So, just what will the future look like?

We've seen the future. We can afford it. Yes we can.

A gem from the home of dynamic capitalism:

The Future of Manufacturing is Local.

Think manufacturing, and most likely your brain defaults to abandoned factories, outsourcing and economically devastated regions like the Rust Belt ...

But there are many parts of this country [USA] where manufacturing is very much alive, albeit in a different form. The monolithic industry model — steel, oil, lumber, cars — has evolved into something more nimble and diversified. As this country continues to figure out how to crawl out of its economic despair, we could benefit from focusing on the shift.

The article quoted above comes from a design and architecture commentator on The NY Times' opinion pages. In that context our thoughts turn to the future for our own town as we read that oil and gas giant Statoil is re-considering the future of some of its North Sea activities.

Yes, they do make things

in San Francisco

We've said before that, at some point, we'll wish that we in Aberdeen had started the process of rebalancing our economy sooner than we have (indeed, have we started at all?) The article in the NY Times which examines the re-balancing of parts of the US economic activity towards a nimble and diversified model of re-thought manufacturing might provide us with some inspiration. The article focuses on the work of SFMade, a grass-roots bottom-up charitable organisation, which is demonstrating great success in providing real help in regenerating the shattered economy of California. The SFMade community (for that is what it now is) stands in contrast to top-down hierarchichal organisations such as local enterprise companies and chambers of commerce.

Key phrases stand out from the NY Times article:

Times have changed. So has business, and it's time to rethink, and indeed rebrand, American manufacturing. 

From one member of the SFMade community:

“For decades we have developed a culture of disposability — from consumer goods to medical instruments and machine tools. To fuel economic growth, marketers replaced longevity with planned obsolescence — and our mastery of technology has given birth to ever-accelerating unplanned obsolescence. I think there is increasing awareness that this is no longer sustainable on the scale we have developed.”

From another member:

“Pick your community well. You’re not there solely to make money; you’re there to play a larger role.”

About SFMade's corporate structure:

The decision to be a non-profit was borne out of the belief that trade organizations (like the Chamber of Commerce) often serve more of a business development function rather than address the needs of the local manufacturing community. In contrast to government-initiated programs, SFMade emerged from the community, the culmination of a grassroots movement. The group allows that community to reconnect, share resources, receive education and assistance on everything from zoning to sourcing to taxes.

It is particularly interesting to note that this important bottom-up work on economic rebalancing is being done in San Francisco. That's one of the cities used by Charles Landry as an exemplar of best practise for creative human-scale liveability during the recent presentation he gave in Aberdeen. The presentation was hosted by ACSEF (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future) at the event which marked the relaunch of their misconceived and controversial City Gardens Project which, if realised, would cause the destruction of Aberdeen's Union Terrace gardens. 

It is vital that we see alternatives to ACSEF's monolithic proposal emerge in Aberdeen. We believe that their top-down approach to regeneration is out of its time and reflects their inability to grasp the fundamental and disruptive change which the nature of capital is subject to at present. Where once capital was embodied in factories and large chunks or arrays of machinery; monolithic amounts of liquid currency, tracts of land and large workforces - today, rather, capital is increasingly ephemeral; being comprised of ideas and individuals; ones-and-zeroes and the people who've created them - and mercurial, being much more mobile and subject to the whims of fashion and disruptive innovation. Our oil industry heritage with its big lumps of machines and money, tracts of (seabed) land and traditional working practices - largely unchanged in decades - has ill-served our town in preparation for the furious pace of change which now predominates in the new world of creative and social capital. All that is solid melts into air. 

Torry Rocks!

In our own small way in Aberdeen, we have, perhaps the seed model of something resembling the SFMade movement in the Torry Retail Rocks initiative, where young people can get access to subsidised (otherwise vacant) retail and workshop space in Aberdeen's historic Torry area (it's its own town, really). The streetscape and livability is already improving along Torry's Victoria Road thanks to this grass-roots bootstrapping work. We believe that this sort of initiative, which resembles the granular scale of SFMade, has much more to offer Aberdeen by way of a sustainable economic future than anything which traditional capital (and the traditional thinking that implies) can offer.

We feel that ACSEF have only partially grasped this point that capital has now a much greater social and creative aspect than at any time before the rise of capitalism itself. That's why they give the appearance of believing that a huge real-estate deal at Union Terrace is the means by which Aberdeen's economic future can be secured. It is not. The truth is much more granular - fractal, even, and impossible to encompass within one man's "vision". 

While we've seen the future, we can't tell you exactly what it'll look like - this vision is panoramic, inclusive and cannot be assimilated in one glance. But we can tell you that we can easily afford to implement this vision. We can also tell you that we can't afford not to.

