What !? Yet another award for Bristol? Come on!!!The local paper says,
'Bristol has been crowned "European city of the year" after scooping an urban environment award.
The city beat off competition from fellow finalists Manchester and Newcastle [/Gateshead] at the awards held in St George's Hall in Liverpool.
The occasion was the annual awards ceremony held by the Academy of Urbanism, whose 100 members include industry-leading architects, planners, engineers, developers and designers.... (http://www.academyofurbanism.org.uk/)
Can this recent glut of awards or consideration for awards for Bristol - European Green Capital shortlisting, top of Sustainable Cities Index, Cabot Circus shopping centre of the year, and now European City of the Year - possibly be considered well thought out, fair and objective assessments? No they can't, both for the reasons I've previously covered and because the same people and/or sort of people who have an interest and involvement in that being judged also have an interest or involvement in the organisation doing the judging !!
Now, to my knowledge there is no indication of anything underhand happening (lets call it 'happy coincidence') but some rather circular and self-congratulatory processes have occurred. Assessment cannot therefore be considered objective, unbiased and dispassionate. What the awards offer us then is just the subjective assessment of one narrow group of people.
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