New Street Lamps for Pitmuxton.

Boring alert. Trainspotting alert.

Mmmm. Indeed. At first glance, a predisposition to be interested in such things; the routine replacement of vital street furniture/infastructure does seem a little, well, obsessive. But bear with us, we've got a point to make.

There can be no doubt that the streetlamps on some of the side streets of Pitmuxton had, um, reached the end of their life.

Not looking good.

And so to rest.

Brushed burnished.

Aluminium oxidised.

At eye-level, during the daytime, we like the new aluminium standards, we like the way the bare metal oxidises into crystal forms resembling camouflage shapes, and we like the fact that the standards are zero maintenance.

However, what we don't like is the extreme white brightness of the new lamps which have been installed on the main roads. We think that not enough research has been done into the effect that this extreme bright whiteness has on the livability of our streets. One might intuitively think that brighter is better, that this will improve visibility, that this will be a disincentive to crime, that it will improve road safety etc.

But, we believe that these lights have been specified by someone who does not ever walk the streets after the sun has gone down. Counterintuitively, we've found that the effect of these lights is to increase contrast, to deepen shadows, to dazzle the eyes and so to make visibility worse.

When we walk out at night, we find that our sightlines are overwhelmed with the glare of these new lights. Oncoming pedestrians who walk towards us are wreathed in silhouette shadow, we can discern faces and clothing detail less well than was possible before because the glare of the overly bright lights has stopped down our pupils to pinpricks and has effectively blinded us to human scale detail.

Human eyes are perfectly capable of operating in low-light, having evolved over millions of years operating in naturally low-light conditions. By attempting to turn night into day and shining lights as bright as can be wrangled directly into the eyes of pedestrians, the designers of our urban environment have dismissed this human heritage. It is clear that they have chosen these ultra-bright white lights to improve contrast, rather than allow human vision to discern fine detail. The night-time town is now a place with lighting highly suited to reading traffic signs and road-markings - high contrast items. But the light which falls on the pavement is not now suitable for identifying the faces of oncoming people on foot.

This choice has been driven by the needs of car drivers traveling at speed, and so normalises high speed motoring during the hours of darkness. By choosing to design the night-time townscape exclusively for the needs of motorists, our planners have turned the town into a high-contrast environment suitable for viewing at speed from behind a windscreen. They have struck another alienating blow against the needs of pedestrians. Thanks for that.

Unknown Stones - Rosemount.

The city, having evolved to its current state over many centuries, contains many signs and signifiers, artifacts and arrangements which encode the events of the urban story and which can be understood by anyone who possesses the key to the code. Sometimes the key is apparent, often it is not. A good example of this type of artifact is Aberdeen's system of boundary stones - the March Stones - which we've been exploring over the weeks and months.

All of the March Stones are in plain view, but sometimes they are difficult to see. That's partially because our modern perception is simply not focussed upon estate boundaries; we've no need to know of rights of way along free byways and waterways or any other feudal concerns. During the psychogeographical process of exploring these boundary markers we had to learn where and how to look, where to direct our cognition so that we could locate the artifacts.

So, once we had those eyes switched on (as it were) - once we'd directed our consciousness towards ancient boundaries, where they might be and how they might be marked - we coincidentally found other stone marks and markers, signifiers of past property or infrastructure and not registered on the council's reference pages.

Back in November, we documented some of these 'Unknown Stones' which we'd seen around Ferryhill.

We've been wandering the Green Lanes of Rosemount this week, and we saw these:

Groove-marked stone - Watson Lane

Groove-marked stone - Watson Lane

M&C marked stone - Loanhead Walk Lane

These stones (and many others) appear on the first large scale OS map of Aberdeen, which was drawn in 1869.

The Ongoing Yellowing of Aberdeen

We've already mentioned once or twice over the months the yellowing of some buildings in Aberdeen, and the possible mechanism which is causing it as contractors botch attempts at cleaning the old stone.

This one, on Ferryhill's Crown St. is the worst we've seen yet:

Solidarity With Egypt is Restorative Therapy for Aberdeen.

