Olympic landscapes - quick view

The Olympic games in Greece evolved from ceremonial races or athletic contests, and became a Pan-hellenic ritual with a single site, requiring a temporary truce or ceasefire from warring city states http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Olympics/site.html

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The ideal of Olympian games was revived in Much Wenlock (in Shropshire, England) in 1850. The Much Wenlock games continue to this day. They did not achieve the success of the "Modern Olympics" because modest prizes were given. They were "professional" when that meant also POOR peoples games. http://www.wenlock-olympian-society.org.uk/ . Their premier event is still the 7-mile race, divided into age categories

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The Modern Olympics, whilst previously amateur, is now thoroughly professional. It has become highly contentious for having sponsors that include McDonalds (burgers) and Coca Cola, considered responsible for an epidemic of obesity, Dow Chemicals, a subsidiary of which was responsible for the Bhopal; Chemical Disaster, and for other sponsors (such as Atos) which benefit from tax breaks for their sponsorship. The Controversy is so deep that some consider the brand "Modern Olympics" as toxic. http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2012/07/20/an-expert-view-olympic-tax-dodging/

http://www.london2012.com/

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Anyway - I thought it might be handy to have a quick comparison of the Olympic venues.....

Savage Messiah: DELIRIOUS ANXIETY STATES---DRIFTS IN A SPECIAL ECO...

Laura Oldfield Fords drifts (psychogeographic derive) are always interesting. And her narrative drawings illuminating. This one in Futian (near to Hong Kong) China is remarkable for the majority of the physical culture being international. Mostly it could be anywhere on the planet. Only the people, and an occasional building, exhibit local character. Even then you get Chinese-styled McDonald's burger dive. It reminds us all that the Chinese boom - on which world economic health depends - is fragile. Social strains of Milton-Friedman Thatcherite Reagonomics informed economic policies leading wealth inequalities, are also leading to unrest, riot, and acting as a brake on development.

Please follow the link below for more

Savage Messiah: DELIRIOUS ANXIETY STATES---DRIFTS IN A SPECIAL ECO...: Delirious anxiety states--- 狂热的焦 THE FUTURE IS OBSIDIAN, BLACK MIRROR REFLECTING BLACK SUN--- 未来如黑曜石，黑色镜面折射出黑色太阳 AGIP//CHEVRON//T...

The Aran Islands... inspiration to writers and artists, home to unique islanders

...are a remarkable place, full of unique contradictions. I had the pleasure to work there some years ago.

 They are a remnant of the same limestone massif as the Burren in Co Clare, but are spotted with granite glacial erratic boulders from Connemara.  People too have cultural links in both directions as they lie like stepping stones across Galway Bay. The Arannach (islander) is Irish Gaelic speaking, but yet has always had international links as long as Galway has been a port. All sorts of flowers and plants co-exist, not found juxtaposed anywhere else save perhaps for the Burren. As both calcareous limestone-loving plants nestle close to permanent damp crevices, which have pockets of acid-loving plants. The islanders have always practised a mixed economy, breeding fine cattle for export, growing rye to thatch from traditional (long-stemmed) varieties, fishing (including rich boat owners), and tourism. Their cattle are milked in ones and twos in the field, and so there is no need for gates. instead they use glacial erratic round granite boulders to fill gaps -bearna- (cattle creeps)  in the open square-blocked limestone walls. They are shifted from near settlement in the summer, up to high "winterage" -too dry to support summer grazing- in an opposite movement to that of "boolying" in the majority of Ireland. Water troughs have concrete rain-catching slopes in a modern adaption to the environment. Small fields or gardens have had to be made by hand, filling crevices in limestone pavements, spreading clay brought as ballast in boats, followed by seaweed and sand, laid as potato ridges, and grown in succession.  It is a unique combination of people and place setting up a unique landscape

Aran Islands, a group on Flickr showing Aran Islands today

Aran Islands in 1936

Aran Islands at the end of the 19th- and beginning of the 20th centuries

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UK's 1st Urban Land Trust, Mile End

The UKs first Urban Land Trust is to build homes on the site of the former St Clement's Hospital in Mile End. This continues a history both of housing innovation (see earlier blog on the Boundary estate, 1st proper 

planned council housing estate 

http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/arnold-circus-amongst-first-council.html) and one of radical activity in the area.  Mile End has traditionally been an assembly place for protest and revolt. notably the Peasants revolt in the middle ages, and Chartists in the 19th century. And The East London Citizens Organisation played a pivotal role in establishing the London Living Wage. It will be interesting to see what happens here.

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St Clements Hospital CLT, London 2010- Urban Too from WeeFlee Productions on Vimeo.

First Urban Land Trust is GO! – Saint Clements CLT

BY ADMIN, ON JULY 16TH, 2012 (Reproduced from http://mile-end-residents.co.uk/?p=4410)

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today announced that the currently empty site of St Clements Hospital in Mile End, east London, will be the UK’s first ever urban Community Land Trust – what is a land trust? – see here.

The development will see the freehold of the entire site being held in trust for the local community – which will preserve the value of the land for the community forever. Some of the homes will be directly owned by the East London Community Land Trust and the residents will have direct involvement in the management of the whole neighbourhood as well as a big say in the design. The development will preserve a number of important historic buildings, including the nineteenth century, grade-II listed workhouse.

Community involvement

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “The East London Community Land Trust at St Clements will put local people in the driving seat and empower them to take stewardship of what will be a fantastic new neighbourhood that will boast over 200 quality homes”.

