Calban Attempts To Experience Life More Fully (Ch.18): Part 2

Part 2

6/10/95

     Calban stumbled through the semi dark of an area of Marta City, somewhere to the west of the great city. He did not know the area but he had been to areas like it. This was one in need of economic regeneration. Thirty years before the area would have been in line for a periodic regeneration programme, whereby the local Development Authorities periodically gave subsidies, grants, interest free loans, and marketing effort towards certain areas which fell behind the general economic level. These zones were characterised by ‘business flight’, and by ‘human flight’. The best workers had moved out following the better jobs, or able to afford higher rent levels or occupier owned accommodation in the more desirable areas of the city. The less motivated failures of the working population remained here, stuck because of their low earnings. Others, due to their loss of work, stayed here in Authority or Housing Association owned accommodation, or funded by State Benefits, which many years before would have been claimable. Today most of the benefits had gone. Ways had been found to reduce these and force the lazy or unskilled into some kind of work, often very badly paid by comparison with average wage levels. The modern governments believed that only in work and study could an individual become complete. Loopholes which allowed or encouraged laziness had been removed. Modern man and woman had to be motivated. This had been achieved by forcing them by economic means into the workplace. By definition the workplace would motivate. Positive motivation was the belief in a person’s own ability and the gradual stimulation of ambition, as the individual became more highly skilled and more confident. Negative motivation was the fear of being stuck at the bottom of society as a non achiever, and the fear or distaste of living with a low income, and doing an uninteresting and untaxing job. There was no way out in the modern world. 40 years ago or more the Development Authority would have ensured that the area was regenerated by developing new enterprises here, or by enticing existing large organisations to set up branches here. Whether factories or tourist / leisure complexes, or improved housing and rebuilding, something would have been done to regenerate. These methods had worked countless times over the years in the city. The trouble had always been that new regenerations always took business away from other areas. When one area arose another would fall. The periodic Development Method had planned for this and travelled around from older ‘deprived’ areas to newer ones, refusing to allow any of them to sink too far below the general acceptable economic activity thresholds. The desire for even more reduced taxation had seen a general end to the policy, although tried and tested regeneration methods were still occasionally used, using the funds of the multinationals where possible, and with minimum involvement by the Public Authorities.

     The area Calban now walked through was relatively deserted. Overcapacity of housing was evident by the boarded windows in many of the block windows above him. The people had left the area, leaving behind the demotivated, illeducated or unfortunates of society behind. They were all in their apartments above, too penniless to come out and entertain themselves, and probably too tired after many hours of dull work. There would be some incapable of normal work, or who could not appeal to employers for even the lowest wage, who might be subsisting on what they could coax out of the government or their relatives.

7/10/95

     The street lighting here was dim. It was as if the government were trying to save money here, knowing that fewer people now lived here than in other districts, or maybe they expected the local inhabitants to pay for lighting, and they could not afford it. Calban could not remember in what form he paid for street lighting in his own area. Was it through general taxes or was it an itemised by the Authority in his district on the bill. He never looked at the bills. The Authority sent them through the Vidfax over the Vidnet, in line with the complex legislation and guidelines which governed the subject of invoicing and contractual law. If citizens were not properly notified they would be able to use delaying tactics in the payment of their bills, so the Authorities ensured that all bills and letters were ‘physically’ received in service users’ homes. Calban rarely looked at them because he preferred not to waste the little leisure time he was allowed. He trusted that the bills were correct, and if they were not they were soon corrected. Audit procedures, internal, external, consumer body reviews and the close scrutinisation even by the journalists’ profession all served to ensure that calculations and the principles of taxation were followed correctly. There was the added difficulty that, despite many reports over many years, however hard they tried the Authorities had never quite been able to make the calculation of their bills easy for users and citizens to understand. Whenever one complex formula and longwinded legal explanation was scrapped you could be sure that another one or two would rise to take its place. Along with most citizens Calban had long since lost interest in the details, and now trusted in the efficiency and correctness of the ‘system’. He did not have to do anything in order to pay the bills. They were automatically paid and accounted for by exchange of credits through the vidnet.

     He had travelled on the Tram Network to get to this area, but having left the familiar comfort of the tram he felt he was in a depressing and dangerous area. He did not entirely trust the information the Vidnet had given him now that he was here. How could he really be sure that he was here. How could he really be sure that the information was not out of date. The whole area seemed out of date, but he had the instinctive suspicion that more of it might have closed down than the Vidnet was aware of. Not far along one of the streets he could see the base of a derelict factory complex. It stretched up through the gloom in an array of dark towers and abandoned machine sections. He could not see the higher levels of it due to the cris-crossing walkways and the Network itself above him which virtually sealed off the sky. Even in daylight it would be gloomy here at street level. Nonetheless Calban welcomed the protection of the night’s darkness, as he did the gloomy lighting of this district. The task he intended to attempt here tonight was one which he wished to do in privacy. Even in a city this large, in which he had so few friends, he was illogically fearful of meeting anyone he knew, or might come to know in the normal course of life’s routine in the future.

8/10/95

    He wanted it to be really dark so no one would see him. He had met no one anyway since leaving the Tram Network, apart from at the station.