There's no river here, that's the trouble. There's nothing to open up, to liberate. There are the canals, of course, but they're further out. And they're too straight, too orderly. A city needs a river!, W. says. It needs an expanse.
How many times has the centre been rebuilt? How many times have they wrecked the city centre and wrecked it again? And yet it looks exactly the same as any other English city, only worse. The same complexes for shopping and eating, clustered around the same waterfronts (in Birmingham, canal fronts). The same so-called luxury flats for aspirational buyers, the same industrial-aesthetic chic, the same bullshit public art, the same daft quarters …
Birmingham's a wound, a terrible wound. But it's his wound, W. says. He takes it personally.
Lars Iyer's Blog 