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Welcome to a brand of
Mathematical
Services. I comment on a video of a bus rise into downtown Leeds, UK. Leeds in1900 had half the population of Bradford, but now it is a bigger city and getting bigger (or should I say more people at least). Look at all the high rise blocks and the ones being built along Whitehall Road, close to the center. These sre not back to back slum dwellings (allegedly) as in Bradford, but flats, offices of concrete, steel and glass in the sky. Leeds is building high rise, whilst Bradford takes it down. I hope the trends are right, and that this is not a battery farm on steriods. We seem to have worked through the fiddling of the working man, we've done away with many of his traditional roles through mechanisation, computerisation (a long way to go I would say), but lets hope the masters of these technologies, the stewards of money, the derived wool stapler, is not going to indulge the temptation to further turn the screw himself, if there is now not the need (to combat the fiddler). Thus the jobs are gone, the traditional ones, so lets hope there is not a proliferation of the made up ones, to justify the living off the rent of the dicing and slicing the living space again. That real roles blossom, fulfilling, enjoyable ones. Lets hope he is now not living off the extinct wool comber but the desperate, the migrant, the ungrateful newcoomber sidestepping the fiddling or problems in his origin. Lets hope we have a better structure this time, and that the structure, is simply not a celebtration of an artificial structure. 2026-04-14 05:51:57 - Paul D. Foy - I've commented here on the different fortunes of Leeds and Bradford, and I now have further to say on this. The situation of the 'centre' in Leeds and Bradford couldn't be more different and each of them in contrast to the past. Bradford had no centre but has now got a pleasant, spacious, pedestrianised centre which is a joy to walk around and have a bit in the Wetherspoon's. I'm not sure what the centre of Leeds looked like around the turn of the 20th century (I suspect it would be busy, if not filled with factories exactly, but now it is certainly very crowded. There is not the feeling of space and openness, but instead one feels hemmed in by tower blocks. The open plan spaces no not really feel as open, but instead there is the jostle for commercial outlets via for your money. Perhaps this is a good thing, I suppose it is. There is more of a reason to go to the centre, other than just walk around. I should think the interest is in taking your money (to put up the price of the nearby flats no doubt ;(. I've commented to people - what you need to do is live in the centre and go out to work. Reverse commute. To defeat the rat race going the other way. But it's got to be a pleasant place to live! They're not sort of institutions in Leeds either (Britain HAS no shortage of institutions, special interest groups, sociities (book writers :)) - there's the Leeds Civic Trust - what does it say about the evolution of the centre. Perhaps its full of students now, they don't like living like battery hens! Not me, you've got to have dignity even as a young person - sets your outlook and attitude up for life, about whether you care for other people because they cared about you when you were young, vulnerable and inexperienced. This is a comment of a grumbly old(ish) man. Post a comment: |