The announcement marks the completion of  a long tender process, administered by City Hall. which saw a number of developers compete for the 4.5 acre site. Although not initially part of the same bidding team, local residents, through the East London Community Land Trust, and Galliford Try have been in negotiations since March this year about the possibility of working together, after both their proposals impressed the Greater London Authority (GLA).

The two have now come to an agreement, whereby the freehold of the entire St Clements Hospital site is set to be transferred to the local trust once it has been restored, with the CLT also owning all of the affordable for sale homes, and Linden Homes (part of Galliford Try) administering the commercial side of the development on a long lease from the CLT.

Around 45 per cent of the affordable rented and 30 per cent of the affordable home ownership homes will be family-sized homes with three bedrooms or more. The affordable rented homes will be delivered by a Registered Provider and it is intended that the affordable home ownership homes (approximately 21 homes) will be owned by the CLT.

The true CLT idea proposes full community control with the possibility of setting house price levels – £125,000 for a family home (you buy the bricks and the land stays in trust) It works like this…

If you bought a CLT home for £100,000 and in 10 years time it was worth £200,000, you would sell it back to the Trust for (roughly) £125,000… and they could then sell it at this discount to the next family. You basically trade an upfront subsidy for a diminished return, remove speculation on land value and invest in housing for homes not for profit.

Internal view of St Clements

The site will deliver a fully mixed community by managing a significant number of social-rented homes, which will be charged at ‘target rents’, which are below the new ‘affordable rent’ level, which could have been up to 80% of the market rate.

All the previous work and ideas contributed by local residents through the community-led design sessions will be reviewed and integrated into the new plans for the site where possible and a further series of community-led design sessions will be run.

Some of the buildings at St Clements will be opened to the local community as soon as possible, with the CLT working with the developer  to provide ‘interim use’ facilities on the site, for use by local groups whilst the homes are being constructed.

Commenting on todays announcement Mark Taylor, local resident & Chair of the Mile End Residents Association, said

“I certainly got the impression from our first meeting with Linden Homes that they were proud to be a part of the first urban CLT at the St Clements site. Hopefully the first of many promised by Boris Johnson over 4 years ago . This project will bring many benefits to Mile End beside just affordable family housing as if that was not enough”.

Dave Smith, Director of the East London Community Land Trust, said:

“Today’s announcement marks the start of a new and exciting chapter within the proud history of east London. Community Land Trusts are about building homes for local families – not match boxes to be bought and sold like any other commodity. Through local people helping to design them, we are going to create spacious, secure, beautiful and permanently affordable homes.”

Miranda Housden, local resident & Parent Governor at local Central Foundation Girls School, said:

‘At last Londoners will start to have a choice to live in safe, genuinely affordable homes rather than seeing the housing stock around them turned into other people’s investments. I see St Clements Hospital Community Land Trust as a glimmer of hope in this national housing crisis.’

Some further reading:-

•  East London Community Land Trust web site
• A revolution in affordable housing (Guardian article)
•  Saint Clements Hospital Planning Brief (prepared by Drivers Jonas on behalf of the NHS Stakeholders and Tower Hamlets Borough Council in 2005)
• Leaside Regeneration – 2005 Document identifying key regeneration objectives based on “Stakeholder” workshops (only one local resident present).
• KSS Group plans for the hospital in 2006
• Pictures from inside the former hospital

Prof Ziebart: Blog 1: From Landscape, to the universe and beyond

Just a short note to welcome my old mate and former colleague, who - having fallen into uncertain company - has emeregd as Professor of Space geodesy. He assures me that he does not alter the positions of planets with Star-Trek Tractor beams, in order to annoy astrologers.... but I am not so sure. take a squint and see what you think.

Prof Ziebart: Blog 1: Enter stage left, a short professor with a...: Well here I go ---- Ich bin ein Blogger. In a simple sequence of keystrokes I join the set of people who blog, I join with that shadowy brot...

Arnold Circus - amongst the first council housing in the UK

The BBC television programme on Arnold Circus http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01kvkw6/   gave an excellent overview of how London County Council town planning addressed social concerns in an area formerly considered "semi-criminal" and how council-house sales are now introducing privileged residents to a formerly poor area.

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More info on the Boundary Estate including Arnold Circus is available from the Open University [here]

It was formerly a notorious slum known as the Old Nichol Rookery. Wikipedia have an excellent summary of its history. Several members of the local authority (the Bethnal Green Vestry Sanitary Committee) were landlords or agents benefiting from the slum

The slums were cleared and new designed flats put up by the London County Council, a new model local authority. However, the original inhabitants couldn't afford the new rents and a lot of flats were taken up by "respectable" immigrant Jewish Tailors. By the 1970s the flats were run down and there was a low degree of occupancy. Inherited by the newer "Greater London Council" organised squatting introduced Bengali families from nearby Brick Lane in the 1970s. When the GLC was abolished they were transferred to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. They wanted to transfer the housing stock to an Arms Length Management Organisation which was rejected by local residents in 2006 after a campaign by the National Housing Federation . It may be significant that Respect MP George Galloway had recently replaced New Labour's Oona King for Bethnal Green and Bow. Oona campaigned strongly for the ALMO "yes" vote. Click Here for a debate between the two.
Since then the creeping gentrification of Shoreditch, combined with the slow drip of tenants buying flats under the Tory "Right to Buy" and then renting them out, or selling for up to a quarter of a million pounds, has meant that a new class of elite residents of the Grade 2-listed blocks (The Boundary Estate us within walking distance of the City of London financial district and a number of cultural and ICT enterprises are also nearby).