Leeds Plan B
A manifesto for the People and city of Leeds
In these dark times, here is a manifesto of hope - Leeds Plan B. It was made with Jai Redman from the Ultimate Holding Company (UHC). While it was written with Leeds in mind it is applicable to many cites. Use it….enjoy….
We will compost the city centre, returning its massive resources to the subsoil of the community. The outer estates shall retain control of their resources.
City centres are engines of growth and prosperity, generating huge amounts of wealth and employment. They are full of shops, workplaces, cultural facilities and important government institutions. They certainly seem part of the solution, making life in Leeds more fulfilling. But they are also part of the problem. Let us explain. The more city centres suck in wealth, power and investment, the less is available in other parts of the city. Leeds city centre has grown so massively and successfully over the last twenty years that it has starved other areas of investment in comparison. Around the city centre, what we call the rim, is like another world. Even though it is only 10 minutes walk from the heart of the city, many communities there are disconnected, starved of investment, employment opportunities and vibrant institutions. The city centre is home to 29% of all the jobs in Leeds. There are many consequences to this. The most obvious is the unsustainable commuting patterns of thousands of people traveling, largely by car, to the city centre every day, and then back home again. The concentration of activities has made land prices rocket to such an extent that only large corporate firms can afford to buy or rent land. On the back of these astronomical land prices, developers build upwards, peppering the skyline with huge towers. City centres become the playgrounds for the rich and wealthy, with new developments featuring boutique shopping, hotels and corporate office space.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Like any good gardener will tell you, you can use what already exists to build something new. The city centre is for everyone, not just a wealthy corporate elite. These resources can be reused and recycled for the benefit of everyone. City centres are for the many, not the few. The banks, offices, empty building lots and yuppie flats should be returned to the people of Leeds and not just to be used to make a wealthy elite even wealthier. And rather than having one centre, Leeds needs many centres. Imagine a world where you worked near your home, where every high street, not just the city centre, was full of vibrant and interesting shops. Each centre should have its own government offices, cultural venues, cafes, workplaces and homes. With energy prices likely to get more scarce and expensive it’s inevitable that we are going to have to relocalise life anyway. Each neighborhood would be connected with first class, fast and affordable transport links. This will overcome the stigma of whether you live in the buzzing centre, or a deprived outer estate. It will be nothing more than the reinvigoration of community and democratic life across the whole city. Our city deserves nothing less.
Private banks shall become public seed banks. They will act as seed distribution and horticultural resource centres.
We all know the trouble we have had with banks. Obscene levels of speculation, obscure financial products, immoral commodity trading. Since the 1970s they have been deregulated and given a free hand to become filthy rich. This wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if they had recycled some of their profits back to ordinary people and institutions. Instead they have evaded taxes, built up huge fortunes, and paid out ludicrous wages and bonuses. When their chickens came home to roost in the financial crashes of 2007 and 2008, instead of punishing and regulating them for their irresponsible behaviour, the Government rushed to bail them out to the tune of £500 Billion, using tax payer’s money. Now we are in a situation where public services are being slashed to pay for the bailout of the thoroughly greedy and immoral banks. While ordinary people struggle to make ends meet, and frontline services suffer, the banks have gone back to business as usual, taking risks and paying themselves huge bonuses.
These are clearly not the kinds of banks we need. Instead, we will ensure that all banks cease speculation and money trading and instead deal in something much more useful and down to earth: seeds. Banks will become public seed banks. You will be able to pop down to Natwest for some sunflower seeds or HBOS for some courgette seeds. In addition, rather than a polite assistant trying to sell you a new mortgage or loan that you don’t need, there will be horticultural experts at hand giving advice on sowing seasons, companion planting and the latest broad bean recipe. Cash machines will even give out seeds after hours.
There will only be parks for people, not cars.
We probably don’t notice how car dependent we all are. In the UK around 85% of journeys are made by car and one quarter of all journeys are under two miles. More and more city space is taken up by roads. Over the last few decades, our cities have been carved up and dehumanised by roads and car parks. Leeds embraced this in the 1960s in its drive to become a motorway city, building sunken motorways and carparks in the sky. Slowly over the decades our cities have become so car dependent that it is very difficult to function without a car. Work, shopping and leisure have all been redesigned around the needs of the motorcar. This squeezes out space for people.
To balance things up, Plan B suggests that all car parks are demolished and replaced with public parks. All parking bays will be turned into herbaceous borders and vegetable plots. Cheap and frequent public transport, a well maintained cycle and walking infrastructure, free bikes and refreshment pitstops will flourish making the car almost redundant throughout the city. City streets will be places of pollution free and peaceful encounter.
The culture of consumption will be entirely replaced by the consumption of culture.
Leeds has been carpet bombed by big brand shopping. It is almost impossible to find something to do in the city centre which is not about spending. Almost every inch of space is dedicated to getting you to shop, shop, shop. The negative effects this all has are huge. Our high streets have been devastated by big corporate money. The number of local outlets will have dropped by nearly a third in the two decades to 2010. Shopping also makes us feel inadequate, that we have to constantly compete and keep up with others. It gets us into debt as we are constantly reminded that the only way to be a normal person is to max up to the limit on our credit cards. And it makes us forget that cities are not just about shopping. They are also places of debate, encounter and free leisure where we can become richer and fuller people, not by shopping but by talking to our fellow citizens.