Private Enterprise Petit-Police at Union Square - UPDATE

Back in December, we posted about a bad experience at the hands of security staff at Aberdeen's controversial Union Square shopping centre. The post went viral, and to this day still generates a very high level of hits for this blog.

Yesterday, we received a comment on the original thread, which we thought warranted a blog-post all to itself, so here it is:

Interesting encounter this afternoon.

Had been for a meal in Yo Sushi with my sister and her two daughters (aged about six and seven I think). Afterwards one of them wanted to go on that trampoline / bungee rope thing in the main court. The child was happily springing up and down when one of the security guards approached us, pointed at a Japanese tourist taking photos, and asked if he was with us. 

We had never seen him before, so said no - at which they went over to him and demanded that he stopped taking photographs and leave.

My sister wasn't pleased with this and told the security guard that she was perfectly happy for him to take photographs if her children were fully closed and going about their normal activities, and felt the fact there was a problem with this was indicative of a sickness in society where everybody is under constant suspicion of being a paedophile.

Next up, the other Union Square person in charge of the trampolines got launched into a rather heated and patronizing flow - saying 'yes, they're fully clothed ... but what if he uses Photoshop to take your child's face and superimpose it onto a naked child's body" then he finished with "do you know how computers work?" - this was funny considering my sister did a post grad in computer programming and was a vice president at Deutsche Bank, working with computer security.

The first security guard went on to ask how she'd feel if she switched on her computer and was confronted by such a photograph - to which she replied that she wouldn't be seeing that on her computer because she wouldn't be looking for that sort of thing, and had filters to block it anyway. He then went on to say they had the same dangers when it came to people photographing the Union Square security cameras ... the photographer could be planning to blow up Union Square - or be a suicide bomber. My sister asked if they thought the tourist taking photos of her daughter was a suicide bomber? They said that you could never tell, he was ex-military, and these people are experts at covering their identity and could be wearing suits or anything.

By this point my sister was fairly openly laughing at them, and the security guards were pretty much shouting at her, while her daughter bounced away on her £5 trampoline session. At the end she just told them their policies were sick, and said that they had better be wary of her daughter when she put her mask and cloak back on (she was dressed as Batman) in case she was a plotting to blow up Union Square herself.

I didn't get involved in this argument myself, but must say it was quite amazing that my sister had to endure being shouted at and patronized by two knuckleheads while paying for her daughter to have five minutes of trampoline fun.

If anybody bothered reading this far, do you think the security guards were in the right?

Heh.

Thanks to this anonymous commenter for posting the story.

Clearly, these ex-military security guards believe themselves to be in the right. Union Square is their domain, and they protect those who come there.

Even a small risk is still a risk, so it's better safe than sorry. Everyone knows that them sick pediatricians always go about their sick perversion in public, and always prey on children who're accompanied by family members. Similarly everyone knows that those suicide bombers are somehow associated with Japan, where the cult of the kamakazi was invented after all - coincidence? I don't think so!

Anyhow, these pedos and suicide bombers aren't a match for the guys on our side, thank god! Those who wish to harm us in Union Square are so stupid they always telegraph their intentions by ostentatiously making obsessively extensive and slightly arty photographic surveys of their targets. The fools - they keep giving the game away! No wonder none of them have yet succeeded in their aim of bringing down the West by destroying Union Square! For, make no mistake, that is what they intend - nothing short of the destruction of our civilisation by striking at Aberdeen's newest generic shopping centre, which is the lynchpin of all Western commercial activity.

But with this incident we see the rise of a new and highly insidious threat to our comfortable western consumerist way of life - yes, the paedophile suicide bomber! The filthy b@stards!

It all adds up -
children + Japanese people + camera...
= Pedo suicide bomber
DEFCON 1. !!!

So we should congratulate these security operatives on their absolutism; stamping down on any aberrant behaviour keeps us all safe from these murderous suicidal foreign perverts. And it's better safe than sorry! We should be heartened that our operatives (our boys!) have a military background; perhaps they were posted to conflict hot-spots where Taliban and Al Qaeda IED's sharpened their hair-trigger reflexes.

It can't have been easy for these heroes, but we're benefitting from their sacrifice as we go about our innocent lives of consequence-free consumption. Is not consumer choice in free markets the one true freedom? Isn't that what we're still fighting for in Afganistan? Isn't that what we've achived in Iraq? Now, with the return of these heroes to their native soil, the front line has come home with them as they take up these jobs in our shopping centres which are the 'bastions' of our civilisation.

