Housing Mistakes

[Waterways]

The issue you are not mentioning is that the middle class usually want to have children, and a high rise city centre (most cities, not just Liverpool) is not the best place to raise children.

Creating families was a great part of the move to the suburbs - the dream of a house with a front and back garden. My 90 year old mum still talks about that being the dream of her life after growing up in Italy. She never ever thought that she would own her own home - and probably will never leave it - she's been in the same house now for 61 years now....

That is a poor defense of inner-city decay - perpetrated by Thatcher and Reagan. Children are only a preserve of the middle class?

You do not need leafy suburbs to bring up children. You need appropriate facilities and open spaces. Also, many people live alone or in couples and no children. People are living longer. Young professionals, and retired people, prefer to live in vibrant city centres, or near to the centre (inner-cities).

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[gregs dad]

People who lived in slum housing and there was plenty of that in the Good Old days would think the Gardens were brilliant,but the ones that moved to Norris Green must have thought that they had died and gone to heaven with their back and front gardens.

[Ged]

Us ordinary street-dwellers called it Kick the Can

Ha ha a slip of the 'tongue'.

---------- Post added at 11:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 AM ----------

I know of people who moved to houses with front and back gardens whose new house was full of mod cons but not full of memories. For the older generation moving out of the city centre where they'd never needed a bus never mind a taxi, being shut off from what they knew was a wrench to say the least. For some, the garden was too much to maintain and they still ventured into town to meet up at their once local watering hole. The landings made for fantastic places to while away the hours just watching the world (or square activities) go by, putting the world to rights and because you had to actually pass other people on the way to your front door, it made for getting to know neighbours - not like the unsociable and lack of community spirit scenario so often witnessed these days.

[Peter McGurk]

Ha ha a slip of the 'tongue'.

---------- Post added at 11:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 AM ----------

I know of people who moved to houses with front and back gardens whose new house was full of mod cons but not full of memories...

The suburbs were a huge mistake - and not just in Liverpool. Strong fences make for no neighbours. No shops, no middle, no place, poor buildings - make it worse.


"the Boot Estate in Norris Green, a now-soiled 1920s visionary transformation of farmland into a landscape of roundabouts and boulevards almost absent of cars, serving 1500 houses and gardens, and comparable to innovative housing areas of pre-1945 Germany, and more recent Danish, German and Netherlandish models. It needs now to be demolished due to technical obsolescence" Doug Clelland. EMAP 2008

[Brian-P]

Ha ha a slip of the 'tongue'.

---------- Post added at 11:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 AM ----------

I know of people who moved to houses with front and back gardens whose new house was full of mod cons but not full of memories. For the older generation moving out of the city centre where they'd never needed a bus never mind a taxi, being shut off from what they knew was a wrench to say the least. For some, the garden was too much to maintain and they still ventured into town to meet up at their once local watering hole. The landings made for fantastic places to while away the hours just watching the world (or square activities) go by, putting the world to rights and because you had to actually pass other people on the way to your front door, it made for getting to know neighbours - not like the unsociable and lack of community spirit scenario so often witnessed these days.

You're spot on there Ged.

Most people nowadays, me included, walk out their house straight into their car on the driveway and drive to, say, the supermarket.

Years ago they would have had to walk down their street - meeting their neighbours along the way. Go to their local shops - meeting their neighbours. Possibly waiting at the bus stop - meeting their neighbours. Working in the local factory - meeting their neighbours. Going for a pint - meeting their neighbours etc.

The community spirit for the majority disappeared a long time ago. Very sad.

On a side note: does anyone have any photos of any of the renovated tenements?