Off Topic Destination Hull 2020: New look revealed for city centre

I like the fruit market pic it looks good
I have I puncture of how the old Beverley gate and it used to look superb

 

Marvellous. Be nice to see it start.

 

Liking the look of these very much.

 

Looks ok - not exactly innovative...

 

Get ready for some idiots complaining that the people in the artists impressions are hideously white and don't reflect the wonderful multicultural diversity which so enriches us.

 

We're not really in a position to be innovative, it has to be quick and sustainable, nothing more.

 

Nah, CC - my objection is that it's not pissing down on a sad grey day...

 

P.S. - in search of greater reality, where is all the litter that Hull folks leave around (as they do everywhere else, to be fair)?

 

Hull already has a new look

But 5 years for some plants, benches and a fountain?

 

The Jameson street one looks the same.

Viccy square and the fruit market look awesome though.

 

About time hull got new paving

It looks so weathered, cracked and outright trampy

 

It's looking good to me.

It's a shame that some will still try to put a negative slant on some of the really good things going on in Hull. I reckon if someone had an idea that could improve the existing designs, they people responsible would be only too pleased to hear and consider it. There's no need to sit back and see what they're offering, I'm sure they'd welcome more involvement and input.

This is about Hull, I think it should be embraced and supported as much as possible and generate some pride in what we have here.

 

We r ull

 

I genuinely hate to be negative but let's have a bit of reality. Or at least, let me present a few opinions that differ from the hull daily mail/radio humberside narrative, and then please tell me where and how I am wrong.

First, how can it be bad to do up the place? It can't, unless the opportunity cost is failing to address the crippling issues of low educational attainment (yes our gcse results now puts us at 145 out of 152 local authorities nationally, so there is improvement, but is it honestly enough, soon enough?). Of course this low educational attainment is linked to the high rates of poverty within the city. What can a teacher do when a kid comes into school not fed/clothed properly, and suffering all the disadvantages someone growing up in poverty suffers? Unemployment is way above the national average (more than double the national average, in fact). http://www.cityam.com/1410951149/how-high-is-unemployment-in-your-area
Let's remember these figures don't take into account so many people wanting a job and not able to get one/sanctioned/on zero hours contracts/ etc etc.

Siemens say their initiative will create UP TO 1000 jobs. Local talking heads suggest Siemens will bring further jobs, is there any actual evidence of this (beyond the obvious (relatively small) bump up to 1000 jobs has to bring)? I cannot find any evidence beyond local politicians (who clearly benefit from talking up higher figures) suggesting this will happen but welcome being shown where/how more jobs directly related will come out of it. We need a large multiple of this 1000 just to get to the national average, in a faltering economy (where a city like Hull will inevitably struggle more than most as we have less of a safety net). http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82737cca-39f2-11e5-bbd1-b37bc06f590c.html#axzz3i8fT8X33 (I have cut and pasted text of this story below for those interested as it is behind a paywall.)

Take a look at this study, that shows how there actually is NO evidence that cultural events (such as city of culture) add to the local economy, in fact they can reduce local gdp in the long term. http://www.whatworksgrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/14-07-07-Culture-and-Sport.pdf
A bump in self confidence can't hurt, but if it isn't backed up with real investment then is it any more than previous 'top ten city' or 'pioneering city' gambits? And if the cost is mal-investment based on a dream, isn't it right to offer a contrary voice to the argument?

Finally, for Hull this is undoubtedly the knockout blow. The rate of change of glacial melt is increasing at twice as fast per decade now. It might slow down (but no it won't). Our scientists are saying that the rate of change if anything will speed up. Anyone taking on a 25 year mortgage on a home in Hull in 2020 is presumably assuming their property in Hull will be worth anything to somebody taking out a 25 year mortgage in 2045. Given sea level rise associated will this exponentially increasing glacial melt, that is very unlikely. What does this dampening affect have on the economy of the city?So we most likely have a small window within which our city has a good chance of being economically productive. I would hope we are not squandering the small amount of time we have.