As Aberdeen today (well, Saturday actually) stands in solidarity with the people of Egypt in their quest for self determination we are proud that our town can play host to this demonstration.



We are proud, as this represents a restorative and healing recompense for a wrong done to Egypt and Egyptians by Aberdonians during the heyday of the British Empire. Once, long ago, the militant imperialist armed wing of the people of Aberdeen (in the form of The Gordon Highlanders) was by force of arms instrumental in denying that same Egyptian people any hope of self determination or freedom.

Devils in Skirts

There's a memorial in the Duthie Park which glorifies the three dead Gordon Highlanders, casualties of the campaign to suppress an Egyptian "revolt" in 1882. (NB, this memorial is to the very few local dead on 'our' side only - there's no mention of the Egyptian dead, of whom there were thousands.)

Inscription reads:
Erected by the Officers, NC Officers and Men of the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders
to the memory of their comrades who were killed in action or who died of wounds or of disease
contracted during the Egyptian Campaign 1882.
Captain D.L. Baynes
Leut A. C. Pirie
Leut H. C. Brooks

We find it astonishing that this memorial remains in place to this day without a corresponding acknowledgement of the dead on the 'enemy' side. All were victims of war. Victims we realise all the more when we learn that the campaign was principally conducted at the behest of the Suez Canal Co. in support of their commercial monopoly.

We are pleased that this shameful historical stain on our civic character is now fading. By Aberdeen's hosting of and Aberdonians' participation in the pro-democracy demo in solidarity with the Egyptian people on Saturday let's hope we can, in some small way, begin to apologise and make amends for our brutal and uncivilised behaviour during Britain's imperial era.


Edit -

Further interesting aspects of this episode and memorial come to mind...

• Not long having completed the process of smashing the clan system, deforesting the highlands and cleansing it of it's indiginous people in favour of a class of aristocratic land monopolosts, the British state - in the form of this memorial (amongst many other things) - sought to co-opt Celtic culture (as well as manpower) in the service of its imperial adventurism.
• Armed, as they were, by Prussia's favourite heavy arms manufacturer Kanone König (Canon King) Alfred Krupp of Essen, the Egyptian 'rebels' were merely proxy pawns in the great game of European power plays which culminated in the mass slaughter of the  Great War.

Skybranding.

A brief follow-up to our ongoing "dunno" about whether we like or dislike the redevelopment of Justice Mill Lane.

We were intrigued by the double-handed backhand technique exhibited by renowned local architect Norman Marr in the award citation given to the IQ/Radisson Park Inn building at the 2010 Aberdeen Civic Society Awards (PDF here - see p4). The citation demonstrates what we believe is called "plausible deniability", and Mr Marr himself deserves a Blondin Award for his rhetorical high wire act.

There can be no doubt that the blight, vacancy, neglect, filth and dilapidation which characterised the location until recently was a blot. We're definitely glad to see it gone and we believe that hotel accommodation and commercial offices are ideal uses for such a central business district location. The question remains, though: Should we praise what we've now got on this site, simply because it's better than waste ground? Or should we be more critical, believing that the site deserved buildings of better quality and/or execution?

Well, we're still not ready to decide.

But today we'll draw attention to something we most certainly do not like: The new terrace of buildings has annexed the skyline with vulgar commercial branding.

Both from the West.

And from the East.

We dislike this brash subsumption of our town's skyline under these commercial banners. It serves as a psychogeographical negative, a minus point, a black mark towards our eventual evaluation of this new piece of urban placemaking.

Cognitive Dissonance, Churnalism, Think Tanks, Category Errors and Social Division

We couldn't help but wonder at the brain-clanging contradiction of some of the news about and affecting Aberdeen this week.

Firstly, on Monday, we had very upbeat local press and TV reports "Aberdeen to lead in economic recovery" This is from local TV station STV.

Aberdeen has been named one of the “cities to watch” as it is predicted to help Scotland come out of the recession and be protected from the effects of the Government's spending cuts.

