Pennywell's Promise of Prosperity

Today during one of my long adventurous walks around Sunderland (while I still have the time and opportunity) I decided to head through one of the city's more "notorious" suburbs, the postwar housing paradise of Pennywell. It's a suburb which has gained a sticky image for being supposedly one of Sunderland's worst. It has been constantly the butt of jokes and mockery over the years due to its association with poverty and deprivation. But do things have to stay the way they are forever? Absolutely not. Human minds are stubborn, images and discourses linger on for long even if the occurrences which created them were exaggerated, or in some way misleading. Now I am not saying Pennywell has not been one of Sunderland's more downtrodden areas, if you do your research the empirical evidence doesn't lie regarding this. However, the point is, as is true of Sunderland Renaissance as a whole, that we area to dream and aspire to achieve a greater society. Every area has potential just waiting to be unlocked, it is how envision and utilize that what truly counts.

So through my brief and uneventful trope through Pennywell, what thoughts came to my mind? First came the aspirations of future change. I looked at the shopping area situated in the centre of the suburb, I also observed the place called "Pennywell Business Centre" hid away behind a locked metal gate. Sadly I didn't get any good photo angles for that, but it did make me think. What if, in the future, Pennywell, Sunderland's most infamous suburb, could evolve to become a hub of business, enterprise and commerce? You're probably laughing at the idea of that, but why not? Why can't an area rejuvenate itself and take on a new mantle? Referring to its history simply isn't sufficient as an objection to real change.

Nevertheless, even for Pennywell as it is now, the quiet, sunny and empty evening I spent walking through there gave me the opportunity.to  reflect on the area in a different light, for my experience did not conform to the brutal stereotypes of the area which have been a staple of everyday banter and thought in Sunderland. Whilst without a doubt the area is not perfect and nor should I deny its problems, similarly its worth reminding ourselves that not everything is as bad as it seems. Before anything better comes of course, first we have to overcome the abject negativity and lazy thinking which hinders our thought in certain areas; in the culture of Sunderland, this pattern of thought is rampant.

I believe Pennywell has a promise of a better future, a much more prosperous one. How that turns out is purely what we make of it and how willing we are to challenge the stereotypes and prejudices of the past with a vision of tomorrow. In  aspiring to create a better Sunderland, we first have to learn to appreciate Sunderland in more prideful and optimistic ways. This is why I have created Sunderland Renaissance, that we might be able to transform the psychology of this area for good. A curious walk through Pennywell may seem insignificant or even bizarre, yet it is enough to break down the barriers which hold us back.