For the love of Newtownland

A Valentines card to my hometown

I grew up in a Scottish newtown from age 5 - 18. It was a bizarre place in retrospect.

I love and hate it.

The first of 5 newtowns built in the 1950s, it embodies a utopian dream that the planners and architects had, but also some mistakes made by them in their first go at actualising it.

As Britain's first shopping mall, the original "Town Centre" really was, in my opinion, a building worth looking after.

the Toonie

Look at London's Barbican Centre or Southbank. 

Southbank

Barbican

The Town Centre was built in the wrong place - on a dreich and blustery hill.  Over the years, a series of bad planning decisions have left it crumbling and bookended by Tesco and Asda. The original building is more or less abandoned.

More on this stuff to come...