The Grantite city is best-insulated from the economic impact of the government's spending squeeze and the best-placed to grow out of the economic downturn, the Center for Cities said.

Well, that sounds like great news! We noticed that local newspaper The Press and Journal (P&J) displayed street banners which said something like "Aberdeen: The Economic Dynamo That Will Pull UK Out Of Recession". (To be as fair as possible, the actual headline was marginally less hubristic "Aberdeen a key city to power UK recovery". Yet the following day we saw: City council confirms 900 jobs to go. And the day after: Double-dip fears grow as recovery nosedives. So, what's really going on? This needs a closer look...

The articles on the Monday spoke to and of a certain hubristic character in Aberdeen, one which we've mentioned before, and one which novelist Christopher Brookmyre fingered in his novel A Big Boy Did it and Ran Away.

Europe's Oil Capital. Honestly. The first time he heard the expression, he'd assumed it was a bit of self deprecatory humour. That was before he learned that there was no such thing as self-deprecatory humour in Aberdeen, particularly when it came to the town's utterly unfounded conceit of itself. It was a provincial fishing port that had struck it astronomically lucky with the discovery of North Sea oil, and the result was comparable to a country bumkin who had won the lottery, minus the dopey grin and colossal sense of incredulous gratitude. The prevalent local delusion wasn't that the town had merely been in the right place at the right time, but that it had somehow done something to deserve this massive good fortune, and not before time either.

We remember similar reportage in May last year when Aberdeen was given a "Top Rating" in an international survey for quality of life. What the local press failed to report then was the context of the survey. While rightly saying that "London is the only British city placed higher than Aberdeen", what the report did not say was that only 2 towns in Scotland were included in the survey; Glasgow and Aberdeen. In the the rest of the UK, the report only included the four towns Belfast, Birmingham, London and Oxford. We all know that the results would have been very different if had included the likes of Manchester, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, York, Norwich, Brighton, Portsmouth, Southampton, Leicester, Swansea, etc. all of which were excluded from the survey.

Moreover, a little look at what exactly the purposes of the survey were proved enlightening. The survey was undertaken by global human resources consultancy employment agency Mercer. One of the activities of Mercer being to set up global moves for expatriate employees for whom they are agents. The quality of life survey is produced by them to help employees demand 'compensation' from their employers by way of hardship payments. The baseline is 100. Aberdeen's ranks below that 100 base. We might therefore provide our local press with an alternate headline:

Human Resource experts recommend hardship payments for international workers coming to Aberdeen.

But that wouldn't play well to our civic hubris reality distortion field, would it?

Returning to this week's overblown press reports of Aberdeen's economic dynamism, we note that the stories were prompted by this press release from the Centre for Cities "think tank". We can see that both the STV and P&J reports have simply cut-and-pasted text from the press release into their reports. This process is known as "churnalism", a practice exposed in depth in Nick Davies book Flat Earth News. The book was reviewed at the time in The Independent Newspaper as painting "a damning picture of a dysfunctional national press which is spoon fed by government and PR agencies and incorporates wire copy into stories without the most cursory fact checking." Clearly this practice is as widespread, if not more so, in the regional press as in the national.

The Centre for Cities think tank (or "policy institute") declares itself as independent and non-partisan. Fair enough. In the same declaration they say that they are committed to improving the economic performance of UK cities - but there is no immediate mention of the social, environmental or communitarian aspects of the urban sphere. Cities are, of course, more than just the sum of the businesses which operate in them. The Centre for Cities does recognise this, and in their report "Grand Designs" heralds and recommends a wholistic approach to urban liveability, which they recognise as a prerequisite of improved economic performance. They say:

• Local and national politicians should accept that using regeneration plans to ‘go for growth’ hasn’t worked in every urban neighbourhood and can have negative as well as positive consequences on a city’s economy and residents.
• A new way forward might mean building a park rather than a science park, or turning tiny terraces into larger homes, rather than knocking them down and building one bed flats. Communities should be given the power to decide on plans, testing out the neighbourhood planning approach expected in the Localism Bill.

