A slow year for posts. Partly this has been due to your correspondents age and health. Yet, the purpose that drove me to create this record of a green place here in busy and built up Newcastle has ripened as it resisted. There are now signs up to mark this 'battlefield (actually City Stadium) as definite place.
Over my acquaintance with the City Stadium it has grown remarkably in character. It really does look and feel like a maturing open space*. The wildlife interest has grown – I hear intriguing news about what's been seen and not long ago saw a Buzzard not far away. Thus, my anxiety about what might happen here – de facto privatisation for one – has receded. But we all know that threats to 'open space' nowadays never can be said to have gone away. The fact that City Stadium was by-passed by the proponents of the Ouseburn Way was troubling.
In the intervening years the place of green space in cities has moved much higher up the political agenda. I think that cultural change is now more than a passing fashion. Covid 19 imposed more than a virus on to people's lives; it produced much anxiety and feelings of alienation that so many subsequently described as having been ameliorated solely through access to green space. Walking under trees and the sky suddenly became a life saver, something that scaled the social wellbeing ladder to recognition.
* As far as I am aware the City Stadium has no officially protected status
Another cause for some hope on the urban renewal front has been a growing awareness of heritage with a small 'h'. True, some fine buildings are in states of shameful neglect, awaiting some imaginative thinking. Numerous office blocks that never have had tenants and the 'here to stay' reality of internet shopping is closing down huge department stores with their high rentals and diminishing footfall, adding to inner urban dereliction. Some initiative is being trialled and I hope it succeeds in changing fortunes, life styles and culture with surprising .benefits ..
'Art Deco store to become apartments'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gl978dv0eo
Meanwhile .... We abide.
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