Interesting thread, walking around parts of Liverpool in the sun yesterday for exercise it brings home how depopulated the inner city areas are. Its been mentioned here before that big apartment blocks should be built rather than the bungalows that border the fringes of town. Parts of north Liverpool really do feel forgotten.
Rebuilding the inner-city - tenements and terraces?
Before I start another regeneration ramble, can someone please reassure me that this beauty has not met the wrecking ball?!
Now...
I've spend the past few hours reading a thread about the old tenements on Yo Liverpool, then I looked at Google Earth and just felt sad imagining the vibrant communities that were destroyed to be replaced with suburban council estates of tiny, ugly houses or worse, left abandoned as wasteland and urban motorways (*ahem* Scotland Road)
hno:
Anyway, I visited Berlin last year and wandered around the inner city (both east and west) and I think their model would be a good one to follow.
Inner city Berlin is essentially one giant park filled with tenement buildings (and commie blocks in the east... but let's ignore those :lol
Aerial shot: http://binged.it/Jjq17c
Street View: http://stevetokar.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/berlin-lychener-strasse-1.jpg
I'd rebuilt all the destroyed neighbourhoods in Edge Hill, Vauxhall, Everton, Kensington and Toxteth with modern tenements on the Berlin model.
Areas where terraces are still in abundance (Anfield, Walton, Granby, Smithdown, Dingle, Kensington etc) would have the existing terraces refurbished and new terraces (in the same local style) constructed on the wasteland. Tancred Road in Anfield and Chimney Pot Park in Salford shows that these homes can be refurbished to a high standard. Existing residents would get grants to refurbish their homes with new windows, doors, rendering, insulation, solar panels etc. The local 'high streets' in these neighbourhoods would be regenerated with units refurbished/rebuilt to provide quality space for shops, pubs and other amenities.
A main focus of this regeneration would be to provide affordable homes to all people. It wouldn't just be 'council housing', it'd be mixed communities of all socio-economic groups.
The huge increase in density will require transport improvements so I propose a tram network covering the inner city and spreading out into the suburbs to Netherton, Kirkby, Stockbridge Village, Prescot, Woolton and the airport via Allerton.
I had a brief chat with Steve Radford the other day and we talked about how the council are forming their policy on self-build homes. I asked about the possibility of selling plots on brownfield sites (I asked specifically about Everton and Norris Green). He said it's something the Liberals are pushing for (and Labour are listening).
With that knowledge, I'd turn parts of Everton (the parkland and parts of the surroundings) into a proper park and sell relatively large plots of land inside to self-builders. I'd aim to make it the North End's equivalent of Sefton Park but filled with self-build homes instead of Victorian mansions.
I do believe that out of all my crackpot ideas (fantasies :lol, this is probably the most sensible :nuts:
What do we think?
Now...
I've spend the past few hours reading a thread about the old tenements on Yo Liverpool, then I looked at Google Earth and just felt sad imagining the vibrant communities that were destroyed to be replaced with suburban council estates of tiny, ugly houses or worse, left abandoned as wasteland and urban motorways (*ahem* Scotland Road)
hno:Anyway, I visited Berlin last year and wandered around the inner city (both east and west) and I think their model would be a good one to follow.
Inner city Berlin is essentially one giant park filled with tenement buildings (and commie blocks in the east... but let's ignore those :lol
Aerial shot: http://binged.it/Jjq17c
Street View: http://stevetokar.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/berlin-lychener-strasse-1.jpg
I'd rebuilt all the destroyed neighbourhoods in Edge Hill, Vauxhall, Everton, Kensington and Toxteth with modern tenements on the Berlin model.
Areas where terraces are still in abundance (Anfield, Walton, Granby, Smithdown, Dingle, Kensington etc) would have the existing terraces refurbished and new terraces (in the same local style) constructed on the wasteland. Tancred Road in Anfield and Chimney Pot Park in Salford shows that these homes can be refurbished to a high standard. Existing residents would get grants to refurbish their homes with new windows, doors, rendering, insulation, solar panels etc. The local 'high streets' in these neighbourhoods would be regenerated with units refurbished/rebuilt to provide quality space for shops, pubs and other amenities.
A main focus of this regeneration would be to provide affordable homes to all people. It wouldn't just be 'council housing', it'd be mixed communities of all socio-economic groups.
The huge increase in density will require transport improvements so I propose a tram network covering the inner city and spreading out into the suburbs to Netherton, Kirkby, Stockbridge Village, Prescot, Woolton and the airport via Allerton.
I had a brief chat with Steve Radford the other day and we talked about how the council are forming their policy on self-build homes. I asked about the possibility of selling plots on brownfield sites (I asked specifically about Everton and Norris Green). He said it's something the Liberals are pushing for (and Labour are listening).
With that knowledge, I'd turn parts of Everton (the parkland and parts of the surroundings) into a proper park and sell relatively large plots of land inside to self-builders. I'd aim to make it the North End's equivalent of Sefton Park but filled with self-build homes instead of Victorian mansions.
I do believe that out of all my crackpot ideas (fantasies :lol
, this is probably the most sensible :nuts:What do we think?
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Pablo, if you've read that Yo thread right through, you might have noticed that the Liverpool Corporation had already taken the Eastern European influence for our tennies when they sent a delegation over in the early 30s.
The Britz Horseshoe estate in Berlin and the Karl Marx Hof in Vienna spring to mind (these can be googled)
Of course, many say that our tennies were of their time and were starting to look a big scraggy. It's also true to say the council had pretty much washed their hands of them and hadn't maintained them for some time as they had other plans - namely to borrow lots of Japanese and Swiss money to build garden houses.
Full of mod cons, they were not full of memories and at a time in the 80s when Thatchers government preached selfishness over community spirit, these icons of the art deco 30s were bulldozed along with that era's spirit.
However, look what's currently being built and is back in vogue - excpet costing a lot more than what we already had. Here's Central Gardens in Benson Street in the city centre.
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And here's a couple of what's been sympathetically developed:
Wavertree Gardens and St Anne Street.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
If we look at what's been built on Marybone, Leeds Street and Great Crosshall street with their small rooms but with balaconies to give extra/outside living space (albeit student accommodation) then I don't see much difference myself.
The Britz Horseshoe estate in Berlin and the Karl Marx Hof in Vienna spring to mind (these can be googled)
Of course, many say that our tennies were of their time and were starting to look a big scraggy. It's also true to say the council had pretty much washed their hands of them and hadn't maintained them for some time as they had other plans - namely to borrow lots of Japanese and Swiss money to build garden houses.
Full of mod cons, they were not full of memories and at a time in the 80s when Thatchers government preached selfishness over community spirit, these icons of the art deco 30s were bulldozed along with that era's spirit.
However, look what's currently being built and is back in vogue - excpet costing a lot more than what we already had. Here's Central Gardens in Benson Street in the city centre.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
And here's a couple of what's been sympathetically developed:
Wavertree Gardens and St Anne Street.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
If we look at what's been built on Marybone, Leeds Street and Great Crosshall street with their small rooms but with balaconies to give extra/outside living space (albeit student accommodation) then I don't see much difference myself.
3
1 - 8 of 8 Posts
