Saturday 25 September 2010

Birmingham...

Out & about today I noticed (& I may have been mistaken on this people) that the 'old' Birmingham suburb of 'Lee Bank' has been renamed 'Atwood Green'. In order to facilitate this the City Council have demolished most of the old 1960-70's tower block & replaced them with breeze block matchboxes. At first glance they look clean, there are large areas of green & the residents appear happy.
However..... At the Midland Arts Centre -(now there is a design motivated by mammon & is 1 of the ugliest public 'art' centres I have ever come across)-there is an exhibition of photographs of the residents of 'Atwood Green' going about their daily business. Lovely, really nice. The photos show what Birmingham is good at, what we here in Birmingham have I believe, achieved even better than London & for what we should be proud of.
Namely we Birmingham have achieved with the minimum of fuss, disruption & (at least on the surface anyway!) ill feeling from Brummies an atmosphere of racial & cultural co-existence & co-operation. I saw photos of black, tanned, Asian, oriental & white Brummies. All looking happy, living with each other.

But 1 thing that I believe that Birmingham hasn't achieved yet is the mixing of classes, Looking around the city & having lived in a few different suburbs of this fair & once proud city I have observed that there are different classes in each of its suburbs. In Birmingham's defence though I believe this to be the case in most of the UK (including Northern Ireland). Though not in my experience in the Irish Republic.
In Birmingham for example those of 'higher class' tend to live in Solihull (well some parts of that right wing suburb) those of a lower class live in Northfied or Kingstanding-though further up the road from Kingstanding ( & slightly 'posher' is GreatBarr).

This none cross mixing of classes is so typical fucking English I believe, I don't think it occurs on the Continent where surgeons often live cheek by jowl with cleaners, teachers & car engineers.

Just an observation people...I hope you understand.....But there again I don't give a flying fuck if you don't!

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