Date published: 2007/04/30
The Cambridge Evening News says:
An exciting new vision of what Cambridge could be like by the end of the decade has been conjured up by community leaders.
They believe the ancient city needs to adapt itself to the demands of the 21st Century and become more vibrant, more accessible - and safer.
This could involve emulating the success strategies of other top European cities, such as Barcelona, including making Cambridge livelier in the evening, revamping the market square and launching an Edinburgh-style arts festival.
And action must be taken to tackle the growing problem of crime and anti-social behaviour.
The wide-ranging blueprint for Cambridge in the years ahead has been drawn up following a brainstorming workshop organised by the city centre management team.
It was attended by 90 representatives from the business community, education, local councils and voluntary groups.
...
Among the ideas that came out of the workshop were:
- It is "critical" to retain a balance between quality national names and smaller, independent businesses - Cambridge must promote its "local distinctiveness".
- The market square is attractive but "not well utilised". It urgently needs investment - and perhaps could be turned into a European style piazza.
- Access for disabled people and families is "not well accommodated" and must be improved.
- ...
- Car parking charges are a problem that needs to be solved - they are deterring people from coming in to Cambridge.
- The park and ride system is good, but should be made more family friendly and disabled-friendly and buses could be run later in the day.
- The bus station is also a problem, and some businesses fear that the new guided bus system will not be properly integrated.
- ...
- "Low-level entertainment" could be investigated on Christ's Pieces.
- The city should push for European Capital of Culture status.
- Cambridge could have a fringe festival, like Edinburgh.
- ...
- Better street lighting is needed - the "city centre is not perceived as safe at night".
- More "supervision and management" of street drinkers is needed, and the colleges must work to curb excessive drinking in the city centre by students.
Cambridge is not Barcelona. And it's not just that the weather is worse. (Although global warming has helped here.) It is also that the main residents of the city centre are students. The Grafton Centre area is as close as you get to a real part of town near the city centre. The vast majority of families live further afield. And, conversely, apart from pubs, there are few residential areas of the city with any sort of night life. Basically, England is not very good at urban planning. Go to Barcelona or Paris if you want to see how it should be done.
The city centre is definitely not "family friendly". (And most people obnoxiously mean "two adults, N children" when they talk about "families" but of course any household with more than one person in it is a family.) In particular, the city purposefully makes it as difficult and as expensive as possible to get into the city centre if you want to drive in. And the main problem at night in the city centre is not the lack of street lighting, but the fact that there are hordes of drunken yobs, just like in most other towns in England.
The one decent idea in all of this is that perhaps Cambridge should have some kind of "intellectual" festival. Certainly the city should try that out before trying to become "European Capital of Culture".
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