It's Our City, Let Us Shape It.

 

      All you good people who turned up last Monday for "These Streets Were Made For Walking" Perhaps you could all come together again for another matter of abuse in our city. The Accord Centre in the East End of our city, WAS, a day centre for more than 100 kids with learning difficulties, a place of fun and learning and a chance of respite for parents and carers. Our caring city council decided to demolish it to create a temporary bus park for the "Games". The families were promised a new centre, to date, nothing.

 
   

     The families and friends of those kids have been fighting a lone battle to get something to replace the centre that the council demolished, all to no avail. Perhaps if the thousands that turned up that Monday in Govanhill, threw their might behind those struggling kids and their families, the council might listen. This is a community matter that demands support from across our city, these are vulnerable kids, they and their families are being abused. Mass protests could change the picture, and end this abuse. It's our city, let's shape it the way we want it.

This from Vice:

        Grace Harrigan is an East End resident for whom the Games have not been a blessing. In early 2011, she learnt that the Accord – a day centre used by her son and 120 other adults with learning disabilities – was to be demolished. It was, to quote a clinical letter from a council official, “located in the area designated for the Games”, with their plot lined up to become a coach park. Unsurprisingly, knocking down a disability centre for the sake of a temporary parking facility, for an 11-day event, proved controversial. Carers at the centre found themselves thrown into a high profile campaign and even Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, mindful of an approaching election, waded in to remind Glasgow’s Council not to risk jeopardising the “reputation and integrity” of the Games.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Where Have All The People Gone??

        The only way to get to grips with what is happening to Glasgow's East End, is to get down there and find out. I would imagine that if you do, and you should, the first thing you'll probably say is, "where have all the people gone?". Busy, bustling East End has been replace by a series of grandiose schemes that will push up land and house prices, excluding the ordinary people from the area. The ever creeping disease of gentrification spreads it tentacles, feeding the corporate mob and pushing the ordinary people into ghettos, out of sight of the tourists and those who can pay top dollar for their homes.

Glasgow City Council's plans for the people of Glasgow.

This from Glasgow Games Monitor:

FREE PUBLIC WALK IN THE EAST END

Saturday, 26th April, 1-5pm (12.45 for 1pm start). Meet at Bridgeton Cross Umbrella, Bridgeton

Organised by Glasgow Games Monitor 2014: http://gamesmonitor2014.org/

Regeneration is always imposed from above by local councils, government, land developers and property agents. The organisers of the Commonwealth Games 2014 and Clyde Gateway regeneration projects tell us that everyone will gain a social and economic legacy from the Games and redevelopment in the East End. But is that true?

What is that claim based on?

We say that 'regeneration' is just a sugar-coated name for gentrification: the working of land and property markets and the displacement of poor people with the aim of supposedly 'higher end' values. Large mega-events and regeneration projects like the Commonwealth Games and Clyde Gateway are prime examples of that process. Find out for yourselves! Join Glasgow Games Monitor 2014 and local residents on a public walk to investigate these claims.

In a collective 'territorial inquiry', or investigation from below, we will examine the power relations and money behind planning and policy documents, regeneration agencies, land ownership, housing privatisation, welfare 'austerity', and the organisations that claim to represent community members.

Rather than looking above for solutions to these problems, we aim to discuss and organise collectively with all those who struggle against urban injustice. We will emphasise first of all the experiences of those most directly affected by urban development (through compulsory purchase, displacement, closure of vital services, environmental disruption, road-building, etc). The lesson from similar large-scale

urban projects is that people get the best gains (in terms of social housing, services, public space and amenities) when they resist the privatising logic of 'regeneration' and organise effectively for better conditions.

ALL WELCOME. ESPECIALLY LOCAL RESIDENTS

Glasgow Games Monitor 2014: http://gamesmonitor2014.org/ Contact:

gamesmonitor2014@googlemail.com

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

East Is East And West Is West!

      As a football pundit once said, "Football is a game of two halves", to me a non-football guy, I thought that was obvious, I always  miss the subtleties of the "beautiful game". However it could also be said that Glasgow is a city of two halves, the West End and the East End, and according to the Mafia in George Square, East is East and West is West, and ne'r the twain shall meet. This divide is obvious to all our senses, visit each End and the difference startles and baffles all those senses. On visiting these "ends" the first impact is visual, the West End, busy shops, cafes, bistros, pubs, restaurants and the smell of affluence, visit the East End, closed shops, derelict buildings, empty spaces, poor housing and the smell of poverty. The difference is not just apparent to our senses, it is embedded in the lives of those who live in each of these two "Ends". The life expectancy in parts of the East End are as low as 53.9 years, while a short (but expensive) bus journey across the city, and in parts of the West End, life expectancy can be as high as 82 years. 

      Now we know that it is not a genetic difference between the species that live in these two ends of our city, the root cause is that first visual appearance, affluence and poverty. Quality of life governs length of life, and in this society that is decided on affluence and poverty. We also know that poverty is not an accident, it is caused and prolonged by policies, and policies are made and carried out by people. It therefore follows that those people are directly responsible for the poverty, deprivation, short life expectancy, and the criminal plunder of the future of all those children who are born into those policy created conditions.

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Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk