That’s the question being asked (and answered?) at the Birmingham Residents University on the morning of Thursday 28th February.  Amongst the panel will be a couple of Birmingham’s blogging councillors – Martin Mullaney and Zoe Hopkins (intermitent poster)  alongside Salma Yaqoob and Robert Alden.

Anyway what do you think – do you trust your local councillor [...]

Is there a solution to street racing in Birmingham? Masood Ajaib of the Washwood Heath based community enterprise Commpact thinks there is. He has signed up for an experiment to find a communal way of turning a dangerous [...]

 

 The Track: Landor Street, Birmingham [10:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A short film introducing the work being done in Kingstanding by residents trying to tackle the connection between crime and grime. It was shot for a residents conference in The Hague at the end of this week. No intended to be comprehensive, more a way of allowing [...]

I’ve been scootling around the place recently making a series of short films as means of introductory pieces for a neighbourhood safety conference in the Hague this coming week. I’ve met four groups from Birmingham and two from The Hague, all working experimenting with ways to give residents more power in reducing grime and [...]

PC Bernie Flynn has been working with young people in Quinton in Birmingham consistently since 2001, merging policing with youth work. For him finding the right people for the job and giving them time to show respect and earn respect is at the heart of good community policing. Anti social behaviour in and around [...]

 

 Quinzone podcast on the Grassroots Channel [8:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In the 1989’s Birmingham’s leaders gathered at Highbury Hall in Moseley for a summit meeting. It was the second time such a gathering had happened and Highbury 2 spawned the idea to break the concrete collar which was stranggling the growth of the city centre.

With the ring road down it is 2007 and Stef [...]

This is a picture of Chris Bongard who talks to the Grassroots Channel about his neighbours’ campaign to convert their wooden shacks in one of Barcelona’s old shanty towns into purpose built apartment blocks. You can see the homes they campaigned for on the right of the picture, just [...]

 

 barcelona podcast from birmingham [15:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve just noticed that the think tank Demos has launched a project on conversation called Talk us into it. You can download a pdf of their first pamphlet on the theme here. It proposes that
by combining what we know about conversations with what we know about the changing nature of community, [...]

 

 Albert and Natalie [20:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download