LEGACY

the end of regeneration

Legacy - Urban Research Collective 1

Legacy was produced by Urban Research Collective and commissioned by Monika Vykoukal for Black
Country creative advantage (BCCA), a two year project of the Centre for Art, Design, Research and
Experimentation at the University of Wolverhampton in partnership with the Longhouse scheme of
arts organisation Multistory based in West Bromwich and supported by the National Lottery through
Arts Council England . This initiative aims to investigate how arts practices can relate to or impact upon
regeneration practices to support a more democratic involvement of local people in culture, public planning
and developments where they live.

Legacy was written after a series of visits by Urban Research Collective to West Bromwich. Though informed
by these visits, the publication is about themes common to towns and cities around the UK. We wrote this
publication through the lens of West Bromwich but we could be discussing any town, from Teesside to
Portsmouth, Dundee or Salford.

The photographs, all taken in and around West Bromwich, are a photo essay collaboration between
photographer Dave Gee and Urban Research Collective. More of his work can be found here:
www.muoophotography.co.uk

Updates, more information and photographs from Legacy can be found at: http://urbanresearch.tumblr.
com

Credits
Words and layout: Pete Abel and Jonathan Atkinson of Urban Research Collective
Guest article: Heather Ring, http://waywardplants.org
Photographs: All photos Dave Gee, www.muoophotography.co.uk, except Public Ruin: Heather Ring
Thanks to: Monika Vykoukal and everyone who took part in Black Country creative advantage
More on Urban Research Collective: http://urbanresearchcollective.wordpress.com

Urban Research Collective, 2010

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

ISBN: 978-0-9563457-2-1

2 Legacy - Urban Research Collective

Legacy
Legacy literally means inheritance, something
bequeathed by one generation to the next. This
pamphlet examines legacy in the context of our
towns and cities. We look at actions carried out in
the name of ‘tackling the legacy of the past’, and
examine the legacy our generation is leaving for
the next.
Recent ‘regeneration/gentrification’ of our cities
has been justified as tackling a legacy of neglect and
poor planning. Litter, crime, anti-social behaviour,
poor health, ‘worklessness’, have been put down to
1960s permissiveness , failed utopian ideas, crooked
councillors or just a perception that poor people
simply aren’t able to look after themselves.
In the name of progress our soul (and cities)
were sold to the markets and big development
whilst issuing promises of renewal and renaissance.
But the legacy of the long boom isn’t mixed
neighbourhoods, healthy communities and happy,
productive workers. Instead we’re left with public,
personal and corporate indebtedness and a sinking
feeling that things are about to get a lot worse.
Those involved in the regeneration business
might reason that doing something was better
than nothing, how much worse things might have
been if nothing had been done. But inequality rose
during the Blair/Brown years. As more resources
were targeted at the rich, regeneration functioned
instead as a mask, a distraction, those with the least
were bought off with false hope and the promise of a
better deal tomorrow.
The changes in our communities sometimes seem
to just go on around us. Flats go up and libraries
come down and we have no ability to decide, change
or even input into what’s going on. Perhaps we
reason, ‘they’ must know what they’re doing and
have our best interests at heart. In this pamphlet
we argue that for the mistakes of the past not to be
repeated it is essential for people to have a say in
the destiny of our towns and cities, we need to be
involved.
Through these articles we hope to shed some
light on regeneration and the re-shaping of our
urban areas in order to enable people to better
understand what is going on and to take action. We
examine the processes of urban renewal, exposing
some of the myths and looking at the role of artists
and designers. We take a critical look at some
of the promises made and speculate on things
to come. Finally we ask the question, is progress
always something to be desired? What might the
alternative look like?
Legacy - Urban Research Collective 3
4 Legacy - Urban Research Collective
Legacy 1: Living through end times
- the rise and fall of tall buildings
The cranes hang silent, houses boarded up
awaiting demolition, hoardings aged and broken
protecting land once earmarked for development
now gone to grass.
It appears we are approaching the end of the
golden era of regeneration. The economic crash
has thrown old certainties in the air. When things
settle we’ll be counting the costs of empty promises,
unfulfilled dreams and damaged communities. Now
is the time to reflect but whilst some may blame ‘the
bankers’ perhaps guilt needs to be spread around a
bit.
The game we’ve been playing is called market-led
regeneration, it goes like this. In the 1980s councils
were more radical than today, municipal socialism
ruled; houses for all, 10p on the bus got you
anywhere, the doors of council buildings were open
to all. Whilst Labour ruled in the cities Thatcher
ruled the country and as a consequence budgets
were cut and council rates capped. Limits were
placed on spending reserves, council houses were
sold off and local authorities were unable to fund
new developments.
Thatcher offered the cities a deal - work with
business to facilitate projects, transfer land
to developers, use public money to prepare
developments for the private sector. Councils could
steer the course but developers would borrow, fund,
build and ultimately profit. And Britain’s inner cities
presented a wealth of prime development land.
Things really got going under the Labour
government from 1997 onwards. Using schemes
such as Urban Renewal and SRB (Single
Regeneration Budget) Labour advocated the idea
of city living. Councils competed for government
and European money to enable development, areas
of cities were earmarked for development and the
residents slowly driven out/bribed/evicted, boarded
up houses became the norm. A lot of the funding
was aimed at helping residents create a vision for the
future of their communities, but areas such as the
Lyng estate on the edge of West Bromwich centre
demonstrate that after residents are re-located few
can afford to return.
Developers were able to access cheap credit from
banks to throw up buildings and blocks of flats
became the prized homes of (now heavily indebted)
twenty-somethings seeking to sample urban life or
just somewhere to live. Co-incidentally flats proved
far cheaper to build than houses and generated more
profit from less land.
Property prices spiralled as more people sought
to cash in on a rising market. You would be mad
not to put your pension into a buy-to-let! Many
developments sold out before they’d even been built,
purely on the basis of the plans and few ‘artists’
impressions’ of the ‘real’ thing. Developers made
lots of profit, building cheaper, selling higher. Banks
lent plenty of money to both developers and home-
owners and bank managers got rewarded through
bonuses. Residents felt wealthy but ended up more
and more in debt, local authorities saw their cities
‘regenerated’, the old estates gone, scant few of the
old residents returning.
But like any other asset bubble the housing market
was unsustainable. The “end to boom and bust”
ended with the biggest bust of all when bad debt was
called in and the bottom fell out of the market.
Developers and bankers spent the profits and now
the public are asked to cover the bad debt. After 15
years of a housing boom we have a social housing
crisis as it becomes apparent that the new build flats
are of poor quality, too small for families and don’t
even meet basic housing standards. And if councils
Legacy - Urban Research Collective 5
had built properties wouldn’t that have deflated
prices for the private developments?