Naturally, we approve. These recommendations are, of course, in contrast to initiatives announced and facts on the ground here in Aberdeen. And, unfortunately, in the Cities Outlook 2011 report (PDF), the Centre for Cities has looked only at the broad statistics which relate to economic performance without looking at the context in which those statistics sit.

For instance, the report is completely correct to point out that unemployment is low in Aberdeen when compared to the national average. But this is also true of other areas which are either rural or have a large agricultural hinterland and, therefore, primary-sector economies. Orkney, for instance, has lower unemployment than Aberdeen. It doesn't make Aberdeen a place with an especially dynamic or diverse and nimble economy. Check out our earlier post about Dutch Disease. Primary sector economies (agriculture, fisheries and resource extraction) have a lower equilibrium (or 'natural') rate of unemployment than economies based upon manufacturing, retail and services. In this second category a higher equilibrium rate of unemployment is required to maintain the profit rate. As the economy approaches full employment, wages are bid up and a crisis of profitability ensues (UK 1960 - 1973). In primary sector economies, no such 'reserve army of labour' is required, as wages are determined by yields and commodity prices, while the profit rate remains constant.

The Cities Outlook 2011 report compares Aberdeen with Milton Keynes, Reading, Leeds and Bristol. We feel that this is not comparing like with like. These other cities have diverse economies based on businesses which operate in secondary sector (value-added manufacturing) and tertiary sector (services). These four other cities create their prosperity and wealth via the judicious operation of capital combined with innovation which creates value. In Aberdeen, our primary sector economy dictates that we primarily sook what wealth we have from beneath the seabed, the value of that wealth being determined on international markets which no amount of local innovation or judicious operation of local capital will influence.

The Centre for Cities made a category error when they linked Aberdeen with these other four cities. Our local press has compounded and exaggerated this error, and indeed today continues to do so, calling for next generation broadband connectivity to "let Aberdeen lead [the economic] recovery". We are exasperated that this boosterism based upon fallacy continues to characterise our town, both in the local press and amongst credulous bloggers who's cupidity is such that they allow it to amplify their gullibility.

Now, let us not be misunderstood, there's much to be proud of in the business sphere in Aberdeen. But there's no need to try to enhance these good things with slavish cant which actually misrepresents reality. To do so devalues that which is genuinely good and praiseworthy. To do so undermines our standing amongst our competitor regions. And to do so undermines calls for the greater support from central government which will be necessary if we are to progress successfully through the transition to renewable energy. The rebalancing of our economy means changing from reliance on primary sector activity into exploiting secondary and tertiary sectors in the burgeoning renewable energy market. This will not be easy.

Despite all this, the reports are right to an extent. High oil prices do mean that the immediate and medium terms looks like being a profitable time for our local primary sector industry. However, affluence for some is not the same thing as wealth for our town as a whole. Aberdeen is already one of the most socially divided towns in the UK, with the most uneven income distribution in Scotland. The immediate economic prospects for our town suggest that this trend will only continue.

A handful of extremely wealthy tycoons and their executives will give our town a veneer of affluence, while the remains of the city and its society rot away beneath. Outsiders like the Centre for Cities might continue to see the veneer. Aberdonians will have to live with the rot.

Contaminated.

Unfortunately, though we greatly prefer not to, from time to time necessity brings us to the Bridge of Dee Parking and Shopping Experience. It always leaves us feeling a bit dirty (metaphorically). Today, we learned that it literally makes us dirty, inside and out. Contaminated. Polluted.

Not in the least bit dehumanising.

One day soon, we'll do a full psychogeographical exposé of the zone which sits on the broad flat floodplain of the Ruthrieston Burn. But not today - we've got more indignant fish to fry.