So the ‘buy buy buy’ mentality will be replaced by a range of cultural activities. Primark will become a free public baths, and Argos will become an arena for kids entertainment. Shops will be handed over to small scale and local traders, each developing their own goods and fares in their workshops. Shops selling unnecessary consumer goods will be replaced by workshops repairing and making things that are of use to the people of the city. Leeds will see a cultural renaissance and jobs bonanza as all citizens, not just big developers and retailers, use their creativity and skills to make and trade and prosper.
We will remove all housing from the market. Homes will be provided co-operatively, on a ‘pay-as-you-live’ basis.
The single most important thing is in our lives is having a decent and affordable place to live. Over the last few decades housing has become a huge area of financial speculation. As a result, house prices have mushroomed, with the average house price to income ratio in the UK now standing at 4 to 1. Most people starting off in life can’t afford to get on the housing ladder, and publicly owned, social housing has been so squeezed and reduced that it is seen as an option for only the most poor and needy. This is one area that is too important to be left to the market.
Digital signs will be fitted to all new buildings displaying their true price and level of occupancy.
One of the most shocking aspects of living in a city like Leeds is finding out seeing the huge prices of new buildings that get constructed. Skyscrapers come with £100 million price tags and huge profits for the developers, while new hospitals and schools funded by under the private finance initiative cost far in excess of what they should due to huge consultant’s fees and interest repayments. The development boom in cities has led to huge profits for the development industry while it has delivered little in the way of socially useful infrastructure or local people. Most of what it has built has benefited the corporate and hospitality sectors, while schools, hospitals and community centres crumble.
The teenagers shall inherit the Corn Exchange.
The Corn Exchange is on of the best loved buildings in Leeds. It was a building of hustle and bustle at the centre of corn trading in previous centuries, full with hundreds of merchants noisily buying and selling. These days it is especially loved by the city’s teenagers. An assortment of goths and skaters used to gather on its steps every Saturday, chatting, meeting, eating, playing. But the security staff, police and building managers hated it. The kids just weren’t spending money. They were harangued and hassled until they had to leave, leaving the steps clean and tidy for those wanting to spend, spend, spend. Then the managers of the Corn Exchange decided to cancel everyone’s leases and rent it to one of the city’s booming restauranters, Anthony’s. The hustle and bustle of the individual shops, boutiques and craft stalls were replaced by the sterile clinking of the knives and forks of wanna be middle class diners eating over priced, global cuisine in the over-hyped must-east destination of the north’.
At birth, every child shall be given a fruit tree and the rights to one acre of common land.
Trees have many benefits. They bring beauty to our cities, they offer shade and they help cool urban areas, which is particularly important in the light of climate change. A recent study found that the presence of trees in cities actually increased consumer spending as shoppers were happier. Fruit trees are the best. If planted across the city, people could freely munch on apples, pears, plums, damsons for a good part of the year. There are in fact over 7,000 edible species of fruit and vegetable which can survive in this country. It makes you wonder why we mainly find apples form New Zealand or the USA in supermarkets. So at birth, under Plan B every child will receive a fruit tree and it will be planted, so when they grow up they can eat well and share the surplus with their friends.
There will a Jubilee. Leeds becomes the ‘City of Generosity’. Those whose debts are not their fault, shall have their debts cancelled. The history of inter-urban competition is reversed, cities will compete to cancel debts.
Across Britain debt is huge. Debt is now bigger than our salaries and for every £1 we earn, we borrow £1.02 on credit cards. Clearly something has to change. The idea of Jubilee is an old one. Every fifty years all debts would be wiped clean and all slaves set free.
Pollution by advertising will cease, with all existing billboards becoming public notice boards, art space or educational displays for out-of-home learning.
Advertising intrudes on every aspect and almost every moment of our lives. An average person sees 6,000 adverts a day. These adverts pollute our minds, encouraging us to buy things we didn’t even know we wanted. Huge companies now make vast profits selling advertising space on billboards.
There will be relaxing places to sit in the streets, that are not owned by coffee chains or bars.
City centre streets have been made into beautiful pedestrian streets over the last few years. But have you noticed there just aren’t enough seats to sit on? Many street cafés have emerged, but for the pleasure of sitting at these tables you have to buy something. Even the right to sit down freely in public is being taken away. Thousands of office workers every lunch time trying to get some fresh air away from work scurry around, unable to find a place to sit down and eat sandwiches.
True local governance by all citizens shall replace the accountants and asset managers of the current City Council. Conflicts are debated, transformed and resolved in public deliberation spaces, under talking trees and at city lunches in all neighbourhoods.
Something’s wrong at city hall. In Leeds there’s 99 councilors and 700,000 people – that’s one councilor for every 7000 people. Do you ever feel you don’t see your councilor much? Then you would be right! Many don’t even live in their ward. But even most of these 99 councilors don’t have much power in the city. Only a handful of super councilors make the real decisions along with overpaid officers who are more intent on balancing the books, selling off the public’s assets and making efficiency savings than running the city in the interests of the people.
Participatory councils shall decide the worth of jobs in Leeds, not bosses.
It always amazes us that those who seem to do the most important jobs in the city get paid the least, or at least don’t get paid enough. The nurses, the binmen, the school dinner ladies. On the other hand, city bankers, chief executives and fat cat bureaucrats walk away with the salaries contributing little to the real well being of the city.