A 2023 project to research and publish:
A city hand book for the discerning citizen, traveller and reader.
The Glasgow user Manual – A peoples guid to the city
The Project, will be a one year long survey for setting up process and ideas for collecting information for a peoples guide to the city. A publication and website that will manage information and data for a long term portal to allow access to a wide range of city data, infrastructure and aspects in the public interest. This year long project will be the first phase in organising and creating the content for a publication with a work title of: The Glasgow user manual A peoples guide to the city. Continue reading →
Andy Wilson interviewed at East India Docks Greenock around 10 years ago. An incredible knowledge on public ownership under Scotland’s Common Good Fund. And Greenock harbour one of the worst infringements on Scotland’s common good law according to Andy Wightman, auther of The Poor Had No Lawyers: Who Owns Scotland and How They Got it. Andy passed away some years after the video was made. This film was mad by Simon Yuill as part of his research on the Common Good
“Glasgow Life” Still closing down working class facilities and culture while spending millions on tourist attractions. Turning the city into a generic shopping centre like all others and ignoring the cities uniqueness.
The People’s Palace at GalGael – Govan’s Critical Connections.
Burrell’s vanity project he got us to pay for.
Forgotten Communities to Cultural Tourism
The Burrell Effect – Transferring pubic to private
The course of the industrial revolution should have taught us how materially finite the worlds resources are. The information revolution should have helped us to relieve the pressure on these resources. Instead it is been used to squeeze the last wee bit of toothpaste from the tube, till all we are left with is the plastic. But one of the things we do have in abundance is imagination. We can either use it, as up to now, in imagining a technological savour is going to appear and tell us everything will be ok, and carry on regardless. Or we can use it as part of a human plan in endeavours that we know are right, achievable and on our own doorstep. Continue reading →
In answer to the kind of stupid and irresponsible Yes/no questionnaires such as the one relating to demolition and regeneration in the Wyndford estate Maryhill Glasgow
The beast here refers to any kind of agency private or otherwise that is a threat to public agency and the common good. The common good being that which we own, institutions and assets in the collective public interest. Continue reading →
The place known as the valley in Maryhill was an area of council housing that was demolished and lay vacant for many years. At present it serves as a dynamic open space with an excellent views all round. The council have now decided, without consultation to sell it off for private development. We believe the site should be used for affordable social housing of which the city is badly in need off. This privatisation is part of a process being carried out all over the city, and accelerated during a pandemic in the rush to push these kinds of developments through. The “Still Game For The Valley” campaign was set up by Living Rent to challenge this proposal and to halt this sale of public land till proper consultation, and alternative plans can be heard.
More details an be found on Still Game For The Valley Facebook page. The following statements are from the recent vigil in the valley
Zen Buddhist monk and celebrated author Dogo Sensei tells his story of growing up in the community and his return to Maryhill after years living abroad, and what this development means for him.
Emma tells her story of living in The Valley.
Calls for unity
Keiran O’Neill Labour and coop candidate speaking at “Still game for the Valley” vigil
LIVING RENT – STILL GAME FOR THE VALLEY – THE LAND GRAB (complete video)
There are lots of people in the world with a whole variety of needs. Some are reasonable some are exotic some are crazy some are just stupid. How should anybody judge the opinions and actions of others? What causes people to do things that are abhorrent to others for the good of themselves? What is it some people need so badly that they will do almost anything to get it. These are the big mysteries that take up much, of many peoples time and lives. They ask. Why is the world so fucked-up for me when I haven’t done anything? Continue reading →
Every so often we are, if you even know about it, consulted by Glasgow City Council, about what we want in our public parks. At the last consultation I don’t remember the public agreeing that we should have much more in the way of lock-out festivals and expensive, ticketed, gigs, taking up great swathes of our park space over the summer period when we need the park most. The problem with these consultations is is that they just seem like exercises in get consensus to allow more commercialisation of the park.
The problem is as we see it is. The public do not just need consulted in these matters, we need to be involved in the discussion that leads to decisions. And to be involved in the discussion we need also to be aware of all of the facts relating to not only to the decisions made in our behalf, but also the longer term impact that these decisions will have on our green space.
The value of parks needs to be equated by more than the shallow monetary value put on them and the superficial business orientated consultations which add up to the same thing. The city administration and public need to start taking these thing seriously and understand the real value that is attached to our city parks.
When somebody tells you “Nobody uses it” “The parks have to pay for themselves”along with the sometimes pathetic excuses used to allow building on green space by developers and city administrators alike. We need to, (particularly our young who have most to lose,) be able to give them a cost benefit analysis on our green space and on how parks more than pay for themselves by:
Recreational time particularly in a public park is personal and shouldn’t be defined or dictated by the state or held ransom by profiteering and commercial interests.
Fences have become topical these days from the mighty versions planned in the head of the president of the united states, to the barriers of asylum, the psychological, as well as physical barriers ofclass, race, gender and commerce. The first thing we should think about in coming across a wall or barrier of any description is what is its purpose? For whose benefit?
The Radical Imagination Project tries to encourage folk to become involved in public life, because we believe it is the only hope we have for stopping the neoliberal project that has infiltrated every aspect of our private and public life. To a point which exposes just how lax our government has been that we now find ourselves subservient to possibly the worst and most dangerous western government administration in history.Continue reading →