A few years ago, following an overwhelming inflow of transatlantic capital, farmers co-operative ASDA became an arm of joint stock/private equity Wal-Mart and expanded exponentially on their site at the Bridge of Dee. Their premises and carpark were renewed and in the process part of the Ruthrieston Playing Fields was annexed. By way of a bewildering social payment sweetener the Wal-Mart management paid to also have part of the playing fields fenced off and covered in astroturf. Something to do with the formal to the real subsumption of leisure (as well as labour) under capital, probably.

We walked past this privatised and artificialised part of the playing fields on our way back to Pitmuxton via the Old Deeside Line. And a horrifying sight transfixed us.

Eeewww!

A great deal of snow fell on Aberdeen during November and December, and that snow, having been cleared from the pathways and carparks and the astroturf surface was piled up in huge berms. Over the weeks since, these snow-piles have been melting and leaving their formerly hidden toxic payload in situ.

This cargo of filth, this residue of disgusting dirt was consigned within the snow which had pulled it, dissolved it, from the very atmosphere through which it fell and which surrounded it as it lay in drifts and piles. Hidden in the pure white drifts and blankets, this toxic lading was concealed, now revealed as the water and ice which fixed it from the sky dissipates.

As we survey the huge double-deck Wal-Mart carpark, the carpark of Boots and PC World, the carparks of B&Q and Sainsbury's, so close to the playing fields where youngsters run and shout (albeit on an artificial surface, behind a fence, their leisure bought and paid for and itself generating revenue) we need not ask the source of this polluting filth, this literal and metaphorical stain.

But what we should ask is whether it is right for young people to be exercising aerobically in such a polluted atmosphere. We will not waste our effort in calling for a reduction in the provision of parking spaces; the exigencies of local realpolitic are far more likely to acknowledge the "facts on the ground" and close the playing fields - thus allowing Wal-Mart to further expand their car-park.

Splendid.

Big Brother is Now Listening.

If you pause for a serene moment while walking or cycling down Aberdeen's Airyhall Road / Rocklands Road at sunrise you might be treated to a view of crepuscular rays.

Which is nice.

Buddha's Fingers. Sun Drawing Water. Ropes of Maui.

By chance, I'd stopped at the rear gate of the new private sector International School of Aberdeen at Pitfodels. Where I discovered that they reserve the right to surveil me not only by image capture, but also by audio recording. For my personal safety!

Operators name and contact details left blank, we notice.

Which is less nice.

According to their website, the International School of Aberdeen provides:
(Their emphasis.)

"a safe and caring learning environment where students are challenged to reach their maximum potential through academic success and personal growth, becoming socially responsible and active global citizens." 

Indeed. One of the ways in which they hope to achieve this "mission" is to spy upon passers-by who use the ancient right-of-way which runs past the rear of their high-tech new building.

We cannot help thinking that rather than producing high-school graduates who are "socially responsible and active global citizens", the poor expat kids who are educated behind this ring of stone and steel which bristles with such suspicion are more likely being engineered to become socially paranoid and insular, segregated from the society in which they live - implicitly and explicitly being taught that those who live in that society need watching. And listening out for.

Why do they want to hear us as well as watch?

Rubislaw Quarry. Update.

A lovely day for a look at the quarry loch.

Some months ago, we conducted a thought experiment with the water in Rubislaw Quarry Loch as the subject.

We'd been prompted by news coverage that the quarry loch had been purchased by Sandy & Hugh, friends of a friend of a relative of ours. They refused to confirm exactly how much they'd paid, only going as far as saying that it was "less than a one-bedroom flat". A reasonable answer to why anyone would want to buy such an obvious liability was, similarly, not forthcoming.

So we'd gone and had a look at the site where the great part of the stone for Aberdeen's 19th and 20th century buildings had been extracted. We were impressed by the level of water which had filled the 200 metre deep hole. Indeed, by dead reckoning from our viewpoint we could see that the level of water was higher than Aberdeen's prestigious, upscale Queen's Road, which orbits the south of the site.

This might be something to be concerned with, as we darkly fantasised at the time. [For those not familiar with Aberdeen - this site is in the very centre of the affluent and aspirational "West End" of the town. Just to the west of the town centre; an area of tree-lined avenues, stately terraces and the modernist offices of Big Oil. This is an inner urban issue.]