On reflection, in a decade of rising inequalities,

can local authorities honestly point to the
regeneration programmes as having transformed our
cities? The same economic, health and education
problems exist only now we don’t even have the
hope of something better to come.

In this the designers of the system, local and

national government are as complicit as the bankers
and developers. Even the mainstream media played
a part, from TV-programmes like Changing Rooms
and Homes Under the Hammer to Property Ladder,
communicating the idea that housing was the way to
get rich quick and anyone who didn’t play ball was a
mug. And many people fell for it, they signed up to
the 125% mortgages and now they are living with
the reality.

For us to move forward, to re-imagine and

re-design our cities, to take ownership of them
ourselves, we need to understand the reality of
the past. Local councillors, young couples, elderly
residents, journalists and estate agents - we all let
this happen, now we need to ensure it never happens
again.

6 Legacy - Urban Research Collective

Legacy 2:
Going Very Awry (GVA) - or the mirage
of economic development and how it
melts away under further inspection.
Economic growth and jobs - the planning
applications and regeneration masterplans for
supermarket-led developments talk grandly about
how many jobs they will create for local people
and how much they will increase economic growth
or the Gross Value Added (GVA) figures in the
local area.
The plans for the Tesco (140,000 sq ft ) being
built in West Bromwich claim that 700 jobs will
be created,i but how many jobs will be created
compared to those lost and what are the
downsides to focussing too heavily on GVA
and economic growth?
What’s the problem with GVA?
GVA is an economic measure of the value of goods
and services produced in a specific region (or
industry or sector) of the economy. At a national
level GVA is defined as output minus intermediate
consumption (the value of goods & services used in
production by enterprises, including raw materials,
services and other operating costs). It is often
considered as a regional variant of GDP (Gross
Domestic Product). Regional and local authorities
provide data comparing the GVA figures for specific
regions and areas and focus strategic planning on
increasing economic growth and GVA levels.
However, as a number of economists and
organisations, such as the New Economics
Foundation (nef ), have highlighted the GDP and
GVA measures of economic growth do not tell us
anything about our quality of life.
These measures effectively assign a value of zero
to the environment. They are not measures which
can tell us much about sustainable development.
For example, it has been argued that they fail to take
into account:
- non-monetarised costs and benefits e.g. household
labour, environmental degradation;
- capital depreciation (the reduction in value over
time);
- natural and human capital;
- income distribution;
- ‘defensive’ expenditures e.g. divorce, protection,
war;
- that well-being is not the same as wealth.
The GDP/GVA measures effectively count
pollution as a positive contribution towards the
economy. Higher pollution levels would mean
additional resources spent on equipment to deal
with the pollution, health service expenditure to
deal with the outcomes etc. More pollution could
therefore increase GVA levels. A more practical
example is provided by Hurricane Katrina. The
estimated $15 billion cost of the hurricane that
devastated New Orleans and the surrounding area,
would have increased the GDP measure for the
United States but says nothing about the pain,
misery, dislocation and environmental damage
caused.
Unsurprisingly, most regeneration plans rarely
mention the limitations to economic growth nor
that increasing GVA levels do not necessarily
increase quality of life and well-being. Or put
more bluntly, buying more stuff from ever larger
superstores does not make us happier.
Regeneration masterplans always highlight how
many jobs are going to be created and present
projections for the increases in GVA that these new
developments will deliver. The public consultation
documents rarely discuss how many jobs could be
lost as a result of the new development and the
proposed GVA increases often warrant a closer
inspection.
Legacy - Urban Research Collective 7
Many jobs created
The proposals for the West Bromwich re-
development and Tesco superstore have claimed
that 700 jobs will be created.ii But experiences
from other areas have shown that such claims are
not always what they seem. For example, in Greater
Manchester, Tesco have recently been granted
planning permission to build Tesco Extra stores in
Stretford (166,847 sq ft) with claims that 600 jobs
will be created, in Pendleton, Salford (130,000 sq ft)
with 600 jobsiii and Hattersley (98,000 sq feet) with
450 jobs.
But, the headline job figures in the regeneration
plans will typically include many part time jobs
and the number of full-time equivalent (f.t.e) jobs
will always be much lower. For example, the recent
planning application and regeneration masterplan
for the Old Trafford Cricket Ground and Tesco
Extra claimed that the 166,847 sq ft Tesco store
would create 526 jobs.
However, 466 (88%) of these were listed as
“general assistants” and most of these were part
time. The number of full time equivalent jobs was
predicted to be 371.
...worth how much?
The predicted GVA benefits are also commonly
over-stated to help “sell” the development to local
communities and politicians. For example, the Old
Trafford plans claimed that the GVA benefit for
Trafford would be £7.8 million per year. This had
been calculated using the higher “headline” job total
and an average GVA per employee of £43,177 - and
there you were thinking that supermarket jobs were
low paid!
8 Legacy - Urban Research Collective
But back in economic real life, the Office for
National Statistics provide the actual figure for the
Greater Manchester ‘sub-regional GVA per head’
value as £18,027 (December 2009). As the majority
of the jobs on offer would be fairly low paid “general
assistants” this is still probably an over-estimate.
However, using this figure together with the number
of full-time equivalent jobs gives a GVA total of £2.4
million per year. It would seem that both members
of the Planning Committee and local communities
have been misled and that the local council failed to
adequately assess the projected GVA benefits. Not
that surprising, given that the local council was a
vocal supporter of the development.
...but how many jobs will be lost?
So whilst the economic benefits were overstated
by up to three times what they are likely to be, the
planning applications rarely acknowledge how many
jobs will be lost from the local retail sector. Research
carried out for the Department of Environment,
Transport & Regions (DETR) and published in
1998 showed that for every 20 jobs created by
building large supermarkets up to 30 local retail jobs
were lost.iv
Based on the findings of this research the
surrounding district centres could see up to 550 jobs
being lost in the local retail sector. So maybe now,
the beautiful artist impressions and the economic
growth figures in the regeneration plans used to sell
the re-developments don’t look quite so attractive
– time will tell.
Support your ‘local’ shops
There are political choices to be campaigned for
at the international, regional and local level to
ensure that economic policies create a sustainable
and progressive economy. Such changes will not
happen overnight but if local people support their
local shops more money (and jobs) will remain
in the local community. Each person choosing to
shop ‘local’ may seem a drop in the ocean when
considering the size and power of multinational
food corporations, but the New Economics
Foundation compared the multiplier effects of
shopping for fruit and vegetables in a supermarket
and from a local organic ‘box scheme’. The results
showed that every £10 spent with the box scheme
was worth £25 for the local area, compared with
just £14 when the same amount was spent in a
supermarket.v To paraphrase a popular marketing
slogan – every little spent in local shops helps build
a stronger community.

