Bulldozing communities

I spent the evening in Liverpool yesterday, on the invitation of a group of residents who are living under the threat of eviction and demolition.
Merseyside's one of nine areas in the UK undergoing massive redevelopment under the government’s controversial Housing Market Renewal Initiative, or Pathfinder project.
It’s a place I thought I knew quite well as a teenager in nearby North Wales. I'd often go to seek out clothes and jewellery at the fantastic hippie shopping complex, Quiggins, which recently closed down after falling victim to the city’s current craze for bulldozers and shiny glass buildings.

But, like most visitors, I only ever saw the centre so never got a feel for the real Liverpool. Since leaving home and moving to Manchester I've been just a handful of times, and always to museums, art galleries, bars or nightclubs in the centre.This year though I've been to four different residential areas - Kensington, Toxteth, Everton and Anfield - and the thing which has struck me is the sheer scale of dereliction.

Liverpool's always been a vibrant place and the city centre appears to be booming as it gears up to be the 2008 European Capital of Culture. There are cranes and building sites everywhere, and some of the projects going on are absolutely huge. So why is it, that just a couple of miles out of the centre, whole streets are tinned up, shop units vacant and once-strong communities crumbling? In some areas the Pathfinder and other renewal projects would seem to be responsible, but it is a case of the chicken and the egg. Parts of those four districts - and probably others - have become urban wastelands. In Anfield I was driven around perhaps 20 elegant Victorian terraced streets which were maybe 30 per cent occupied, with the other houses boarded up and rotting. These are homes which, done up, could probably fetch £150,000 where I live in Manchester.
Housing association tenants are being transferred elsewhere, the buildings not maintained, and often it is elderly home owners who are left, surrounded by desolation and the inevitable anti-social behaviour such places attract. The area I visited yesterday was exactly the same, only thankfully it's remained relatively safe. It was eerie, extremely dark streets full of beautiful two-up, two-downs with just a handful of people still living there. And they don't want to move.
The community spirit was striking. For more than a decade these people have known their area was earmarked for demolition and renewal but the project is still at the planning stage.
Imagine having that hanging over your head for so long. It's hard to sell and no one wants to do repairs. There are vacant properties on either side. Rented homes on the street fall to wrack and ruin. A constant drip, drip, drip of people leaving and the life being sucked from what was once a thriving community. It must be extremely tough.
This scale of dereliction is something I've only ever seen in Liverpool. It's like walking into a ghost town in some places, like something out of a film. The renewal projects could be a reaction to the dereliction, perhaps they're the main cause.
But while no one seems to deny that some houses do drastically need work doing to them, all the residents seem to have questions about the way it's being carried out.
It seems a shame to destroy a community and move people who have lived in the area all their lives, secure the homes at great expense, demolish places with such potential and replace them with flimsy lego town houses and apartment blocks (could they be anything else?)
On some streets, people who have paid off their mortages and couldn't afford another are going to be forced to sell (at artificially low prices - after all these places aren't exactly desirable right now) to the council under Compulsory Purchase Orders and move away. If they want to come back they'll have to pay the going rate for what is essentially their old land.
It just seems like such a phenomenal waste of time and money, when grants could be given and major refurbishments carried out on houses which, after all, most buyers would love because they have so much character.
There must be more to it, whether it's a question of social engineering or a misguided and patronising attitude of 'we know best'. No wonder it's controversial.