Comments for CLES

Comment on The Bristol Pound won’t save our town centre by Keren

Keren — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:21:24 +0000

Mark, admittedly I am a bit ranty, but that’s my style, it’s not the £B winding me up. But ranty doesn’t mean ignoring the facts. If you stroll 100 yards from my local Parson’s you can buy an artisan loaf for £3.50 from Mark’s bakery, should that be what’s taking your fancy. Then again have you seen the price of Danish in Parson’s? My advice is stroll 100 yards the other way from Parson’s up to Denny’s (a long-standing independent trader) for an enormous Belgian bun at a fraction of the price.

Interesting you should mention Parson’s bakery – if you’re in Bristol you might have seen the BBC’s Inside Out West programme about the £B which featured the manager of my local Parson’s getting her laptop repaired by a computer repair company that was also a member of the £B scheme. We got an outdoor shot of the computer repair man arriving in his van, featuring in the background directly across the street two local computer repair shops who had clearly lost the business to a company from outside the area. Actual footprints across the road would have saved a bit of carbon footprint there and kept the money local. One can only hope they join up and stop losing trade to businesses outside of the neighbourhood; I use them both and would hate to see them close down.

Seems I’ll have to keep an eye on the £B developments: I never dreamt it could be so controversial.

Comment on Trickle down and out – time for trickle up by Glenn Athey

Glenn Athey — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:18:36 +0000

Neil – (International) development economics has long known about this – and some of the most prominent economists and thinkers of our time have held this view for a long time.

This thinking seems to have got through to international development policy and practice, but not to our own economic policies.

The problem is one of political choices and orthodoxy, not of economics.

See the free ebook Frontiers of Development Economics written in 2000, and available free on the World Bank Website – http://tinyurl.com/78mnrra

Comment on The Bristol Pound won’t save our town centre by Mark John

Mark John — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:57:09 +0000

It’s easy to criticise resources going on programmes outside regen areas. But ultimately the better off you are the bigger your footprint; environmentally, socially and economically. How these people spend their money has an impact on the less well off and we should aim to make this a positive rather than a negative impact.

The customers of *some* of these shops might be above the average income for the city, but the jobs protected and created will be from a broader base of Bristolians.

The poor will always benefit disproportionately from money circulating around regional cities and towns more times before it goes out to London and overseas because the poor have more of a stake in the local economy, tending not to have as much in the bank and not being renown for their investment portfolio.

It’s a shame because we (Bristolians) do need to ensure a broad range of retailers take up the currency and it doesn’t become too one-sided. To this end I hope Karen does keep an interest in and an eye on the progress of the £B project.

Comment on The Bristol Pound won’t save our town centre by Mark John

Mark John — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:35:30 +0000

Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant, eh, Karen? I hear some of the first businesses to sign up are plain old high street stores including local chains like Parsons. £3.50 a loaf? Pull the other one!

Comment on The power of language to tell the story of place by Sarah Longlands

Sarah Longlands — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:36:29 +0000

Thanks for your comments, particularly your points on how language is used as window dressing. Its interesting how the ideas of business marketing are now being used more and more in regeneration for ‘place marketing’. In many cases – its definitely more style than substance!

In terms of what we mean by a ‘good’ place, I think we all too often define ‘good’ as growing, whilst as you rightly point out, there are many places which grow in other ways, eg, their sense of community or their quality of life. I suppose what I’m really interested in is how the obsession with economic growth as an objective for place crowds out discussion and debate about the future of a place. We jump for growth as the answer when we don’t actually know the question.