Returning to view the quarry loch some six months later (again, to our chagrin, neglecting to bring along the Other Aberdeen theodolite) we were forced to use dead reckoning and pour over the photographic evidence which we gathered. Loupe to eye, we can confirm that, in our opinion, the water level has risen about 1.5 metres in the last six months.

Is this really a cause for concern? Truthfully, we don't know. But what we can say is that published minutes of Queens Cross/Harlaw Community Council for November and December 2010 reveal that the Community Council has significant concerns.

It seems that since November 2010, the Community Council has been in disappointingly one-way correspondence with Sandy & Hugh regarding their intentions for the quarry loch, and seeking information on whether any progress had been achieved in their discussions with civil engineers at Aberdeen University regarding means of permanently reducing the water level.

No response has been forthcoming from the grinning new owners who say they want to "share" the quarry loch with the residents of Aberdeen. Just what form this "sharing" will take is what worries us!

Sandy & Hugh: Silence.

Living in the heart of upscale downtown Pitmuxton (down the hill from Rubislaw), as we do, we'd very much like to have an answer from Sandy & Hugh.

We can attest that the Damoclean threat of two megatonnes of water thundering down the valleys of first the Holburn, then Geldieburn then Newlands burn and Ruthrieston Burn on the way to washing the entirity of the Bridge of Dee parking and shopping experience into the Foords of Dee is an intolerable source of fretful stress to the residents of Pitmuxton, and may have an adverse impact upon the upscale and aspirational character of the neighbourhood, thus rendering it less nice. (But what really bothers us is that Ferryhill is well out of the way of this threat. Dammit.)

We'll be following the future minutes of Queen's Cross/Harlaw Community Council with close attention.

Urban Dual Carriageways. The Future from the Past.

As our council continues pushing ahead with measures to "enhance" traffic flow at speed into the heart of the town centre to the exclusion of other transport options via the controversial "Berryden Corridor" (pdf) urban dual carriageway project, we continue to be nonplussed that such a discredited policy for traffic management continues to even be considered, let alone implemented.

It is telling that the report linked above is titled "Berryden Corridor Improvements", thus prejudicing it's own conclusions. That the creation of extra road-space exclusively for motor transport is an "improvement" is a conclusion which is increasingly seen as mistaken. We have written on this subject on one or two occasions before.

We so very much wish that it were true that congestion could be solved by the simple, seemingly common-sense expedient of building more roads. But, unfortunately, world-wide and decades-long experience of the building of relief-roads, bypasses and linkroads confirms without even a hint of doubt that it is not.

Note the "Proposed foot bridge over railway line".
Thanks for that.
As if this new pedestrian link will compensate for loss of
pedestrian permeability throughout the length of this new "corridor"
all the way from Woodside Fountain to Skene Square.

More and more, in every part of the world from Australia through Asia to Europe and even including the USA where the car is King, it is realised that more roads means more congestion and that the only thing which will reduce congestion is a policy which delivers fewer journeys undertaken by car.

It's a cliché and a truism to say that one of the definitions of madness is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. So why do we expect that building additional road capacity will have a different effect this time? It will not; it will merely impoverish us by further devastating parts of our town which are already suffering blight and degeneration.

We are reminded of lessons unlearned elsewhere:

From Report on A highway Plan for Glasgow 1965.

These paper-bound utopian visions, unfortunately, turned into an alienating horror in the real world.

From At War With the Motorist's splendidly psychogeographically logged visit to Glasgow: Crap cycling and walking in car sick Glasgow.

Glasgow continues on to repeat the same errors with new urban motorway and dual carriageway projects. It seems that we in Aberdeen cannot bear to be left out. As one commenter puts it: "Why would anyone want to walk anywhere when they can drive through the remains of the city at 50mph." And another: "Worth every penny, so it is. Heaven forbid that anybody might have to go anywhere, anytime at less than a respectable 60mph."

