Week 5's Reading. The Mistakes of the past?Visual narratives of urban decline and regeneration. David Parker and Paul Long.

The reading explains the transformation process around Birmingham and also explaining that greatest rebuilding and development programme are playing important role in these process which existing among the towns and cities of Europe.

Visions of the city

This part of the reading explains that visual material like plans, models, newspaper commentary, paintings, photographs, websites are playing important role in showing visions of Birmingham.

The changing city skyline is also explained in the reading and its says that photographers and visual artists plays important role in this matters.

The Key points that I have found under this heading are:

“Successive generations of urban imaginary find architectural realization in cityscapes.”

The image of the city

The key point under this section is the definition of urban imaginary by Edward Soja:

“‘our mental orcognitive mappings of urban reality and the interpretative grids throughwhich we think about, experience, evaluate and decide to act in the places, spaces and communities in which we live’”

Another key point is that:

“The built form of a city is one tangible expression of the social imaginary”

Images of Birmingham

The Key points that I have found under this heading are:

“Birmingham offers a rich example of how the narrative of Britain’s post-war decline was powerfully expressed through visual imagery.”

This part of the reading gives example of the four main landmarks as a result of which Birmingham built an environment of post-war developments. These landmarks are Bull Ring Shopping Center, The Rotunda, the Post Office Tower and the Central Library.

Utopian visions of Birmingham

The Key points of the readings are:

“The early plans for what became post-war Birmingham the sense of hope and ambition is tangible.”

 “There is a confidence in the capacity of organized interventions to reshape space and secure a better future.”

‘The mistakes of the past’

The Key points that I have found under this heading are:

“Birmingham, as the nation’s motor city, became renowned for pushing its pedestrians into underpasses.”

“The design of the city centre reflected organizational rather than human priorities.”

Youthful nostalgia?

“At a crucial moment in Birmingham’s history their work speaks to the ambivalence felt by many local residents as the place they once knew becomes unrecognizable.”

The new image of the city?

The Key points that I have found under this heading is:

“The more strident the dominant narrative of regeneration becomes, the more devalued are the

necessary narratives of negotiation adopted by local residents without the

resources to aspire to the new urban imaginary’s scale of ambition.”

This part of the reading focusing on explaining the modern development of the city and how Birmingham's  regeneration changed as a result of that developments.