Yr13 - Cities

You should, today, have handed in your work using the Neighbourhood Statistics site and the Derby City Partnership site. Thank you to those of you who did - if you are one of the people who didn't, you know what you need to do...

We spent Thursday's lesson mapping the best and worst places to live in the UK (according to Phil and Kirstie) and we spent the first part of today's lesson talking about the patterns that the maps showed and the possible reasons for this.

We then went on to think about the causes of inner city decline, and discussed some of the problems of inner city areas and how they've come about, and the cycle of deprivation. Don't forget though, that I also gave you a piece of writing by Tony Cassidy, a geography teacher who lives in inner city Nottingham - an interesting alternative perspective.

Linking back to the Bradford work that we did recently, you might be interested to know that the Westfield development has been "put on ice" according to an article in the Telegraph & Argus. Unsurprisingly, there have been plenty of letters in response to the news, and if you search for "westfield" on the T&A website, you can look at those, as well as a number of other related articles. The "Bradford Metropolitan District Council, Pull Your Finger Out" group on Facebook is also worth a look!

Yr13 - Bradford Regeneration Part 2

Some of the photos from the Bradford trip still need titles/detail adding, but they're here if you want to look at the ones we didn't see on Tuesday. A couple of videos taken with my new Flip video camera here though...

This is Centenary Square, in front of City Hall - and this will be the site of the "Park at the Heart":

Centenary Square in Bradford from victoria ellis on Vimeo.

I have to say that, having been there this morning, the park idea doesn't seem quite so far-fetched, and it wasn't so hard to imagine a hot summer's afternoon with music playing and people sitting outside various bars and cafes.... who knows?!

I didn't feel quite so positive about the proposed Westfield development, however:


Westfield Bradford from victoria ellis on Vimeo.

More about Westfield and the vision for Bradford, complete with a "flythrough" of what the centre will look like here.