Reflections

It has been a while since I have wrote anything on this blog.  I was struggling for inspiration, I have been very  busy and then also I have moved away from Bradford city centre.  That is quite a change, but that's what spending about 9 hours of my life on the X6 travelling to work can do.

One of my most read posts last year was a couple of scenarios looking at the future of Bradford.  One was a doomsday scenario of the death of the city, the other was a more optimistic one: the Renaissance of Bradford (The former post got more views, naturally) and both of these appeared in How Do Magazine.  Both posts were written from the viewpoint of someone in 2052, as a timeline.

The Death of Bradford said, in 2028, that the National Media Museum closes down and moves over to Media City in Salford.  It is now apparent that this could be a lot earlier, as one of the three of the excellent Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and the National Railway Museum in York, along with the National Media Museum is expected to be closed down.  It does worry a little bit how Bradford compares to the tourist hotbed of York and the bold city of Manchester, which should really be regarded as England's second city (in my personal opinion, it's better than Birmingham!).  The death of Bradford entry had a lot of events about the failure of retail in the city, which I think is a cause for concern right now.  Conversely the renaissance of Bradford, whilst having numerous events about retail success, also had a range of cultural and education milestones to celebrate.

I think the death and renaissance scenarios when taken together reinforce the need for Bradford to become a centre of culture and education.  The Bollywood Carmen event, which will be broadcast live on BBC3 on Sunday, has given the city a positive national profile, along these lines. This event coincides with the 100th anniversary of Bollywood movies, which of course is being celebrated at the National Media Museum.  If publicly funded institutions stop investing in Bradford and indeed the north and continue to exacerbate the gap between London and the rest of England, where can Bradford go next?