References
i. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, Position Statement on
Work & Skills, (accessed 01/11/2010), www.wmleadersboard.gov.
uk/media/upload/Economy%20&%20Skills/Skills%20Position%20S
tatements/Sandwell%20Work%20%20Skills%20plan.pdf

ii. Public Property UK.com, Tesco charged with building £7m police
station, 15/09/2010, www.publicpropertyuk.com/2010/09/15/
tesco-charged-with-building-7m-police-station/

iii. The Business Desk.com, Salford Tesco scheme approved,

22/10/2010, www.thebusinessdesk.com/northwest/news/80760-
salford-tesco-scheme-approved.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_
medium=email&utm_campaign=NorthWest_22nd_Oct_2010_-
_Daily_E-mail

iv. Hillier Parker, C B, and Savell Bird Axon, 1998. Impact of Large
Foodstores on Market Towns and District Centres. London: HMSO.

v. New Economics Foundation, Plugging the Leaks, September 2002,

http://www.pluggingtheleaks.org/downloads/ptl_handbook.pdf

Legacy - Urban Research Collective 9

10 Legacy - Urban Research Collective
Legacy 3: every town promised their piece of public art would
Development of the spectacle be “the new Angel of the North.”
In hindsight many of the images of conspicuous
- selling the myth of regeneration. consumption and community unity appear
ridiculous, even cruel. But why was such emphasis
Regeneration bodies spent millions promoting
placed on image and marketing which often seemed
and selling new developments. As promises turn
grossly inordinate in comparison with the end
to dust, what role did artists and designers play in
product?
pulling the wool over people’s eyes?
One reason is legitimacy. Regeneration
Rent it. Love it. Buy it.
developments were typically overseen by
Now the party’s over come home.
partnerships and agencies, public/private bodies
Everything’s gone green
with little, if any, constituency or track record.
Committed to regenerating West Bromwich
Peoples’ houses were bulldozed and public land
A sense of pride for everyone
effectively given to agencies few had heard of
and fewer understood the purpose of. Private
For the past decade, regeneration schemes have
developers were soon building flash new homes in
been far from shy in making claims and promises.
your community. A blitz of marketing, good news
Billboards and hoardings proclaimed the future
stories and feel-good publications helped give much
was on its way and it looked like a concrete and
needed legitimacy to developments and objectors
glass, four storey tower block. Smiling faces, arm
were labelled as kill-joys and luddites stuck in the
in arm, pulling together as a community. For those
past.
of us living in “areas of multiple deprivation” at
the height of the boom it was part of the routine,
Secondly, this kind of marketing has the simple
finding a pile of brochures on the doormat outlining
function of selling real estate. Despite assurances
exciting new plans for the area, in the supermarket
to the contrary, new developments were routinely
a consultation on the future of the area, a new
beyond the reach of existing tenants and residents.
development meaningless and thrusting. Online a
Developers sought the aspirational, property
selection of partnerships, development bodies and
owning classes able to secure mortgages and cheap
local agencies offered interactive, animated guides to
credit required to buy these new flats at inflated
their activities - though precious little information
prices. And let’s face it, who wants to move into
on their structures, accountability and funding.
an area full of poor people and muggers where
the previous residents were evicted kicking and
Day-glo colours abounded, this was no time for
screaming from their homes?
subtlety, introspection or doubt. Things would be
changing in your problem area, a bright, positive
Finally the reason for the marketing blitz was
future lay ahead usually involving a new, spacious
that the regeneration we saw in the UK wasn’t a
and light apartment, a flat screen TV and an
new phenomenon, the model had been refined and
inordinately huge sofa.
tweaked over 30 years. Market-led regeneration
in its current form originated in the United States
As money became cheaper to borrow and so more
of the 1970s. As ‘slum’ neighbourhoods in New
available the gestures became grander. Manchester’s
York were demolished and public parks annexed,
New Islington (formerly the Cardroom estate)
residents rioted, refusing to accept developers’ new
staged an “Urban Folk Festival for Urban Folk,” and

