INNER CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT
Richard West wonders
why British city centres are uniquely unpleasant
Bradford NOW that the Government has resolved to tackle the 'inner cities', it should begin by asking why no other country in Europe, perhaps in the world, suffers the same problem. It was a question that nagged at me as I walked round Bradford which, after Birmingham and Liverpool, must be the most depressing and gruesome 'inner city' in Britain. The railway station where one arrives from Leeds is now called Bradford Interchange', no doubt as part of some public-relations drive to improve the city's image and bring in tourists. The station is not as forbidding as on my last visit, when posters were calling for help to capture the 'Yorkshire Ripper', the most notorious of the murderers and sexual maniacs who thrive in this part of England. Nevertheless, the lady who sold me the evening paper said: 'Rape, rape, rape, there's more rape than ever. I'm not a religious person, but talk about Sodom and Gomorrah!' In the centre of town is the usual maze of high-rise concrete blocks and high-speed roads and shopping 'malls', but there is little and or industry, both driven away by tile high local taxation, the rates. Near the centre are empty tracts where once stood work-places and dwellings; a few pubs survive, with quarrelsome Scots- men and gin-sodden elderly prostitutes. Manchester people call Bradford 'the capital of Pakistan', but it is not as simple as that. The immigrants from the Indian subcontinent also divide among themselves on regional or sectarian lines: Sikhs against Hindus, and Muslims among themselves. The many Kashmiri Muslims hate their °wn Pakistan government almost as much as India. One of their leaders told me once that although, of course, he disapproved of terror, he had to admit it had worked in Ireland and Lebanon. First Belfast, then Beirut and one day Bradford? Asian politicians have reached the heights of power in Bradford, including the office of Lord Mayor, once held by Alder- man Foodbotham, 'the 25-stone, crag- visaged, grim-booted, iron-watch-chained perpetual chairman of the Bradford City Tramways and Fine Arts Committee' — a character dear to readers of Michael Whar- ton's 'Peter Simple' column. An Asian ginger group, probably egged on by left- wing whites, succeeded in getting rid of a Bradford headmaster, Ray Honeyford, apparently for the crime of wanting to teach English children their own language, history and religion. Asians now run much of Bradford's remaining commerce, as well as some good and friendly restaurants. The one where I went for lunch was close to a fine old 19th-century building, which had survived till this year, but is now under demolition. Why were they knocking it down? I asked the Indian waiter. 'It's because of the stone in it, very good Yorkshire stone. They sell it to the United States where they really appreciate our good Yorkshire stone.' But why was the building pulled down in the first place? 'I don't know, sir,' came the reply, 'but almost every week there was a fire in that building. I think arson cannot be ruled out.'
Bradford has most of the problems of `inner cities', including the demolition of factories and homes, miserable high-rise flats, unemployment, crime, drugs, a dere- lict National Health Service, truancy in schools and racial tension. Its overwhel- mingly Labour politicians blame Brad- ford's troubles on Mrs Thatcher and her supposed 'cuts'. They call for more subsidy from the tax-payer. The British public, including Conservative politicians, tends to assume that 'inner cities' like Bradford are part of the course of nature. In fact, they are a British phenomenon.
All the major countries of Western Europe had thriving industrial cities and ports in the 19th century, none of which has declined like ours. Marseilles has a problem of North African immigrants but its docks are thriving, unlike Liverpool's. Bordeaux, on the Atlantic coast, is a showpiece of French achievement. Foreign journalists reporting the Barbie trial have found that Lyons, the second city of France, retains as much, if not more of its charm and architectural grace than Paris does. The same could not be said of Birmingham, the second city of Britain. Even in north-east France, which has suffered economic set-backs, there are no `inner cities' in our sense.
Apologists for the North of England say it suffers from having been the first to undergo the industrial revolution and the advantages of an empire. But Belgium and north-west Germany, with their plentiful coal and steel, had thriving industry almost as long as us. Both countries had overseas empires. Both suffered worse than Britain during and after the two world wars. Yet nowhere in Belgium or Germany is there an 'inner city', not even in West Berlin with its peculiar circumstances. Amster- dam has serious problems of drugs, crime and race relations, largely attributable to the trendy permissiveness of the 1960s; but this has not so much affected Rotterdam, which now thrives, as Liverpool used to.
There are no 'inner cities' in Eastern Europe. Zagreb, which has just refur- bished itself for next month's university games, is now one of the handsomest of the Austro-Hungarian cities. The old quarter is well-kept and charming. The high-rise blocks of the New Zagreb over the river appear from the distance as grim as estates round Glasgow or Liverpool; but inside; the flats are spotlessly clean and cared for. There are plentiful trees, and playing grounds for the children. Rape, murder and baby-bashing are conspicuous by their absence, as are social workers. The reason is that the flat-dwellers own their flats. Yugoslavia may suffer from state socialism but not from the far worse scourge of municipal socialism. Even in the Commonwealth it is hard to find 'inner cities'. Hong Kong, in spite of its overcrowding, is well run, with a public transport system that puts London's to shame. Even a city as poor as Bombay seems to be more cheerful and safer than Bradford. In Sydney, with its heritage as a convict settlement, its Irish quarter and fierce trade union loyalties, one might have expected to find the malaise of Britain transferred down under. On the contrary, it is the best preserved and, to my mind, most beautiful city anywhere in the English-speaking world. An Australian friend was acting as guide to a left-wing British journalist who wanted to see the working-class slums of Sydney. They simp- ly do not exist. I am told that since I was there even the drab Surrey Hills district has gone up-market. Oddly enough, much of the credit for keeping the old Sydney, and stopping it growing into an 'inner city', is due to the former Communist boss of the building workers' trade union, who was also a conservationist. He simply refused to pull down monuments of the past or rows of Victorian terraces.
The nearest thing to a British 'inner city' is found in New York, Miami, Los Angeles or Boston. But there, I suspect, the prob- lem of crime, drugs, slums and truancy tends to afflict most the racial ghettoes.The up-town quarters flourish, as they do not in Bradford. Perhaps we could learn from the United States the danger of running our cities for the convenience of the motorist. The motorways and inner ring roads serve the rich in distant suburbs at the expense of those who live in the centre.
Although the 'inner cities' share some of the problems of cities abroad, they are in two respects unique. In no city abroad have the inhabitants actually killed off local industry or stopped new industry coming. The New York longshoremen did for a time close their docks; but the ships later returned in smaller numbers. Other- wise it is hard to think of comparisons with the Liverpool docks, the Newcastle ship- building or the Birmingham car industry. There is also the problem that 'inner cities' like Bradford kill off business, and there- fore jobs, by the imposition of punitive rates. In nearby York, which has never been part of a metropolitan county and never imposed high rates, trade is boom- ing. One of the many second-hand book- shops in York has a turnover of millions of pounds, but pays only hundreds in rates.
The question of rates leads on to the fundamental reasons why Britain alone has 'inner cities'. It is the only country in the world where local government councils act in rivalry with the national government, with their own ideology, their projects for social engineering, their own bureaucracies paid for by special taxation. In all our 'inner cities' local government is the largest and the most generous employer. Many, if not most, of those who elect the council are themselves on the payroll. These 'inner cities' are like Central American republics, where jobs depend on loyalty to the President. In fact most 'inner cities' have diplomatic links with Nicaragua and other states abroad. How local government changed from mending the roads to run- ning a red republic, is what the Govern- ment must ponder. Most of the blame lies with the previous Heath-Walker regime and its Local Government Act.
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