We recently became aware of the 2050 plan for future of the city. Some of the th…
We recently became aware of the 2050 plan for future of the city. Some of the thinking has clearly been contributed by the Conservative party. (Some of the .pdf documents literally bear the title ‘Conservative Manifesto’)
The lead in this project is John Savage a Merchant Venturer and the corporate partners include HSBC, a company with disproportionate power over the global economy.
The proposals put forward by the Bristol 2050 team are probably best described as a ‘damp squib’ including some truly bizarre suggestions, such as plans to support young people “with attitude”. It is a pro-business, pro-growth vision that completely fails to acknowledge the changed political and economic situation we find ourselves in.
Putting aside such nonsense, we do actually agree that we need to be taking a longer term view of how we plan our society and our city. A clear flaw in the Bristol 2050 plan is that the only voices heard in it are ‘business leaders’ (with one day event with some 14 year olds in a community centre for window dressing).
Not only is this undemocratic, it’s also self-serving and short-sighted. There’s plenty of evidence that wider public participation in decision-making means better decisions – because it means more knowledge and ideas go into the mix. And frankly, it’s business leaders who got us into this mess, so who on earth would think they have the best ideas on getting us out of it?
We are therefore pleased to announce that we will be engaging with the Bristol 2050 idea and organising our own series of events to map out some possible brighter futures. To this end we have purchased www.bristol2050.org.uk and have had some initial conversations with Dick Penny about hosting some of our own 2050 events at the Watershed.
The future of Bristol is clearly linked to the kind of global system that we live in. The localism agenda is only going to be one of the strings to our bow, as we continue to critique and challenge the global economic system as well.
We look forward to hosting some inspiring 2050 conversations
A better Bristol 2050 |
www.occupybristoluk.org
We recently became aware of the 2050 plan for future of the city. Some of the thinking has clearly been contributed by the Conservative party. (Some of the .pdf documents literally bear the title ‘Conservative Manifesto’)