Comments help prove my point on divided city

This comment article is written by Johnathan Walker

I had intended to follow my previous article with a piece on city governance but the comments by “Bugthebuilder” concerned me. I wouldn’t normally give an article over to a response but I believe Bug’s (mis)understandings are representative of a small but powerful caste in Bristol, the economic, cultural elite I referred to in the original article.

I argued that Bristol Green Capital (BGC) had to be inclusive or risk compounding the divisions that undermine Bristol. Bug argued BGC was about putting “Bristol on the map” rather than inclusion, and my critique of the city’s leadership was moaning and destructive because it provokes political debate which holds the city back.

Only someone who has never had to contend with the consequences of exclusion could fail to understand the importance of inclusion. The failure is evidence of the distance between the Bristol of the city’s elite and the rest of us. It is also evidence of a failure to understand the threats posed to our society by the economic marginalisation of an increasingly large share of the population.

I suggest too there isn’t any such thing as Bristol if what the city does is not inclusive. Instead, what we have are separate towns and castes sharing a space. If we want there to be a Bristol, we have to tackle its economic, racial and geographical fractures.

I also ask what kind environmental movement excludes inclusion from its core aims? Transforming the way we live with each other is inseparable from transforming the way we live with the planet. Building an inclusive economy that shifts the locus of economic power would be revolutionary. Including more people in political debate might rest some influence away from those who have made environmentally disastrous decisions in the past.

The suggestion that offering a critique of city leaders is a negative is fundamentally problematic. Political dissent is core to Britishness. We owe most of our progress to those willing to challenge “group think”. It’s dangerous to suggest political debate holds us back. Inequality, poverty, homelessness, social immobility, the systems shaping our relationship with the planet and the precariousness of our democracy are political challenges. We need greater political literacy, more political engagement and more political debate, not less.

I say also that offering a critique is not necessarily “slating” as argued. If we fail to distinguish between slating and holding power accountable, we’ll end up with leaders who rebuff every challenge as though it were a just a cynical political attack. That would undermine our ability to hold power accountable. Moreover, if we’re going to celebrate Bristol as a place that does things differently, don’t be surprised if one day some people want to dissent and do things differently to you.

Political, economic and social inclusion must be at the heart of all we do. We can’t ask the poorest to stand with their story behind a veil while wealthy Bristol shows off it’s hi-tech green glamour to European investors. 

From the World Bank to the World Economic form, leaders now recognise exclusion as one of the greatest threats to stability and sustainability. It’s not, as was suggested, about the nanny state (a meaningless phrase mostly used by those from the castes most likely to have had actual nannies). 

Far from undermining Bristol, it’s confronting the conundrums of how we do development sustainably, while tackling inequality and exclusion, that will earn Bristol a place in the discussion with the grown-ups.