its still quite easy to see why the mayflower set sail ...
I have written a few little home truths about this sorry little place, ( see previous posts entitled : Plymouth ) as over the years I have come to know this place inside and out its geography , its history , its politics , its people , and I have kind of developed a mind acceptance of it as it is ... this is not a good thing !!! but from previous experience of trying to do anything here I know that the whole thing is futile !! it is the place most like London outside of London that I have ever come across ....the scale of arrogance ... does not reflect the scale of actual assets x
like when I sigh and shrug my shoulders and simply say to my self ' Donald Trump ' ... I kind of do the same thing here ... I see some grotesque urban decay with some governemtn logo and mantra sprawled all over it .. dripping with unintended irony ... and I simply shrug and say ' Plymouth '
( I was using the cornsh side of the tamar to fix up one of these little boats so I had to traverse Plymouth quite a few times, so I will add to this post with additional imagery and condescension a little later )
update as promised :
uurrrggghh Plymouth .... well what else can I say about Plymouth ?? it looks like some impression of a poorly managed former communist block country, I do tend to spend as much of my time on the ground in these places when I am here ...... and they say that a picture can convey a thousand words ....
this is the outskirts of the place .... and from a distance it really can look quite appealing ... on a sunny day ... especially if you look at it from the Cornish side of the river, but take a little deeper glance of the city itself .. from within the inner confines
there is of course plenty of these weird filing cabinets for the socially and mentally challenged , but these things are apparent the world over ... anywhere there is a little spit of water , the developers have lined with these rather expensive cells for the perpetually deranged .... this kind of isolating urban planning I have attempted to sympathize with in several locations ... but as the band aid over the would conceals the gaping bloody monstrous truth of the affliction , so do these weird little plastic hubs conceal the true face of a place behind some mass produced corporate engineered , Margaret thatcher inspired, overpriced hotel room with a minor extension .... a bargain ( ahem ) for a domicile option .....
as you continue east ... and head deeper into the urbanised concrete carbuncle you will find the earlier drafts that led to this kind of housing option becoming acceptable to those who just don't know any better ....
Union Street used to be a rather busy little social hub ,.... when I was attending college here this was the place that had the largest concentration of club venues and social options a great little burb the whole street would bustle with revellers and drinkers and food and drink and traffic .... now maybe penalised because of its name .... is nothing more than an empty shell of poorly dilapidated buildings and reclaimed furniture stores ....
the access from here to the main central commercial hub in the city used to be lined with a variety of small and large businesses alike ... the multi story carpark although a concrete carbuncle, used to at least have a integrated coating of climbing vines and foliage .... but I suppose that ruralisation that requires zero maintenance must be too expensive for the city .... so instead of leaving it alone ... they went to the expense of actually removing this mild aesthetically pleasing covering
and of course the city would love you to believe that business is booming ... and what better way to demonstrate than to get some weird sinister corporation known only as ' the student housing company ' to build a replica of the tower of Babylon ... of course this isn't earmarked for any of the actual inhabitants of the cities communities ... this is for the thousands of students that have been completely priced out of the education system that now costs tens of thousands to even attend .... and lets not get too dragged down in the question of whether the sub par education available is even worth paying for in the first place
the above two shots really encompass the urban excess that has saturated this city, the original designers of this at least envisaged a tree lined street with gardens and inter related green spaces .... now of course its just car parking/ pot holes and heroin needles
the train station that welcomes the would be flood of new blood ....is as busy as ever ... but with rail fares being what they are ... and some fascist turnstile system that is sure to put the actual human employee out of business .... it really is like ' hey do you remember those prophetic movies and medias from the 1980's of big grey slums ....filled with a desperate populace ' yeah well we decided to do that .... of course that was before the strange propaganda campaign of the friends sitcom and the like ... encouraged a whole generation that is o.k to live this way ... because you can go for coffee and shit .....
bleak just isn't the word for it .... unfortunately this seems to have not only become the acceptable paradigm for so many of our urban spaces across the whole country .... but it is actually spreading further afield ... not only that ... but people are still literally queuing up to acquire the debt ( from a banking sector that not only caused one of the worst economic crashes of all time but are still charging all of us for that privilege ) to become permanently responsible for their own little bit of it ..... and not that they will then go out and regenerate and rejuvenate the landscape they have become invested in to the tune of 175,000 ... no they will fill one of the tiny rooms that over look a roundabout full of potholes with the biggest screen they can find ... so that they can slowly monoxide themselves with bad air quality while staring at the latest wall sized advert offering reassurances that .... if you just buy a new kitchen or sofa ... everything will be fine
I used to proclaim that we are all doomed .... and I used to say it in a kind of half serious tongue in cheek mockery ..... but I think that it might not be too far from the truth ....
millions of years of evolution and this is where we are people !! I have spent a large part of my adult life attempting to demonstrate an alternative version of this .... I have engaged in the politics and planning policy in a trying attempt to at least partially avoid the catastrophe that has become our modern civilisation ... especially with demonstrations such as this low ebb ... and worse !! and it has seemed to be completely futile .... I think that says more about the demographic though than the distributor ..... well at least I hope it does x x x
in the words of the fictitious character professor Farnsworth from the animated series futurama ....'' I don't want to live on this planet anymore ''
I know its terrible to be maon a place without being able to offer a viable alternative ... and the thing is I have attempted to offer some manner of council ...for the so called council, for a number of urban initiatives and have exhibited extensively throughout the city and surrounding areas a series of viabilities concerning urban planning and re ruralisation implementation techniques .... as well as a range of socially interactive options that have proven to be a valuable asset within the city , most cites , and indeed this city in particular ......all hope is not yet lost , if we can just shift the gears of their thinking to embrace the absolutely necessary change to enable the constituents of these emaciated urban areas the opportunity to engage with their environments , in a collaborative and worthwhile move in the inner city development drive .
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