Doesn't it look like the city council are coming up with lots of things that encourage spending money, but very few things that talk about creating money? Isn't this an actual travesty for anybody with young children starting their lives in the city today?

What could the council do differently? Not much, I suppose; the situation today is a result of decades of previous mismanagement of the city by those in charge, that failure has already happened. But wouldn't it be a pity if this current plan will prove to be equally mistaken?

Here is the financial times article from today discussing the likelihood of another crash within the next year...: My personal opinion is that this will not happen, but the price of protecting world markets will result in a continually reduced real economy.

Just saying.

Spoiler

From financial times:

GMO founder Grantham says markets ‘ripe for major decline’ in 2016

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article (lol). See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/82737cca-39f2-11e5-bbd1-b37bc06f590c.html#ixzz3i9UhzSy3


A well-known fund manager who foresaw the Japanese crash, the dotcom bubble and the global financial crisis has predicted that markets will be “ripe for a major decline” some time in 2016, potentially triggering government bankruptcies.

Jeremy Grantham , founder and chief investment strategist of GMO, a $118bn investment house based in Boston, expects the stock market to continue to march higher in the coming year, eventually sucking in retail investors and setting up a serious decline around the time of the US elections in late 2016.

The famously bearish and often prescient money manager said this could trigger a “very different” type of crisis, because many governments had become considerably more indebted and much of the liabilities had shifted to the balance sheets of central banks.

Given that central banks were able to create money to recapitalise themselves, this “could be a crisis we could weather”, Mr Grantham said. “If not, then we’re talking the 1930s, where you have a chain-link of government defaults.”

Unlike many asset managers or analysts, Mr Grantham does not fret greatly over the impact of the Federal Reserve lifting interest rates for the first time in almost a decade this year. He points out that the US central bank lifted interest rates 13 times between 2004 and 2006 without troubling the ebullience of the time.

“And now we are behaving hysterically at the prospect of just one? It’s a bit of a joke, really,” he said. “We might have a wobbly few weeks when they do move, but I’m sure the Fed will stroke us like you wouldn’t believe and the markets will settle down, and most probably go to a new high.”

However, this will draw in retail investors who for the most part have stayed on the sidelines of the great bull market since 2009. That could push the S&P 500 into valuations that are two standard deviations away from the long-term norm by the time of the US elections, which Mr Grantham classified as a bubble.

With the US Federal Reserve expected to raise interest rates for the first time in a decade, Robin Wigglesworth and Elaine Moore ask if the great bond party is about to end

The British-born financier has a reputation for being overly gloomy, and was negative on the US stock market far too early in the late-1990s boom. While he was eventually proved right on the internet bubble, that view dragged on GMO’s performance for several years and led to huge investor outflows at the time.

Mr Grantham is uncertain what could trigger the next crisis, pointing out that bubbles do not burst simply because financial assets are overvalued. But he argued that by late 2016 markets would probably be extremely vulnerable to a crash, given lofty valuations.

“We might get lucky and withstand one more crisis and just have an equity washout, and on the other hand it might just break the system,” he said. “It would be new, novel, and it could result in national defaults.”

 

Phew, yes, strong stuff, but in the meantime do the long overdue equivalent of wallpapering the living room and sprucing up the garden; superficial and a little extravagant, but reassuringly pleasing. If it's an indulgence then bugger it, it's long overdue and well deserved.

 

Yeah, can't argue with that. How could you argue against something that makes a city feel better (at least in the short term)? Let's hope my concerns turn out to be unfounded and it doesn't damage the long term health of the city (well it's inhabitants really).

Edit - I suppose I would love to hear about policies that dealt with the poverty and unemployment that has blighted the city for generations now, that should go hand in hand with these more expansive city of culture etc leisure policies. It concerns me that I don't. An economy based on consumption and debt can not ever last, never mind the environmental considerations we personally face.