There's no more time, W. and I agree, not here in Manchester. There's no long term, not for the worker, nor the consumer. All fixed, frozen relationships dissolve into the air … Uncertainty everywhere. Barely any succession between events in time. Barely any sense of the accumulation of experience.
And no one understands, not really, we agree. We lack the power to interpret our lives. We lack the strength to draw on our experience. The network replaced the pyramid, and the join between its nodes are getting looser. And always the gutting and abandonment of viable firms on the orders of consultants. Always the setting adrift of employees to impress the investors. This is the new city. This is unreal Manchester …
There's no more time, we agree. No more long term, no predictability … We're disoriented, we agree. Nothing connects. Nothing accumulates. But wasn't that what they wanted, back in the 60s? Wasn't that's what they were looking for: freedom from old conformities, from the nine-to-five? Freedom from the old work ethic, and from the old forms of state constraints?
But who could see what weas to come? Who the dissolution of the old solidarities, who the new individualism, who the degeneration of the idea of freedom into free enterprise? Who the deregulation of the financial sector, the new markets based on derivatives and futures trading? Who the new concentration of corporate power in the media and retailing, in retailing and pharmaceuticals?
They remade the economy. They remade culture. A new world appeared while we were napping. And here it is, all around us. Here, as they sold off the public space of the city to Business Improvement Districts. Here, as the streets became a trading environment, as the city was treated as a private business, accountable to investors rather than its elctors. Here as local government became enterpreneurial rather than social democratic?
They formed Marketing Manchester and the Manchester Investment and Development Agency. They pursued World Heritage Site status and the accolade of European City of Culture. They ran an International Urban Design Competition to remake the city. They formed the Piccadilly Regeneration Partnership, and opened up the retail space of the Millennium Quarter. They marketed the Northern Quarter directly at employees of cultural industry, and revived the old Corn Exchange as the boutique-filled Triangle.
That was the rebranding of Manchester in the 1990s. That was the remaking of the city as a space for consumption, for the libertarianism of consumer choice. That was its reconstruction as a space of transactions rather than relationships. So the conversion of previously industrial buildings, especially warehouses, for commercial and residential use. So the new refurbishments with new glass and steel.
We read about the attempt to make Manchester visually important. We read about community architecture and the the repopulation of the city centre. We read about the importance of creative industries to Manchester, the pop music industry, sport and leisure.
The pop music industry, the pop music industry!, W. says. Do you think Morrissey had anything to do with the pop music industry? Do you think Mark E. Smith had anything to do with the pop music industry? Do you think Joy Division were ever part of the pop music industry? It's an obscene phrase: the pop music industry, W. says. Actually, creative industry is an obscene phrase. Community architecture is an obscene phrase.
They're destroying the past, even as they try and conserve it, we agree. They're destroying the future! The Crescents, Old Hulme …. they should have left those as they were. They should have left old Castlefield crumbling. Who needed the Hulme Partnership and Eastside Regeneration? Who the Beacons for a Brighter Future and the Stockport Road Corridor Initiative? Who the New Islington Project? Who the Knowledge Capital Project?
They should have left it filthy, Manchester, W. says. They never should have cleaned it up. The Town Hall, covered in grime. St Peter's Square, covered in grime. Piccadilly Gardens, covered in grime. Princess Parkway as desolate as Warsaw …
Because there's no more time, W. says. Because nowadays, in the eternal now, there are only discontinuity, moments without succession. No one understands. None of us understand. There's only the non-time of uncertainty and anxious malaise. Only a frenzy and chaos without linearity. Only the continual destruction of experience.
Lars Iyer's Blog 