the city that never builds anything

Harbourside, home to divisional headquarters of HBoS, Lloyds Bank and Hargreaves Lansdown.

TempleQuay, home to Bank of Ireland, DAS Insurance (well sort of) plus one or two others

Cabot Circus - home to Harvey Nicks

yeah, Bristol gets nothing. Bristol was hardly going to get the English/UK national stadium or the English/UK national opera house.

different cities with different ideas

Rival cities
Population (2011):
Bristol 432,500; Cardiff 346,100
Average weekly wages (2012):
Bristol £466; Cardiff £478
Average house price (2011):
Bristol £205,800; Cardiff £180,800
GVA [the value of goods and services produced] (2011):
Bristol £26,900; Cardiff £24,400

Strange article. They forgot to mention the £billion barrage.

Funny how all the measures are in Bristol's favour except average weekly wage! I presume this is Valleys affect, cheap housing conurbation where people commute into Cardiff to work in low wage jobs
The exact opposite is true for Bristol, the high wage people commute from their leafy towns nearby..

I think Bristol's NIMBYs are far more vocal and effective than the ones in Cardiff as well. I remember people moaning about the WMC and the Senedd, but they didn't actually bothering doing anything about it. In Bristol they'd have been out looking for great crested newts or starting a riot. Remember when some road in Bristol got a Tesco there were riots, when City Road got it's Tesco there were a few posters in Plasnewydd windows moaning about the tescopoly.

strange article in the sense that it doesn't mention the barrage or St. David's, John Lewis etc. in Cardiff, or Cabbots circus etc. in Bristol... But it also doesn't mention the numerous plans that have come to nothing in Cardiff - glass needle, ISV snow dome (so far) central bus station etc.

Also I believe more houses have been built in Bristol in the last 5-10 years than in Cardiff...

All subjective I suppose, but very hard to compare the 2 cities

Probably because most of those types of projects aren't what Bristol struggles to get built, hence why they weren't mentioned.

Well they did build their equivalent to the barrage -the floating harbour- about 200 years earlier.



Bristol seems to have a much larger proportion of poorer people/deprived areas than the surrounding region, whereas the opposite is true of Cardiff, which probably affects the statistics.

Also, many neighbourhoods and areas of employment such as Aztec West, Abbeywood, UWE, The Science Park etc are all located (just) outside of the city limits, so I imagine there's probably less incentive/pressure to live within Bristol itself for work.

Stokes Croft and City Road are two very different types of places. It is no suprise the response was different.

One phrase, one.... image comes to mind when I consider this apparent conundrum.

Big Firm Bristol.

They could use it as a marketing slogan

Cardiffs the better city you plum.

Roath park, bute park, Cardiff bay, the Taff trail, Cardiff castle, castell coch, cathays park

All free and trumps anything Bristol has to offer

^^^

What that man said, plus the city is full of wurzels.

They certainly benefit in terms of some high paying employers, I can see that within the industry my employer is in alone, but then it's a bit closer to London and has great transport links so it's no suprise.


I work with a few people that live in Bristol but aren't from there originally and they have a few complaints about how long the city takes to get things done planning wise.

I'm not keen on the place though it has to be said.

You have to pay to go into Cardiff Castle, and the bay area is rather dull if you don't plan on spending any money.

As for Bristol, it has plenty of beautiful parks and open spaces:

Blaise Castle estate, Blaise Hamlet, Frome Vale, The Downs, Ashton Court, Oldbury Court, Stoke park, Brandon Hill & Cabot tower, Clifton Suspension Bridge & Avon Gorge, Bristol Zoo gardens & safari park, Victoria Park, Arnos Vale, Ashton Park, Queen Square, College Green, SS Great Britain, The Harbourside, Conham Vale, Avon Valley etc.

So Cardiff hardly 'trumps' Bristol in that context.



How Pleasant. Plenty of other welsh people don't seem to mind given the number of accents I hear on a daily basis.

I agree. But when I think of you, Jantra, the phrase "Big Firm Bristol" comes to mind. It may be because you listed many of the big firms in Bristol in your post above. On the other hand.......

just to interject (not to do with brizzle) but a message for Jantwat - can you tweak that user name please (fair play to Jantra as he hasn't made a fuss) but I'm hoping that this forum can attract interest from many ages, creeds etc and that name is a little offensive. I know you've used it for a while but hoped it would just dissapear (not you I hasten to add) with out me sticking my oar in (not something I do often) OK that's me for now. Back to Bristol...

It was said in jest, there's plenty of such banter between both sides of the border.

