As the post-Covid reckoning approaches, who is going to ‘own’ the rebuilding of services, community capacity and employment to which both UK and Scottish governments are formally committed?
Edinburgh
Mythologising modernism
‘This is not the model of capitalism envisaged by Adam Smith, that beautiful smooth-running machine with its assumptions of benign reciprocity between an industrialist and a workforce. It is, rather, an unfettered Hobbesian monster, not unlike the rampant and exploitative mercantilism which Smith (a proto-social psychologist, as well as economic theorist) sought to discredit.’ First of three in a series on Edinburgh’s architecture…
Poverty and coronavirus in Edinburgh: solutions in shared humanity
Edinburgh Poverty Commission is an independent group working to define the steps required to end poverty in the capital. It has been listening to people and organisations in the city over the past few weeks to hear at first hand the profound impacts of the Covid-19 emergency on people living in poverty, now and in the future, and issues its interim report today.
Strictly street dancing: a poem for a pandemic
Coronavirus brings powerful new poignancy to a remarkable poetry collection gathered by Edinburgh’s former Makar, Christine De Luca to celebrate “those who daily undertake some of the lesser-seen jobs in our city…night bus drivers, lollipop ladies, binmen…now on the ‘frontline’
The tangled history of Edinburgh St James
‘So St. James Square remained the province of a handful of small businesses and workshops and 3,700 or so of Edinburgh’s lower orders and their exploitative, ever-neglectful landlords. The long decline of James Craig’s tenement buildings continued. Rack followed ruin and ruin begat rack.’
Edinburgh Makars mak mischief in Poetry Garden
Taking a break from Brexit Fay Young finds subversive mischief in the poetry of Edinburgh Makars, as performed in Edinburgh’s Poetry Garden (aka St Andrew Square)
Making another world possible: a tribute to Word Power Books
A book lover pays tribute to Word Power Books, the Edinburgh independent bookseller whose closure was announced this week.