Urban Research, urban refurb, urban renewal

So, interesting (maybe, to someone out there) bits and bobs going on around my corner of South Manchester at the moment...

Went to the Urban Research Collective launch at Zion Arts on Wednesday. A very interesting new CIC which aims to try and drag left-wing researchers like muggins kicking and screaming into the activist arena - whether via its own projects or letting other people use it as a fundraising vehicle or networking tool. I love researching, and I'm much more comfortable producing stuff that other people can then go and do things with. But I'm looking forward to working with these guys and being prodded out of my comfort zone.



My office at Openspace is currently a building site - hence the pictures. But it will give our tenant-managed workspace co-op more room to rent out and a meeting room. Images nicked from my colleague Jonathan Atkinson. I'm not sure why Polyp seems to be doing Bill & Ben imitations in the second one... oh, and we got a plug from Ed Mayo the other day, so the marketing team should be happy.

The genius Marc Roberts and my lovely husband have their cartoon masterpiece, the Great Climate Slamdown, on the New Internationalist website. Will Copenhagen bring us a settlement on climate change which will save the world? Will it fuck. Will trogging off there to run around being chased by riot police achieve much beyond some nice activist bonding experiences? I refer you to my previous comment. Ho hum. Hopefully certain of my friends won't notice that and hate me for it...

Information seems to be slowly spilling out of the Council about the proposed regeneration of the area of Moss Side adjacent to the doomed bus (formerly tram) station on Princess Parkway and Claremont Rd to the south and north respectively, and between Princess Parkway and my allotment patch on Caythorpe St to the east and west. At one time it looked like everybody was getting compulsory purchased and shifted out for a major demolition job, but I think the recession had squished that plan (to the annoyance of at least one friend living in the middle of a semi-derelict street, as the housing associations with properties round there moved their tenants out months or even years ago, creating at least the beginnings of a wasteland of rats, rubbish and temporary druggie squats). Instead many of the old 2-bed Victorian terraced houses will be knocked through to create homes more in keeping with the needs of Moss Side's families. Sadly, though, Bishop Bilsborough Primary School is still in the path of the bulldozers, despite being recently squatted for an alternative arts festival. It's a lovely building and could have been a great location for some kind of community centre (something we're a bit short of in Moss Side if you don't count various religious buildings and the hideous Powerhouse, although there's still the West Indian centre).

Oh, and with marketing ahoy on the Gaza book, I've also finally finished the bloody Leila Khaled biography. A considerable relief, to say the least, and I'm looking forward to slowly re-emerging into the sunlight (just in time for it to disappear beneath a wintry horizon) and start attempting to re-engage with my social life. I'm sure I had one, once. The post-book holiday in Brighton, while pleasant, wasn't the relaxing experience it was meant to be - it seemed to involved inordinate amounts of work and the idea for Book Number Three popped into my head, almost fully-formed. But that's as much as I'm saying about that - if I let the idea out of my head before it's all written down properly it might go all liquidy and spill out of my ears or something. So watch this space.