Fair enough.

you don't have to pay to get in to Cardiff Castle.

I never said Bristol didn't have any parks, it just doesn't have the parks Cardiff does. sorry.

don't get me wrong, I like Bristol, it has an edge to it. I also like the people, having worked there often.

Better tell that to those paying the £11 essential ticket!



No worries! But I don't agree (obviously!)

Bute Park (or the parkland that straddles The Taff river) is the only park that really stands out and that type of large expansive park is more numerous in Bristol. As for the actual parks themselves ( Ashton Court, Blaise Castle, Oldbury court, The Downs etc) they surpass or as good as the Cardiff equivalent (imo). There's also the smaller and medium sized green spaces too, but I can't say I've found the Cardiff equivalents to be more notable or more numerous than the ones in Bristol either.

Forgot to mention Roath Park, that's very nice too, mostly for the lake though, as it's bit narrow as parks go. Still nice though, reminiscent of St Andrews, St George, or Brandon Hill parks.


Sure, likewise. Lived in Cardiff for 4 years, quite sad I had to move away actually.

Having been to Bristol quite a few times i always find its city center a very ugly and brutal place with occasional hints to how pretty it was, its only when you wander to the cathedral and Clifton areas that you see how beautiful a place it can be, especially Clifton which is a glorious place! It has to be said that their modern developments( with the literal exception of 1 or 2 developments) are dreadful, especially apartment development. I saw some really shocking buildings reminiscent of cheap apartment i saw in eastern Europe around the dock areas, with the whole area feeling grim and windswept (the weather didn't help!)

something like Queen Square is missing from Cardiff

Bristol City Centre suffers from the the same problems as many cities that were heavily bombed in WW2 - cheap and rushed post-war reconstuction. It's gradualy being replaced but the main shopping area remains pretty charmless.

The areas around the Watershed and the Industrial Museum have been well redevloped but the millienial @Bristol development isn't aging well and there are some absolutely shocking office developments - particularly the sterile post-mordenist tat that is Lloyd's Bank building which squats on a key strategic site . Clifton is lovely but some of the inner city areas are a bit grim. Much like most places it's a bit of curate's egg.

I can't believe that no-one has mentioned the appeal of the wider Old City. This is a stunning example of a pre-industrial urban realm.

As someone who isn't 'local' to either city i.e. I wasn't born in either, being a Pembrokeshire lad originally (well, until the age of 8), and with a longish stint living abroad, I'd say they have as much in common as they do differences. In fact they probably have more in common with one another than they do with any other city in the world let alone the country; admittedly it's for rather superficial reasons though.

Please, as someone who has had experience of visiting some really ugly cities around the world I can safely say It's not that anywhere near that bad. The uglier parts have a prominence but it doesn't take long to find the pretty parts in the city centre, and they're quite substantial too e.g: The Old city, King Street, College Green, Park Street, Queen Square, The Arts Quarter, various side streets and alleys, The Harbour-side in it's entirety (despite various carbuncles).

Some of the more... 'visually challenged' areas do have a surprising amount going on culturally and can be surprisingly vibrant though and will at least not be totally void of or far from attractive buildings/areas, I mean even Broadmead has quite a few gems dotted about.

Granted it's a different scale but proportionally at least, Cardiff city centre is not exactly a looker in parts either e.g. Outside the main railway station, churchill Way, Bute Terrace, The Capitol Centre & Queen's arcade and various other post-war and post modern monstrosities on St Mary street and Queen Street, that hideous student tower block by the old vulcan pub, Newport Rd, the south side of Greyfriars etc.



Yeah those flats are really horrible, lord knows how they got built, but in all fairness they're no worse than some of the stuff down cardiff bay really. At least there's the rest of the city centre/dockside to help 'dilute' their effect.
The Bay on the other hand has... council estates.

I might not really be the person to ask about recent developments in the city given where I was living prior, but I'm pretty damn sure the number of decent buildings constructed in past decade is not just limited to "literally" 1 or 2 developments.

Yeah, it's certainly not the nicest area in parts, and one of the things I miss about Cardiff is that there's far more coherence with the retail area. Weirdly the worst part of Broadmead now is actually a shopping mall that was built in the late 1980s called (of all things) The Galleries. Horrid thing.

That said the 'other' worst area, The Bear Pit, has changed a lot and for the better; it has dragged some of the nicer aspects of Stokes Croft down to it, and now it's quite a cool, unconventional space these days (for what it is) with the various market stalls and events. There's even a vintage clothing store in that weird arcade-plaza thing by the bus station.



