners so this ideology has a far greater chance of failure than success.
    Is it not more reasonable and achievable to set a goal for Leeds to be simply ‘Enjoyable’? For I would argue that to have a successful city/life one doesn’t have to be the best one simply has to enjoy what you have now. Improve yes but improvement lies in the future, enjoyment lives in the now.

    And let’s not forget amongst all this talk of being the Best City that bricks and mortar don’t have souls, ambitions or dreams, people do. People’s attitudes make change not buildings. New shopping centres and arenas won’t make Leeds a better and more enjoyable place without us.
    For a start we can all make Leeds more enjoyable for everyone by simply being pleasant to each other and that won’t cost us a penny.

    There’s a strap line for you Phil – ‘Leeds … the most Pleasant City in the UK’ hehe

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