Legacy - Urban Research Collective 11

plans. Twenty years of nuanced development to the
model meant that the regeneration model we faced
in the UK was heavily mediated. Mass marketing
campaigns held out the (false) hope of something
better, splitting communities between those who
wanted to take the money and run and those who
wanted to stay. Thanks to empty promises there were
no regeneration riots in the UK, just a collective
sigh and a shrug of the shoulders.
Looking back on the legacy of urban renewal
it’s difficult to say the hype was justified. Can we
really point to happy, healthy and mixed income
communities where once there was deprivation?
Some might blame that on the economic crash but
others would argue that property led speculation
and a price bubble were one of the key causes of
the crash and an indicator of local and national
government that had sold their soul to the markets.
Artists and designers who worked in the
12 Legacy - Urban Research Collective
regeneration industry and for developers need to
accept responsibility for their role in this. Creative
people, artists and designers, took the money and
asked few questions about the claims they helped
legitimise. Whole creative industries grew up in
response to regeneration cash. They gave false hope
to people and communities that had precious little
and now have less.
But this isn’t the end of the story. In 2010 the
bank is bust but it’s even more important to re-
imagine our cities, to create new dreams. Artists and
designers have a role to play here, but not as paid
stooges for investment capital but as collaborators
and partners with citizens and communities. In the
past visionaries have imagined garden cities and
urban utopias. It’s time to reflect on past mistakes
and deal with the legacy of the immediate past but
also to create a new co-operative, creative and just
legacy for the future.
Legacy - Urban Research Collective 13
Legacy 4: stages and received Royal Assent by November
Big Society – Bigger Supermarkets? 2011. In relation to planning, many of the proposals
expected to be included in the DLB are laid out
in the “Open Source Planning”1 Green Paper
West Bromwich town centre is undergoing
published in early 2010. The Green Paper included
a fundamental transformation. The new
suggested measures that would:
developments include a massive retail park,
focused on a Tesco Extra store, the new police
- Amend the use classes order to permit the use of
station, college and changes to the Lyng.
land and buildings for any purpose allowed in the
local plan .
But to what extent do those developments meet
- Limit the scope of appeals to cases where an
local needs and how much say have local people had
abuse of power or failure to apply the local plan are
in the plans? The new government have spoken of
claimed to have occurred.
putting the planning powers in the hands of local
- Planning Inspectors will not be given the remit to
people but what does this rhetoric really mean and
amend Local Plans if they have been arrived at by
will it make a difference?
fair and proper process.
Having already removed the strategic regional
Some of these changes may start to come into
planning mechanisms (regional development
effect before the Bill is passed as the Government
agencies, regional spatial strategies etc.), except of
has already indicated that “local planning authorities
course in London, which apparently still requires
will be able to work ‘in new ways on local plans’ in
a strategic planning function, the ‘Big Planning’
advance of the passing of the Localism Bill.”2
idea is to introduce neighbourhood or “local plans”.
These are to be developed from the “bottom up” by
Despite the rhetoric about “bottom-up” and
the local population and it is expected that these
neighbourhood “collaborative design” there
local plans will also:
appears to have been little discussion on what, if
any, resources and support will be provided to help
- Introduce a ‘presumption in favour of sustainable
communities develop these local plans.
development’ as long as a (yet unspecified) tariff is
paid.
It is being mooted that where neighbourhoods fail
- That ‘significant local projects’ involve the
to develop adequate “local plans” then “permitted
‘neighbourhood’ and a collaborative design process.
development” will become the default planning
- ‘Fast track’ consents where agreement has
policy. Some of the problems with “permitted
been reached with neighbours. This could
development” and the growth of supermarket chains
involve payments to offset any impact from the
were recently outlined in a parliamentary debate
development(s).
by Greg Hands (Conservative MP for Chelsea
and Fulham).3 With permitted development
How this last differs from “buying off ” objections
many existing retail premises can be changed into
has yet to be explained.
a supermarket without the need for any planning
permission from the local council. Many urban
Meanwhile, we are still waiting to see the actual
supermarkets have been established by using the
details in the Government’s Decentralisation and
‘permitted development’ route. In many cases
Localism Bill (DLB) but the expectation is that the
there is little notice and no opportunity for the
Bill will have passed through all the Parliamentary

14 Legacy - Urban Research Collective

elected councillors to represent the views of the
local community. Often, residents and other local
businesses only learn of the proposed development
when the contractors move in. Despite these
concerns the view of the Planning Minister, Bob
Neill was that permitted development helped to free
the planning system from bureaucracy and that new
planning controls should only be introduced where
there is a strong case’for doing so.4

