Equality Road? Birmingham Goes on Woke Street Naming Spree

Equality Road
Birmingham City Council
Kurt Zindulka

A residential building scheme in Birmingham, England will feature a slew of woke street names, including “Diversity Grove” and “Equality Road” after the city council approved the names on Tuesday.

The names were selected out of submissions from the public in the course of a government-sponsored naming competition for the Perry Barr Residential Scheme, which will consist of 1,400 new homes on the outskirts of the city.

In a unanimous decision, the judges selected the submission from local resident Louise Kilbride, who submitted the names: “Diversity Grove, Equality Road, Destiny Road, Inspire Avenue, Respect Way, and Humanity Close” for consideration.

Kilbride said that after discovering the street naming competition she began to think of names that would “reflect the diversity of the Perry Barr area”.

The Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment at Birmingham City Council, Councillor Waseem Zaffar, said that it was “clear” that the submission from Ms Kilbride “stood out” in capturing the “essence” and “values” of Birmingham.

“The names put forward by Louise struck a chord with everyone on the panel and the chosen values captured the essence of Perry Barr and indeed the city of Birmingham as a whole,” Zaffar said.

The Development Planning Manager for North & West Birmingham, Rebecca Farr said that street names “help shape the future of a place”, saying that the winning entries will set a “positive tone” as the area “undergoes a major regeneration”.

Birmingham Council said that in light of the fact that the area will be hosting the 2022 Commonwealth Games, the street names representing “Humanity, Equality, and Destiny” will give the area a “reinforced local relevance”.

The president of the Commonwealth Games Federation Dame Louise Martin DBE applauded the name choices, saying: “This is important as the Perry Barr Regeneration Scheme will be one of the great legacies of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.”

Birmingham, which is England’s second-largest city after London, has undergone massive demographic shifts over the past two decades.

In the upcoming 2021 census, Birmingham is expected to become a “minority-majority” city, with a 2018 report from the local council claiming that over half of the population will classify themselves as non-White British. According to the last census in 2011, some 60 per cent of inhabitants under the age of 18 had a foreign background.

 

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here: @KurtZindulka

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