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Changing perceptions?

Over the weeks and months, issues about future development and change have appeared on this site that are of vital importance to the future of downtown, and the whole city. A recurrent state of mind is evident.

These are exciting times, and yet, this buzz does not seem to be fully reflected in policy, attitude or demeanour of some of those who currently manage the city. There almost seems to be a resistance to the idea that Liverpool's rebirth should be allowed to grow to its natural and fullest extent, as this may change the city and 'damage' it irreparably! It is not only in the realms of the built environment that this mindset is apparent!

As well as the determination to maintain the current landscape physically, being overly intent on preserving the vestiges our past greatness, we also have the idea that the same public agencies will continue to have the same level of control and command that they had when the priority was to kick start things.

Does the regeneration industry and public sector have the skills to manage things to the same extent now that the city is generating? Is this at all desirable, never mind tenable?

These are vital underlying issues that must be addressed by those who currently retain sole charge of growth in the city. By wishing to retain absolute command and control, rather than easing into the role of facilitation, is there a danger that the recovery could grind to a halt?

We have forgotten how a city should work when healthy, what it's like to be part of a vibrant and growing city and what influences shape and define the city when it is buoyant. Also, just how many counters to sole control and other communities of interest to be included in decision making there are once things begin cooking! This is the natural and desirable consequence of increased well-being and must not be perceived as a threat to the status quo, as the status quo we have had in Liverpool for the last twenty years has been that borne of chronic deriliction, the total control of nothing. Maybe we have been in recession for too long and the habits of success are just not here?

If we get things right, if we celebrate our new dawn and look to the future more positively, including welcoming the changes this would bring, then, we could have greateness again!

The needs and speed of commerce and metropolitan scale growth are completely different to the needs and timescales of public agencies and 'kick start'. So who should hold sway when policy to aid commerce and ensure continued growth are formulated?

the whole system is rank with corruption, incompatence and indifference and where these aren't the defining characteristics then fatalism and defeatism almost certainly are.

Where we differ can be summed up in the well known statement that ' where it is easy to satisfy demand it is something entirely another to create desire...we aim to impute the desire to make liverpool truly great again. To set the benchmark high and see those actually who are charged or pursue the levers of power to implement to scramble to deliver.

Another saying that Tony Benn uses regularly to spell out the inclinations of those who seek to weild power as these people largely fall into two categories 'there are the sign posts and then there are the weathervains', i.e those who show the way and the rest who just follow what ever way they see as most likely to advance their lust for their own progress. Where Global City fits into this is at a more fundamental level. we don't want the power only not to have anything to drive once attained, neither are we the sign posts and guardians of firm direction...what we want to do is to decide the way, to bulid the fucking sign posts, to place them in the ground.

We want to provide the basic mindset, to change perceptions. It is insufficient to try and adapt current ways as they are so utterly corrupted by decades of wrong headed thinking and deprivation. Like Soviet Communism it has to be completely swept away and new directions decided that are rooted in completely fresh attitudes.

For us this starts with good urbanism and unashamed and unrestricted ambition for Liverpool to restore itself in the international community of great cities. Cities that actually shape events and determine how the world progresses.

Change and growth, across the board?

New perceptions?

© 2004 Downtown Liverpool Organisation