The rural alternative to City Farms is being piloted in Dorset this week, as country folk are invited to come and visit a real life working city slum in the middle of an area of outstanding natural beauty. The ‘Urban Blight Experience’ is a new attraction, intended to educate and entertain those used to living in a rural idyll, and ensure that traditional urban crafts such as tagging, car crime, and flytipping do not die out.
Visitors can take a stroll along the fully recreated ‘High Street’, littered with authentic beggers, chuggers, drug addicts and free-newspaper vendors, while constantly being nudged in the back by blank eyed office workers listening to their iPods. Refreshments are available at traditional urban shops such as ‘Starbucks’ and ‘Another Starbucks’, where large and expensive cups of coffee can be bought in take-away cups, which customers are encouraged to discard on the pavement in the traditional way. Refreshments are available from the local Wetherspoons and there is space to throw up on the pavement outside.
A fact sheet will help visitors identify the different types of discarded drugs paraphernalia and used condoms. School groups are welcome, and it’s hoped that teenagers will learn about the ancient mating rituals still practised by city youngsters in pub car parks, as well as the age-old art of mugging and knife crime.
The ‘Urban Blight Experience’ will be open throughout the year, unless it looks as if it might possibly snow. Vistors are encouraged to come by car and spend several hours looking for a parking space. The management cannot guarantee that your car will still there on your return.
2nd March 2009