Millennium square is a bit strange place really, but I don't think it's aged that badly though, (some of the other areas however!) but anyway as a space it's pretty successful and in the warmer months or when there's events on, and subsequently lots of people, its really nice.

Calling it a curate's egg is probably a little harsh, I think the positive aspects outweigh the negatives by a wide margin imo. There's some rough areas for sure but in the inner city at least, they're all quite interesting really and every single neighbourhood has it's own unique character in terms of architecture, shops, bars etc.



It's quite substantial an area and currently undergoing a lot of regeneration; lots of new businesses (cafes, bars, nightclubs, shops etc) opening up around there, for example the old guildhall is being turned into 5 star hotel. I've also heard there are plans to rebuild some of the buildings that were lost in the blitz as well but dunno how serious that is.

Apparently there are also plans to turn the area in front of St Mary Redcliffe into a ''spanish style boulevard". Sounds interesting but I'll believe it when I see it!

It wasn't meant to be - as I said, that description applies to most places!

I think what's coming through most of the above posts is that Bristol probably does better on small privately-led developments, small business start-ups etc while Cardiff has the edge on driving forward major projects with public sector involvment.

It's an interesting thought that the former may actualy hinder the latter. Does that the presence of a number of inventive start-ups actualy breed nimbyism? I'm thinking Tesco, Stokes Cross here.

I seem to rember the last time we discussed Bristol on here was when we compared the arts in the two cities. Someone remarked, I think accurately, that Bristol was more "bottom-up" while Cardiff tended to be "top-down". There's probably a lot of truth in that and it may well result from Bristol being a largly business-driven city with wide wealth disparities while Cardiff is more public-sector driven with a fewer visible economic disparities.


Looking at the Enterpise Zone fly-through ( http://www.bristoltemplequarter.com/about-the-zone/spatial-framework/3d-fly-through ) it seems the city has made a deliberate decision to avoid any high-rise development in the central area. Is that the case? It's not a bad idea - Cardiff, Liverpool, Leeds etc run the risk of looking very similar - sticking to low and medium rise might be the way to go for Bristol.

There is some truth in that, although I think that is a bit of an exaggerated stereotype or an illusion in a way, and not necessarily an accurate reflection of either city. Also, I don't think one should really associate the private-sector led development as being small scale, or the public sector as large scale either; in the case of Bristol (and I'm sure in Cardiff as well) many projects were apparently joint funded as well; as an example, Temple Quay was in part funded by the taxpayer to get it started.
It probably gets a bit confusing due to Cardiff's status as an administrative capital.

Bristol itself is quite a strong Labour-Liberal stronghold and the public sector has, at least historically, been quite strong though marred by a very weak political leadership. The commercial sector itself, whilst very diverse, was also until recently dominated by large, manufacturing-type industries and had a make up/dynamic that people associate more with cities in the north and Midlands.

To mention it again, as far as things being "top down or bottom up", it's quite hard distinguish between the two with regards to the arts than it is with the 'business' sector. Although I think that there is certainly a more palpable grass-roots level of activity here I doubt that, at its core, the arts infrastructure in Bristol is any different from any other British city in that many of the facilities and events are at least partly funded through government funds somewhere down the line. As for many of the institutions themselves, many of them weren't ever really founded from a true grassroots level.





Quite possibly, although not sure if nimby-ism is necessarily applicable to the Stokes Croft-Tesco incident. I think very weak leadership at the top has played as much of a role than anything especially with the Ashton Gate stadium.



Given the legacy of tall buildings in the city centre it's understandable I guess. I'm not sure they're even really that necessary though, for commercial-office use anyway. Most modern offices require quite large floor-spaces; given various restrictions (even in the enterprise zone and its more streamlined planning process), potential high-rises would probably end up having floors that were too small, or would be too overbearing on the surrounding area, or too expensive to warrant their construction. if some of the buildings turn out sub-par then at least It's easier to redevelop a 6 storey building than one that is 15 storeys!

From a planning point of view it's all about (re)densifying, extending and expanding the centre and making it a much more attractive place at ground level for pedestrians and cyclists i.e. repair the damaged inflicted by the road schemes of the 1960s and 1970s.

you do have to pay for Cardiff castle.

Not if you're a Cardiff resident you don't.