Should the Berryden Corridor urban dual carriageway be built as proposed, it will fulfil one function only - it will bring more motor traffic into the centre of town at an increased speed. From this function, effects flow: It will increase congestion; it will increase noise and atmospheric pollution; it will act as a barrier to east-west permeability and mobility for pedestrians and cyclists; it will isolate communities and it will have a detrimental impact upon the liveability of the inner part of our town north of the centre. It will thus increase social exclusion and alienation. This is the direct opposite of the study aims which, in the very first paragraph state that the project will "contribute to making Aberdeen’s transport network more efficient and sustainable over the coming years, ensuring that the city remains an attractive place to live, visit and work."


In the past, we have praised Aberdeen's surprisingly good cycling profile and we regularly revel in it's fantastic network of quiet and serene pedestrian paths which take walkers away from the stress of interacting with motor traffic.

We'd hate to have to reverse our position on this, particularly when our non-car infrastructure is beginning to gain International Fame.

Building Societies to Pawnbrokers. Doughnuts to Donuts.

Timely and perceptive article in today's Financial Times (registration required):
The changing face of Britain’s high streets

Today’s high street is very different to a snapshot of the average one in October 2008, a month after the Lehman collapse.

Building societies, recruitment agencies, estate agents and pubs have vanished from neighbourhood shopping streets, according to data compiled by the Ordnance Survey, the national mapping agency.

However, not everybody is shutting up shop. High street bookmakers were the only category to see significant growth, with their numbers up 5 per cent over the two-year period.

Demand from pound shops, pawnbrokers and bakers is also in evidence, demonstrating the increasing social stratification of the high street as wealthier shoppers drive to out-of-town retail parks and malls.

And saucy FT comment here:
Lombard: Bookies inherit the high street

The meek will inherit the earth, but the bookies are inheriting the high street.

Building societies, temples of prudence staffed by priestesses in polycotton, are closing branches by the thousand. Betting shops are springing up instead, luring the populace with the cash-gulping idols that are fixed-odds gambling machines.

We've certainly noticed this happening in Aberdeen. Pawnbrokers, pay-day-advance moneylenders, pound shops and plush-looking bookies (bookasinos) all join the dots with vacancy, dilapidation and blight to plot a psychogeographical picture of our transvolving town.

From The Economist:

The British doughnut, a lump of indifferent carbohydrate with jam in the middle, describes rich inner-city development surrounded by acres of gloom.

Easy credit money flows into city-centre apartment and commercial development in the 1990's and early 2000's. The near-centre residential and light-industrial zone which surrounds the centre is abandoned. That was then, but now...

The “doughnut effect" ... confusingly describes the opposite phenomenon to the “donut effect” that American planners talk of. The American donut, a sugary ring with an empty centre, is a fine metaphor for the rich suburbs around a collapsed inner city.

...the British  "Doughnut Effect" of the 1990's and 2000's turns out to be a chimera, a bubble blown by easy finance and collapses into the American "Donut Effect" after all. Confusing.

However, in Aberdeen we are optimistic that not all is lost. We have noticed some multiple grocery retailers (Tesco, Sainsbury, Co-op) beginning to re-occupy medium-sized and small town centre and local node sites. These car-park-less small scale need-responsive shops are designed not for customers to buy a month's worth of food, but rather just to pop in for something which is needed today. The large multiples are going back to the future and re-inventing the corner shop. Indeed, the Co-op's TV advertising campaign seeks to make capital of the fact that that, as a customer on foot - buying food fresh whenyou need it - you reject car culture and contribute to the pleasant livability of the town and your own well being and quality of life. But then, the Co-op are just a bunch of communists. 

As opposing forces both seek to hollow out and re-occupy the town simultaneously, we are thrilled by the dynamic of this unfolding urban narrative. We are particularly interested in the fact that Tesco, for one, seem to be playing on both sides.

We truly have no idea where to place our bets on how it will land.

Granite Crisis!

