A guerilla gardening site in the Southside of Edinburgh has been left after the landowners, National Rail noticed its existence. They wanted £500 / year for the unused land (ten times an allotment rent), probably figuring on its future use as a billboard site. So the site remains derelict, neatly illustrating the point, raised recently by Nowtopia author Chris Carlsson, that all such activities have to deal with the question of land ownership at some point.

• Edinburgh Evening News

 The "Clyde Gateway" development is to receive another £2 billion of public funds to see it through the recession. "We are confident that what is being created along both banks of the Clyde will present a very attractive proposition for developers and investors when the market recovers"

This development is seen as key to the M74 Extension, Commonwealth Games bid and various other things; so far has produced new offices for the BBC and STV, and a rash of overpriced 2 bedroom flats  more suitable for speculators than families.

• Glasgow Herald

Campaign group Re-bridge the Gap call for emails to Edinburgh Council's Head of Transport and Council Leader demanding that an important and historic pedestrian link across the Waverley Valley be re-instated.

The controversial and unwelcome commercial development in Glasgow's Pollok Park has been cancelled. Kids are no longer going to get charged £20 to climb the trees in the park given to the people of Glasgow.

Glasgow City Council Leader, Stephen Purcell, has claimed that the Village will be one of “the greatest providers of opportunities” before and after 2014: “After the Games, the Village area will become a vibrant neighbourhood, a flagship for the regeneration of Glasgow’s East End and a visible reminder of the legacy of the Games”. Yet the hype, as ever, requires a reality check. Of the 1,500 houses, 1,200 will be for private sale, while only 300 (or 20%) will be for socially rented housing. The question of who exactly will benefit from the ‘Legacy’ is important. Will local people benefit – or will big business and the wealthy?

The City Council have chummily offered to subsidise the Village site for developers by making the land available at nil cost – this reduces the developers initial borrowing requirements, and increases their long-term potential for profit (at our expense, and our risk). The Council has made it clear that in the current economic climate it will be ‘open for business’, ever ready with ‘flexible’ arrangements to bail out large companies and multinationals as they ‘struggle’ to make a profit (just like the UK government with the banks). Meanwhile the poor are left to foot the bill, and asked to mend and make do.

In Sep. 08, City Strolls visited Los Angeles, meeting people working in community empowerment work in the down town area where the effects of gentrification are meted out on the poorest of the community. Here we hear some of the situations people are facing and how folk organise to create understanding and strategies fight against powerful business interests who care nothing about the plight of low income and homeless people.

We have much in common in this country (UK) and we would well heed the lessons from LA.

• http://www.archive.org/details/LaConnections

"THE DEVELOPER behind the collapsed £300 million Caltongate project in Edinburgh has indicated for the first time that it will not attempt to revive the project.

Manish Chande, co-owner of Mountgrange Capital, which was forced into administration by its banker Lloyds in March, told the Sunday Herald he was "close to divorce" from the project, expressing impatience with the planning delays and heritage objections that have dogged the four-year project.

Chande's decision to draw a line under Mountgrange's involvement in Caltongate comes as administrator Deloitte said it had held talks with other potential developers and that a deal could be "months if not weeks" away. This runs contrary to reports that Lloyds was leaning on the administrator to mothball the site until the commercial property market picked up in value."

• Sunday Herald

Issue 34 of the free, politically-engaged cultural journal Variant has been released. It features articles on the development of Glasgow's Merchant City, the recent Gaza conflict and social-realist filmaking in the UK.

Work on the M74 Extension starts making lives a misery in Glasgow by stopping the subway from running.

Piling work was going on right next to where a structural fracture halted service between West Street & Bridge Street, disrupting the travel plans of 40,000 people. A spokesman for the single-bidder snout-trough consortium ""Interlink M74 JV", which includes Balfour Beatty, Morgan Est, Morrison Construction and Sir Robert McAlpine, said: "nothing to do with us".

Glasgow City Council is closing schools at the same time as meeting around 10% of the costs of the half-billion scheme that will shave 2 minutes off the journey from East Kilbride to Glasgow airport.

• Glasgow Herald

Triple Olympic medallist Chris Hoy has given his backing to the campaign to save Edinburgh's Meadowbank Stadium from closure. Original story here at the Save Meadowbank website (found via CommonGoodWatch.)