Or if you work in Cardiff ^^^

For me the main reason to visit a city center (other than to work) is to shop and go to restaurants/bars/clubs and these areas in Bristol are what let it down. Cardiff offers a great urban realm for shopping, dining and clubbing whereas in Bristol i personally felt like i was in islands of prettiness surrounded by some dreadful post war buildings. It almost seems as if the council are trying to bring Temple mead's into the city center through development rather than develop some post war dross. Personally i find Churchill way and Bute terrace quite interesting streets with relatively decent architecture bar 1 or 2 buildings. Ty point-y-hearn inst an attractive building but its not in your face ugly either.

I wouldn't say so, don't think many others would agree with you either. Bit hard to argue places like Park Street, King Street, the waterfront, Corn street, Stokes Croft etc let the city down. What I like is how Bristol's nightlife, drinking, and dining spots are, especially for a city of its size, pretty varied and diverse in terms of establishments and districts. Imo Cardiff is much more limited in this respect, being a bit too self-contained, and possibly catering a little too much to certain groups. Although I did enjoy it as a student I hasten to add.

Shopping-wise, over here it's certainly more of a mixed bag (pardon the pun) for reasons I've mentioned before, but generally the good parts make up for it, especially now with recent developments.



Yeah, because there's totally a difference? That statement makes no sense.

Anyway there's not actually a lot of post war 'dross' between Temple Meads and the hippodrome, and last time I checked there were quite a few sites clearly marked and in various stages of re-development.



No, the recent structures are equally as bad as anything you'd find in Bristol and at least in the latter they didn't know any better at the time and were dealing with the aftermath of the blitz. I can understand why they might appeal, but ultimately they're just a load of dross.
As for Ty point Y Hearn, it is absolutely hideous, and much more evocative of those dreary apartment blocks you get in ex-soviet countries (and the smashed windows haphazardly covered up with bits of plywood make a nice touch).

Wales is socialist. Comrade hart and carwyn the caring would love it if we could all live in similar buildings. If you can't dream of living in tower blocks, never being allowed to leave your country amongst chronic food shortages then what can you dream about

I think Jantra has enjoyed another 'good lunch.'

I'm only going off empirical evidence. every state that has followed the socialist model ends up as described.

The Welsh govt ethos of socialism in no different to the form practised by Scandinavian countries, in the main. I don't see large state, higher public larger public sector and more expenditure on public services causing any of those issues there, but we'll convenient forget about that while you have an agenda to misrepresent those sort of (successful) virtues, shall we?

Having lived in both Cardiff & Bristol, I can safely say that Cardiff wins every time.

The layout is far better, particularly the proximity of Central Station to the city. And I don't know what it is about Cardiff but it doesn't seem to have that grubby feel about it that other cities do.

the bit in bold - do you really believe that? your post started off badly, became progressively worse in the middle and the less said about the ending the better.

we have a large state here in Wales. We have 4 levels of government (EU, UK, Wales, Local), we have many more public sector workers than the UK average, we have many more people reliant on handouts than average, we have one of the poorest areas in the entire EU.

The public sector don't create output, the are a cost. the larger the public sector, the fewer workers you have working in the productive part of the economy. That result is that you have fewer workers creating output - of course living standards are going to fall when you have a large state providing little in the way of goods and useful services.

Do I really believe that the Scandinavian model really is a similar vision of theirs? Yes, of course I do. It's successful and includes all the things that you apparently hate and rile against daily!


They have a large state in Scandinavian countries too, among other places.

This ridiculous idea that public sector is always a cost is a massive blind spot with you, isn't it? If health was privatised, many of those workers in Wales would overnight become private sector employees, and according to your blinkered assessment, now less of a cost, despite doing effectively the same job. Same thing with LEAs setting up as private companies and partnerships. You can't seem to grasp anything other than this ridiculous obsession about large state being bad, and public sector being a cost.


Your limited knowledge of economics is to treat the country like a company balance sheet. That's not how the economy works.

Trading of goods and services of all kinds is how an economy works, so that everyone's resources is being properly utilised. In order to grow we do not necessarily need to make another country's economy shrink, and assimilate their wealth into ours. On top of which, unlike a company balance sheet an economy has subsistence growth.

Is it because the money comes directly from the state via taxation? Is that the bit that causes your confusion? In which case, what of defence contracts? Are they "always only ever bad" too? What's the massive difference in whether individuals pay for the goods or services out of taxation or themselves. Look at the financial services sector; specifically car insurance - which is compulsory. What if the government decided to take that over (unlikely, but run with it hypothesis). All that would change is that we'd pay via taxation, and that the employees would now be public sector. It would still be an asset to the economy.

you have no idea what I am for and against. However, what I can certainly say is that Wales' economic model is nothing like anything in Scandinavia. For a start, they either have significant resources or major private sector and industry: two things Wales does not have. We are more akin to North Korea in that we require massive subsidy from our larger neighbour.

if you think Wales is on a par with Norway and its £100k pension fund per capita you're deluded.


that is because they can afford to have a large state - they are productive and make stuff that other nations want to buy. The result is significant capital inflows - something Wales just does not have.