Some might say that these heros could use a course of counseling to re-integrate them into normal civilian life where threats to life and limb do not lurk around every corner. Some might say that the brutalisation these heroes have suffered ill serves them for public-facing jobs. Some might say that some of these guys are haunted by demons, that the things they have seen and the thoughts which they cannot dispel predispose them to paranoia and overreaction.

But we say: No! Bleeding-heart liberal politically-correct hand-wringingly cringeworthy attempts at 'understanding' these proud veterans only belittles them; emasculates them. These guys are men's men. They don't need namby-pambying mollycoddling. They can handle themselves just fine. The proof of this is that no paedo suicide pervert has yet succeeded in destroying Union Square.

It. Makes. Us. Proud.

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.

College Street Multi Storey Car-Park.

Starting the new year with much in common with the way we blogged towards the end of the old, we paid a couple of visits to the other multi-storey car-park associated with Union Square; the College Street Multi Storey Car Park.

An interesting high quality modernist red-brick brick structure, the car park contrasts with the prevailing silver-grey which is usually regarded as characteristic of Aberdeen.  From the car park, [trainspotter alert] there's a great view of the arch viaduct which brings the railway from the south to Aberdeen and the Clayhills Engineering Works where passenger rolling stock is serviced.

From here, the rails extend south across the sea to join a network
which is uninterrupted from Vladivostok in the east to Lisbon in the west

And, surprise surprise! As ever when we visit the top-deck of an Aberdeen multi-storey car-park, we find a haven of peace and space. But don't just take our word for it, fellow psychogeographer of Aberdeen Lewis Dryburgh has shot this fantastic Ambient Video of the top-deck at South College Street. Enjoy:



Lovely. Do have a look at Lewis' other Ambient Videos on YouTube.

On one of our visits there was still a bit of snow about. And one solitary parked car, the red of its bodywork making a thrilling contrast with the blue-white day.

That single red highlight draws the eye -  making an almost martial statement, a bit like the little red dot on the black barrel of a Baretta Parabellum automatic, which shows that the safety catch is off. This red flash, we thought, by contrasting with the rest of the scene, merely serves to highlight the peaceful desertion which the College Street Car Park can offer.

Serene and paradoxically secluded in the open air in the centre of the town; calm on the top-deck as the life of the town bustles around the foot of the building, once again we find ourselves wanting to urge those in charge of these spaces to consider acknowledging their value as urban oases. Please - a couple of picnic benches, some container planting, a coffee vendor and Bob's yer uncle! A park! Sort of.

Indeed the South College Street Car Park was once used by some Aberdonians as urban open social space for leisure and sport. A blog commenter "Sam" emailed otheraberdeen@gmail.com to let us know that he shared our fascination in urban multi-storey car parks having this potential duality. He also told us about what was know as the "BT Comp".

College street or 'BT car park' as it was more commonly known was used for a long time in the Aberdeen skateboarding scene. Its rather strange that a car park can have a sort of alter existence or meaning. It was a standard car park by day but after 6pm when the attendants sulked off from work it became a social space for all skateboarders from across the city. Well, skateboarders and junkies who would inhabit the very bottom floor and the upper stairwells at night.

College street car park was also used annually for a number of years to play host to the BT comp. A one night only skateboard competition which would attract hundreds of people to congregate on the top floor to bear witness to an organized competition. Mayhem would be a good description. unfortunately though, as skateboarding became more popular generally a lot more kids would turn up and abuse the event which started to lead up to the end of the car park days. During the last comp a teenager fell to his death from the very top, im not sure of the story but from what i heard at the time they were larking about and being rather irresponsible by mucking around at the top ledge.

The introduction of Union square would also lead to more focus by the council on the use of College street car park. I think that the top floor also became part owned by an oil company so the employees would have a guaranteed car space. This meant 24 hour security which as you can imagine wouldn't take too kindly to the space being used by skateboarders and the like.

Many thanks for the information Sam - we really appreciate it! Sam also gave us a link to some footage shot at one of the BT Comps. Brilliant!



And, on a more downbeat note and with our sympathy to friends and relatives, here's a link to the BBC report of the tragic accident.

Well, all that sort of behaviour's over and done with now, and public use of the car-park is subject to published and displayed Terms and Conditions imposed by the management of Union Square, who now operate the car park.