It is very likely that most people were not aware

that a “regional planning strategy” even existed let
alone whether it was a good or bad thing for local
issues which affected them. This lack of connection
between local communities and the planning system
is an argument for making local planning more
responsive and accountable but without adequate
resources and support for “local plans” we may well
see the spread of “postcode planning”. Instead of a
common set of national planning guidance policies
we will have a patchwork of different planning rules.
Perhaps this is what “localism” is meant to be, but
the danger is that wealthier neighbourhoods, with
access to professional skills and resources, will gain
control of the planning process with ‘acceptable’
local plans, but poorer neighbourhoods will end up
with permitted development.
Now is the time for planning to return to its more
radical roots.

References
1. Conservative Party, Open Source Planning Green Paper,
(accessed 01/11/2010) www.conservatives.com/~/media/Files/
Green%20Papers/planning-green-paper.ashx

2. Planning Portal, Timetable suggests IPC may stay until April 2012,
15/07/2010, http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/general/news/
stories/2010/july2010/2010_07_week_3/150710_1

3. They Work For You, Urban Supermarkets (Planning)

House of Commons debates, 13/09/2010, www.theyworkforyou.
com/debates/?id=2010-09-13b.712.0

4. Colin Marrs, Planning Review, Planning framework “could enable

use class review”, 14/09/2010, www.planningresource.co.uk/news/
ByDiscipline/Development-Control/1028274/Planning-framework-
could-enable-use-class-review/