I've said no such thing. What I've said is that the more you have working for the state the less you have working in the part of the economy that provides for our needs (agriculture, clothing, utilities, housing). Everything else is a want not a need. What services does the state actually provide that the private sector can't provide for less resource? the private sector is almost always better at delivering services as it is more cost conscious. Cost management is not something that exists in the public sector.


economics is not a science - stop pretending it is. It is a best guess based on many competing models - models which are in some way aligned to political thinking. Therefore my guess at the economy is as good a guess as anyone else's. At no point have I said the economy works like a balance sheet (do you know what a balance sheet actually is?)


again I never said any of that. If our economy is to grow we need to produce more - it is that simple. you can't grow an economy by moving wooden dollars around. You actually need something of substance to exchange. That is the point, the state doesn't create anything of substance, it merely creates 'services' that it believes the people need. For those 'services' it taxes them whether they want to be taxed or not.


why is insurance an asset to the economy? do you know what insurance really is? insurance is never an asset for the underwriter, it is an obligation - a liability. you are the one trying to apply a balance sheet approach to the economy.

My angle is a little more straightforward but you just don't see it, I just want biggest bang for buck. We have finite resource and the public sector or state is not the best way to utilise that resource.

After living in Cathays and Canton I can refute that observation

Layout wise, both cities have their pros and cons.

Well, I was referring to the city centre mainly but Cathays/Canton aren't really that bad.

Having lived in Grangetown I would also like to put in a disclaimer for this nevertheless charming part of Caerdydd.
Strangetown with its hop and barley aroma, drug dealers, junkies, whores, pimps, wooden tops, Clark Piesis without any doubt Urban Grubby - in fact I would recommend it to anyone settling into the city that likes a little underbellyse life - great cafes, pubs, community an all

Both are pretty grubby, although with the gentrification rubbing off from Pontcanna and Llandaff, Canton is gradually getting better. Cathays on the other hand doesn't seem to have changed much or improved at all from when I was a student there with regards to shabbiness and grime.

Agree that most of centre is maintained to a very good standard, even after matches at the stadium the cleaners do a great job with the aftermath, this is where the compactness of town definitely helps here.

It has a bit of a split personality, or to describe it in another way it is sort of an amalgamation of several other cardiff neighbourhoods rolled into one. I like it. Although I do have a bias/preference for the neighbourhoods of the inner west of Cardiff to the ones located in the inner east.

Cathays is very grubby. A shame because Cathays Terrace/Salisbury Rd/Woodville Rd/Crwys Road could be a fairly decent 'alternative' alternative to the city centre with it's numerous pubs, bars, eateries, shops, the Sherman, the Students union, occasional pockets of decent Victorian architecture and it's young demographic.

It has stayed resolutely down at heel whereas for the most part the period housing and commercial premises in places like Canton and Roath are in a much better state of repair.

it really is my bete noire

What do you mean?

Who knows what my friend, Jantra means? He is a a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a Penarth apartment.

Everyone knows that Canton extends east from Ely roundabout until you hit the city centre.

Give me a road and I will tell you whether it's in Canton or Pontcanna.

Romilly road?

-Canton.

Talbot Street?

-Canton.

Pontcanna street?

-Canton.

Go on! Try me!

Every man and his dog knows that Pontcanna is a marketing gimmick dreamt up by estate agents in the 1980s. It doesn't exist and anyone who says it does is, frankly, deluded.

I care not for the Pontcanna Pollyannas who slavishly whisper their nationalist refrain.
They are as 'Cardiff' as Dylan Thomas and for real Cardiffians like me are not worth so much as a mention.

What I love about living in Penarth is that in an authentic neighbourhood such as mine, (the marina or, if you will, the Haven) we live, in a part of town with real history rather than some made-up 'trade puff'.

The sooner that Canton is recognised as being the defacto address for the pretentious wannabees of Plasturton Avenue, the safer we will all sleep a night. I hope CCC resolve this mess very soon.

Canton is Pontcanna

you forgot 'inside a paradox'

did you have abandonment issues as a child?

This really is a weird forum sometimes, reading the above put a smile on my face today though. Very funny.