We find the trumpeting of the use of number-plate recognition technology to be a highly sinister development. Not content with operating blanket surveillance upon us, non-governmental private operators have now taken it upon themselves to operate artificial-intelligence based tracking technology. Nice. We also note that they say:

"Records of vehicle registration numbers ... and images of vehicles and their drivers ... will be kept"

Which, in our opinion is totally unacceptable behaviour by a private organisation. That this impressive technology has been wrangled into a system used to extort parking fees from compliant consumers who have willingly traded their privacy for a dubious and short-lived convenience we find depressingly apt. It tells us a great deal.

Regular readers will know that we have had more than one  encounter with the people who are empowered to operate this surveillance and tracking technology at this site and at others. Our experience has caused us concern that the levels of skill, training and personal attributes demonstrated by these operators are not necessarily up to the standard which reasonable people might expect would be a minimum requirement for those charged with such onerous responsibilities. Still, number plate recognition robot systems overseen by teenagers less intelligent than the software they operate needn't trouble us pedestrians just yet and facial recognition software is still a good eighteen months away from being "productized" and we have not yet been "chipped". Not to our knowledge, at least.

We also noticed that the display sign T&C's point to the fact that further "Full terms and conditions are available" online (pdf). So we had a look at that too. We liked this bit:

The company has the right to exclusion rights in relation to persons who are causing ... unruly behaviour or misbehaving in any way and additionally in relation to persons who have no cause to be present on the car parking premises.

That'll be us, then. Because we came on foot.

R. C. Matthews: Retail Development becomes Retail Wipeout.

For as long as we can remember, this corner-site on the border of Pitmuxton and Ferryhill had been occupied by an off-license. At the far horizon of our recollection it was an Agnews (at which there was always change), then a series of corporate takeovers and re-brandings: firstly Augustus Barnett, then Victoria Wine, then the shop was re-branded as Victoria Wine's downmarket sub-brand Haddows. Now, having succumbed to the loss-leading unfair competition and the monolithic procurement and promotional power of the large megamarkets, another local specialist outlet is lost. Pitmuxton is thus made that little bit poorer.

Click to see a bigger version.

The photos show that a much older signwriter-painted shop sign has been exposed during the shop refit work; "R. C. Matthews." It's fascinating that successive changes to the shop had simply crufted their new signs on top of that pre-existing sign, and it's satisfying (if saddening) to see these layers peeled back one by one in the final unravelling of retail history on this site. The "R. C. Matthews." sign is worthy of comment. It has substance. We can imagine the signwriter's care and art as he created it; his easy skill with brush and mahlstick, his efficiency of line and curve, his pride in a job well done and his worthy position as creator of townscape artifacts - see how the style of signwriting matches (but does not copy) the ceramic tile street-sign immediately above? There was no artifice in this coincidence, no branding strategy or focus-group feedback - it was just the way it was. Thus, the town created itself for the times during the retail period of R. C. Matthews.

Soon, though, the "R. C. Matthews" sign too will be gone, to be replaced by that of a hairdresser or tanning salon, these types of personal services being the predominant business model in this zone of replacement close to the town centre. Specialist retail at a community-based human scale with generations of continuity is replaced by transient services as monopoly power pulls consumer demand towards a handful of hangar-sized car-accessed retail parks only.

This story fits into an extraordinary continuity (or, rather, discontinuity) of retail development and competition. According to my old dad, R. C. Matthews was a licensed grocer which closed shortly after the Holburn Bar moved to it's (then new) purpose-built modernist block - where it remains to this day. Previously the Holburn Bar had occupied the ground floor of the neighbouring tenement block now occupied by a Co-op. Once the bar had moved out, it's former site was immediately occupied by one of the first self-service groceries in Aberdeen - a 1960's supermarket - the protozoic antecedent of today's megamarkets. Of course - with it's slick modernity and promise of convenience, speed, labour-saving efficiency and progress - this usurping business model from the United States soon condemed the old order of counter-service grocery to the past; it's days were numbered. So failed R. C. Matthews and countless other grocers around the country at that time. Now with this - the final end of it's rump; the off-license - having been at last wiped out by the descendants of the first supermarkets, the narrative arc of this story has reached its sad end.

Click for a bigger version

Thanks are due to local artist Mike Crawford for the splendid photos. We like Mike's photographic style; the grit and grime, the grain and gloom. Too often, we reckon, today's constant PR imperative is to always and firstmost indulge in a form of reality-distorting propaganda: to make bad things look good. In business and politics, entertainment and journalism we see this imperative deployed by reflex. That's why we like Mike's shots - they explicitly and expressly resist this temptation. What's wrong with a little gloom? What's wrong with a little woe? Down with Pangloss! Up with Buchstansangur! It's much more realistic.

In this case, we think that the downbeat atmosphere invoked by these photos helps to show us that, indeed, something is being lost here. Something which we may never see return...