Legacy - Urban Research Collective 15

Legacy 5: The Public as Public Ruin
By landscape architect Heather Ring
Signature buildings such as The Public attempted
to regenerate communities through their mere
presence in a city. Now that has been shown to be
an optimistic fantasy, is it time to embrace decay
and turn such buildings over to ruin?
In a grey landscape of empty shops and industrial
remnants of a former manufacturing town, brightly
colored banners flap in the wind, promoting a
conspicuous box building with pink blobs cut out
for windows. Designed by architect Will Alsop and
completed in 2008, The Public was a demoralizing
attempt to emulate the culture-led regeneration
strategy of Bilbao. Instead, Alsop’s blobs aggressively
fill the building, squeezing out opportunities for
artistic experimentation, denying the community
the chance to make the space their own and
suffocating any attempts to allow the building to
evolve for the shifting desires of the city.
Graham Peet, artist and photographer, and
Exhibitions Manager at The Public1 has reflected on
some of the limitations of working within such an
inflexible structure, “The building is so unusual, it is
difficult to think of another use for it other than the
creative use intended. In many ways this is what has
stopped it being turned into offices for commercial
lets. If the building had been more conventional, it
would most certainly not be an art centre now.”
The Public constrains artistic response with
fixed-screen monitors and ad-hoc gallery walls, most
of the spaces cluttered with limiting permanent
installations. Digital and interactive art suggests
an exploration with new technologies and formats
constantly changing. The Public, with its inflexible
spatial organization and fixed presentation modes,
seems to have frozen the technology (and the art)
in 2004, when Alsop unveiled his designs for the
building.
16 Legacy - Urban Research Collective
The building resists any form of creative reuse
and is incapable – or unwilling – to translate itself
into one of the many new institutions being built in
West Bromwich, such as a supermarket, shopping
mall, or the town’s missing public pool. And yet,
if The Public closed its doors it would represent a
massive set back to an otherwise depressed town.
The building is far from inconspicuous – with its
designed-in “wackiness” turning “whimsy,” into
something both heavy and joyless. An attempt in
the age of “Signature” buildings, as Owen Hatherley
writes in his critique of this form of cultural
regeneration, to reduce, “a building to a logo.”2
The Public was rendered obsolete before
completion, and now, trapped as it tries to justify
its drain on financial resources, chugs along with
immense operation costs, putting the curators in the
unenviable position of trying to make it relevant.
Their current strategy is an uncomfortable hybrid of
art institution, children’s museum, and community
centre. Filled with salsa aerobics, football match
screenings, a café with the upscale name “Couture,”
and a gift-shop selling tourist schwag like “I heart
West Bromwich.” A top-down approach, rather than
leaving space for grassroots initiatives, their strategy
begs the question, where exactly is the “public” that
The Public is trying to reach?
To endear the Public to the local community and
re-situate its presence as an international spectacle,
I’d like to propose that we re-conceive The Public as
The Public Ruin. It’s already a ruin of architectural
style, a ruin of technology and a ruin of regeneration
strategies, so let’s let nature break it down, and then
piece it together with new narratives.
In Cabinet Magazine’s “Fragment from a
History of Ruins”, Brian Dillon describes the
shifting meaning of the ruin through time. In the
Renaissance, he explains, ruins function like texts,
ones we try to decipher, to contemplate their
relevance to our lives. Then in the 18th century, ruins
were “an image of natural disasters and catastrophes
of human history.” Storms, battles, earthquakes,
and revolutions. During the Romantic age, ruins
