Sizing the City

about birmingham: spaces and places

Have you thought our future could be in horticulture? Do you know about Digbeth? That cattle graze on wetlands within the city boundaries? That peregrines roost in the tallest building in the city? That we have, it is said, more trees per acre than any other European city? That we have the only known vinegar viaduct over a motorway in the world (possibly the galaxy)? That the City Council gave permission for the A38M to carve through the grounds of Aston Hall?

Of Matthew Boulton’s Birmingham, little is actually left. In contrast, Birmingham's Victorian decision-makers left us factories, houses, libraries, schools, public baths — and many still used. Their concerns were evidently in work and the making of things, and in the health and education of the many thousands of people who flocked to the city for work.

What will be the long-term legacy of the city’s post-war decision-makers?

We have the vast private and Council estates, some on that was rural or semi-rural land. The post-War 'redevelopment' led to a quarter of a million Council dwellings being built on 'slum' clearance contributing to Birmingham becoming Europe's largest landlord. The legacy of the 60s decision-making is also seen in the weather-ravaged police HQ of Lloyd House, the bleakness of Newtown Swimming Baths, the windswept traffic congested Fiveways and John Madin’s Central Library as well as the underpasses and fly-overs of the Inner Ring Road which, designed to move traffic from the city centre, also removed people from it. In the late 80s, planners broke this stranglehold over the city centre, making it easy to walk into the city centre by most (but alas still not all*) routes.

In the 60s and 70s, the planners still left large tracts of open lands and woods — the much-loved Lickeys, the Clents, what is now Sandwell Valley and the ancient Sutton Park, as well as the many other parks, reservoirs and canals.

Today's decision-makers, as those of previous generations, still do not collectively reflect the demographics of the residents, by race now as well as by gender. What will exist as a result of their efforts, the Big City Plan and Birmingham 2026, when it is Boulton’s tricentennial in 2109? Will Selfridges exist? Will the new Library of Birmingham be a more successful a place functionally and aesthetically than today's Central Library . . .

* After 40 years living here, I managed to lead a visitor into a concrete cul de sac under the Copthorne Hotel; Brum is still sometimes an impossible city to 'read' . . . we were trying to get from the Jewellery Quarter to the Hudson's Coffee Shop in the Grade I-listed 122-124 Colmore Row.