Rethinking the City

Over the weekend SOOT participated in the Rethinking the City event held at Riddle's Court. 

This event kicked off on Friday evening with Alberto Magnaghi from Florence talking on the Urban Bioregion as part of the Edinburgh Lecture series. The weekend organised by FORCE (Friends of Riddle's Court Edinburgh) sought to bring people together to confront issues of the day, in the same spirt as the Patrick Geddes summer schools of the 1890's and was driven by local examples of action within the city and included presentations, talks, walks and discussion.

 On Saturday evening many returned to enjoy the Ceilidh.

In addition to the local groups involved, the mix of guest speakers (who come from very different backgrounds including land reform, accountancy, philosophy and biology) also contributed and provided greater understanding of many of the wider issues involved. The talks from Andy Wightman, Jan Bebbington, Mike Small and Dr Keith Skene were inspirational and encouraged great discussion throughout the weekend.

Unfortunately our elected representatives and senior council officials, who could also have learned alot from the lively debates and perhaps even gained some understanding of the issues of concern to the communities they seek to serve, did not attend!