Over the years that we've lived in Aberdeen, we've noticed a tendency amongst the population: an odd attachment to "The Granite" and a willingness to fetishise it beyond reason. We find it odd, because there's nothing unusual in a town to being so homologous in its predominant construction material - most are.

Let's be sure not to be misunderstood. The architecture of late 19th and early 20th Century Aberdeen is unquestionably magnificent and praiseworthy. But this is now the early 21st Century. Architectural alternatives to the still-prevailing Victorian paradigm do actually exist and we should not be afraid of them. Indeed it's true that the dove-grey and shimmering stone from Kemnay and Rubislaw and other quarries is a very high quality building material, but - in the final analysis - a building material is all it is. And now there's none left that can be economically extracted. Alternatives do exist; we should, similarly, not be afraid of them either. Indeed, our irrational attachment to "The Granite" might now have more psychogeographical drawbacks for us than it has benefits.

We are nonplussed that every so often there's talk of a "Granite Museum" (!). We are perplexed that Big Oil manages to manufacture consent amongst the population by paying documentary-film lipservice to our town's granite heritage. And we are downright confused that "matching" granite for new development is sourced from far-flung quarries on the other side of the world. Why is it necessary that new buildings ape the old in every possible respect? If there's one good thing to be said about Stewart Milne's risibly Disneyesque Dalhebity House, it's that he chose to transcend the granite paradigm, build it from sandstone and so perhaps set a precedent which will allow our town to move on.

Next, we are faintly embarassed that Aberdonians continue to boast of Marischal College: "The Second Largest Granite Building in the World." Honestly, "second largest". It's like that Community Chest card you get in Monopoly: "Congratulations, you have won second prize in a beauty contest". It's an insult. We insult ourselves with this bathetic and vainglorious hubris.

We also feel that -  just as the Georgian/Victorian fakery of kilt and highland games and gathering of the clans to this day helps keep Scotland down: in its place, in the past - likewise this fetishisation beyond reason of our granite heritage has the potential to act as a brake upon the realisation of a progressive Aberdeen of the future.

But finally, and most importantly, (and it is important that we admit this), The Granite is now, after a hundred years in situ, mostly just a disgusting mess.

Truly horrid

Disgusting

Embarrassing (click the pic to see the full-size HORROR!)

Foul

We have already discussed on more than one occasion the difficulties and pit-falls which are experienced when building owners attempt to clean their facades. Aberdeen is turning yellow with the failures.

And then, if a building is successfully cleaned, it merely serves to highlight the grimy dilapidation of its neighbours.

Dirty to the left, as if new to the right.

Given all this, we think it's now time to think the unthinkable, time to slaughter a few sacred cows. Now is the time to break this restrictive tabu.

We are prepared to offer a radical solution:


Paint these troublesome buildings. 

A precident already exists in Aberdeen. Rather than clean modernist concrete buildings, many have recently had their fascias painted. Johnstone House in Rose St. is the first which comes to mind, and we think that Shell's Aztec Ziggurat at Altens Farm Road recently got the treatment too.

Baby blue Johnstone House

Indeed, Aberdeen has some modernist tower blocks which combine concrete elements with granite rubble decorative insets. These have been painted. Nobody moaned.

before

after

Looks great. As if brand new.

The benefits of painted facades for Aberdeen's troublesome granite buildings are manifold: The building's facade becomes flexible and easily and cheaply refreshable - changeable to suit fashion or function, whim or caprice; we could at last move away from our dour "Granite City" image and become something altogether more attractive and approachable - the "Ice Cream Pastel City by the Sea"; in the fulness of time, this could become a distinct new aspect to our heritage - unique in the UK - perhaps at long last we would gain the spot on the tourist map which we deserve.

Here are some examples from Do You Know:

Of course, not all of these will be to everyone's taste, but that's part of the beauty of the idea - it's diverse, thought provoking, de-familiarising and playful. And, once you've made the leap to decide to paint a building, you have literally rendered it's appearance infinitely changeable.

[Puts on flame-proof boiler-suit]