were the height of artistic creation. The ruin is
fetishized and its aesthetic emulated, as fragments
and unfinished works, and in gardens, as fake ruins,
follies in the landscape. And from the 19th century
onwards, we imagined ourselves as already ruined.
The modern city, industry, mining, the extraction of
resources, pollution. And the modern ruin – these
empty shopping malls and abandoned cinemas,
remind us of lost futures, of failed utopias. 3
The Public Ruin would exist somewhere in
between these interpretations, a dismantling of
purpose, a failed utopia, a building opened to
the elements, to ecological succession and social
takeovers, a strategic work of art, a merging of
art, technology and the environment. It is hard to
imagine a building as inflexible and unsustainable as
The Public withstanding the forces of nature, so let’s
invite nature in. In its incompleteness, its sudden
potential, The Public Ruin will remind us of past
arrogance and open up possibilities for sustainable
futures.
References
1. Interviewed by Monika Vykoukal for Black Country creative
advantage, 2010.
2. Owen Hatherley, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, Verso
Press, 2010.
3. Brian Dillon, Fragments from a History of Ruin, Cabinet Magazine,
Issue 20 Ruins Winter 2005/06.
Legacy - Urban Research Collective 17
Legacy 6: The case for non-development
Definition: Field
a. A broad, level, open expanse of land.
b. A meadow: a field often of buttercups.
c. A wide unbroken expanse.
d. A portion of land or a geologic formation
containing a specified natural resource.
The answer to a city’s problems always seems to
be development. Demolish and re-build, bigger,
better, smarter. But perhaps the lesson of the last 15
years of hubris is that progress will not always bring
improvements. I would like to make the case for the
absence of development, for non-development, for
fields.
True fields, not sterile, cultivated city parks, are
havens within our chaotic urban spaces. Nature
finds a place in what ecologists describe as refuges,
epicentres of biodiversity thriving with wild plants,
insects, birds, reptiles and mammals, even more so if
these are linked via wildlife corridors. Opportunities
for food supply and enterprising urban foragers can
find a feast of fruit, nuts, leaves and fungi.
18 Legacy - Urban Research Collective
For the human population wild space allows
opportunities for unexpected exploration. Children
run, play and swing, adults hunt and ramble.
Psychologists point to the benefits of urban green
space, benefiting physical and mental health and
wellbeing, providing exercise and relaxation.
Now as our cities warm scientists have called green
space ‘a city’s lungs’, helping keep urban areas cool as
temperatures rise.
West Bromwich means ‘the little village on the
heath of broom’ and it grew up on the edge of the
heath upland. For years towns and villages existed
as part of the local geography, if not in balance with
nature at least in acknowledgement of it. Then came
the mines and factories, the heathland was drained.
Now they’re clearing it again to build a new Tesco,
with the hope of jobs and prosperity. Perhaps one
day more enlightened people will tear it down, flood
the heath and wait for the broom to return.
Photo credits
Dave Gee: Page 4, above: monument, West Funders
Bromwich High Street; below, redevelopment,
West Bromwich, Page 6, Sandwell College, West
Bromwich, Page 9, vinyl artwork, Wolverhampton
Railway Station, Page 10, above: yard, West
Bromwich; below, main entrance to The Public,
West Bromwich, Page 12, ‘The Lyng Reborn’,
regeneration partnership billboard, West Bromwich,
Page 13, above, hoarding around new Tesco
development, West Bromwich; below, market
trader, the ‘Golden Mile’, West Bromwich High
Street, Page 15, McDonald’s, West Bromwich town
centre.
Heather Ring: Page 17, The Public Ruin, photo-
montage

Legacy - Urban Research Collective 19

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http://urbanresearchcollective.wordpress.com

20 Legacy - Urban Research Collective