BENCHMARKS! Most intriguing. Montpellier. Barcelona. Rotterdam etc show what can be done. But the spirit oppressing SCALE of the motor way depredations, razing of Maryhill and planless ‘planning’ will require a vision and verve for which the city is not recently famous. But these proposals ARE encouraging and enlightened and exciting. Imaginative, citizen enabling work along the canal is well underway and bodes well for joined up thinking and journeys. However the pressure to KEEP moving, spending and providing evidence of measurable purpose is relentless. Can we at least have plenty of benches and not just clustered so that the elderly, infirm and those just wanting to think, dream, relax or survey the passing scene can at least pause for a wee cost free sit down in a cityscape intended to be enjoyed by citizens who are not consumers? A municipality not defined by the needs of wealthy students in ugly blocks of purpose built- the purpose being profit-flats but predicated on the requirements of babies, the old, the disabled and women. France has its never more than fifteen minutes walk from every essential amenity ethos. King car must be curbed. And all forms of public transport integrated with a low cost, or free single ticket system that really CONNECTS the city’s furthest flung and inermost quarters. More parks, plazas and pedestrianised areas. Greater amounts of greenery. And purposeless places just for being. When I asked why the benches down by the Clyde along from the courts were being removed I was told, ‘the wrong type of people were using them’. Install
Hundreds of benches and single seats and the poor, marginalised and ‘anti social’ will be spoiled for choice as to where to sit, or recline or drink and shout while they wait for society to ease and end their plight.