Comments on: Recovering the lost urban poor http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2009/10/recovering-the-lost-urban-poor.html Affordable Housing Institue Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:10:03 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Gaynor Asquith http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2009/10/recovering-the-lost-urban-poor.html/comment-page-1#comment-43576 Gaynor Asquith Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:28:13 +0000 http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2009/10/recovering-the-lost-urban-poor.html#comment-43576 My office, an old textile weaving mill, is 400 yards from Angel Meadow. The stone slabs I walk on were the work place for young children and adults alike, the cast iron pillars next to my desk used to support the weaving machines - but the bricks that were used to build the mill fascinate me most. 200 years ago rich men came to Manchester and asked the local people to make bricks. Those peasant farmers, my ancestors, dug up the clay in their fields and fired hundreds of thousands of bricks right next door to me. Now I have the luxury and pleasure of working in Africa on a conservation and development programme. We need bricks to construct our base, housing, school, water towers. So I ask the local people and they go into their fields and fire bricks, right next door to me. I find the link between my heritage and my present life quite thought provoking but cannot reconcile it. Comments welcomed! My office, an old textile weaving mill, is 400 yards from Angel Meadow. The stone slabs I walk on were the work place for young children and adults alike, the cast iron pillars next to my desk used to support the weaving machines – but the bricks that were used to build the mill fascinate me most. 200 years ago rich men came to Manchester and asked the local people to make bricks. Those peasant farmers, my ancestors, dug up the clay in their fields and fired hundreds of thousands of bricks right next door to me.

Now I have the luxury and pleasure of working in Africa on a conservation and development programme. We need bricks to construct our base, housing, school, water towers. So I ask the local people and they go into their fields and fire bricks, right next door to me.

I find the link between my heritage and my present life quite thought provoking but cannot reconcile it. Comments welcomed!

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