Comment on The Bristol Pound won’t save our town centre by Keren

Keren — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:02:31 +0000

You’re right Mike, I am cynical. But I do have some idea about urban regeneration and my last comment about services having the ability to bring life to the high street is based on my experience of seeing a massively successful high street reduced to a graffiti strewn dustbowl of empty units once the banks, the dentist, the optician and the launderette all moved elsewhere. There wasn’t even a cash point within a two mile radius. Once those facilities left, people went elsewhere to access services and naturally did their shopping in those elsewheres whilst they were at it. It took 15 years to repair the damage and in the end it simply wasn’t possible to recreate what had once been. And, although it may be fashionable to hate national supermarket chains, it was thanks to Morrison’s agreeing to build a store there that nearly 8000 residents now had somewhere they could shop and be employed locally. No other supermarket was interested because this wasn’t a trendy part of Bristol, not the sort of place that campaigns against Tesco, but somewhere people desperately needed shops. The work I was involved in helped to bring other services to the same location, so people now have other reasons to visit as well as shopping. The whole development has made a huge difference to people living in poverty and exclusion.

I’m not particularly opposed to local currencies and I think they have the potential to boost trade in particular settings with plenty of independent traders, but this usually means the fairly affluent parts of any city. To be frank I’m not concerned with how affluent shoppers shop and I think urban regenerators should channel their energies into areas of need and not tinker about with lifestyle choices.

Comment on The Bristol Pound won’t save our town centre by carol mckenzie

carol mckenzie — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:32:57 +0000

I think there is a lot to applaud about this scheme. I think it does more than give someone a sense of virtuousity, and, an attempt to boost the multiplier effect in declining high street spenders. It fosters a sense of local attachment as it removes the distance a consumer can feel when they purchase something in a clone high street shop. If it’s ‘really’ local businesses, then this is good. But does it boost and sustain (in the need for) a strong local economy and generate growth and prosperity, I’m doubtful. It is a start.
I think Karen’s last point, although quite glibly put, there is some real opportunity. Personally I believe we have an opportunity to engage and then link up the 3 major debates we all seem to be interested in: creating better places to live in, access to local services we all need, i.e that is, public services, and trying to reinvigorate the town centers or high street of places – economically by having a reason for people to be attracted to use them. Let’s join up placemaking with welfare and local service sustainability with social sustainability by improving the public realm. We don’t shop online or remotely for a dentist, for doctor, for a garage, for a post office, for a CAB, or for any of those. We still need the physical presence of these. Maybe, and it’s a big maybe, if we get to that, we lay these new foundations for assisting the entrepreneurs (and the public services) to locate, redesign their service, in the town, not be forced to go elsewhere i..e due to business rates and costs that young SMEs, and particularly, the creative enterprises, which I know Bristol prides itself on. We need to marry up the sustainability of place with the sustainability of services – isn’t this what people want (and what our local economies need)? We can’t even sustain our local community centers where I live. One knocked down, 2 more to go in the town’s housing estates where I live. A sad and sorry tale. Come on the High Street, step up the plate and lead the way!

Comment on The Bristol Pound won’t save our town centre by Steven Boxall

Steven Boxall — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:26:59 +0000

I think Keren has a point.

To me a local currency is a distraction. If you really want local spending to stay local you need local businesses, employing local people, supplying what local people (or businesses) want to buy.

If you have this you don’t need a local currency to artificially lock in people and their money.

Comment on The Bristol Pound won’t save our town centre by Mike Riddell

Mike Riddell — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:07:47 +0000

A cynic or wot?

Come on then. What’s your idea. You’re clearly an armchair critic. A know-it-all sniping from the side-lines.

If you had the slightest idea about urban regeneration you’d know how powerful a local currency could be if delivered correctly.

It takes time to figure out what works and what doesn’t, but at least they’ve had the balls and the determination to have a go. All you can do is have a moan.

Hats off to entrepreneurs.

@mikeriddell62

Comment on Public service reform: people power or privatisation? by Tamires

Tamires — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:33:51 +0000

Working in Prince George’sCounty Maryland fits in etlxcay with your poverty maps, etc. Inside and outside the beltway in the richest black majority county provides a similar picture. Of interest, our clinic linked to Prince George’s Hospital Center is in the wrong zip code for FQHC designation even tho nearly all our patients come from poor zip codes. Also because we are spread out we don’t qualify for some other resources. Thanks for the recent blogs on poverty will share with my IM residents.