Neighbourhoods

Cars and buses again

Here (via Planetizen) is a telling story from Seattle, where the Mayor is fronting a proposal to reduce the number of required minimum parking spaces for new multifamily housing in three neighbourhoods - at least one of which, we are told, is attractive because of its many bus lines. That's bus as in public transport. So we hear from someone protesting that 'almost every night' they have to circle the area looking for a parking spot, which can take half an hour, and stories are told of people racking up towards $1000 in parking fines. Uh-huh.

Home buyers want neighbourhood

I suspect many organisations are envious of the resources that CABE seem to have for their publications, but the quality keeps coming and it keeps impressing. Here's a very digestible review of evidence on 'what home buyers want,' by Ivor Samuels. The press release claims that

"alongside the preference for suburban living, homebuyers most value local services, such as schools, shops and libraries. They also see 'walkable' neighbourhoods as an opportunity for social contact and an important way of creating a sense of community."

The report discusses and comments on three recent pieces of research and is arranged in three short sections, zooming in from neighbourhood, to street, to the home. And there are comments about gardens which I'll try to come back to some time.

Of course there are contradictions, and expectations or aspirations cannot necessarily be matched by reality of the housing market. But as Samuels points out at the beginning, "Location really does matter. These preferences suggest that a neighbourhood with facilities which can be reached on foot... along well-lit streets, which are overlooked by home entrances, are fundamentals which can produce a quality environment."

He goes on:

"The ability to walk to a range of local facilities was seen as an opportunity for social contact and an important factor in generating a sense of community, consequently making the place feel more secure."

And an aside: as with most CABE publications you get quite a few appealing pics - colourful shots of houses and streets and neighbourhoods. But they show very few cars, even though most people's experience of streets is totally dominated by cars. I do the same, it's natural - we try and blank the wretched things out. So here's a picture of an ordinary street.

Objectifying neighbourhood

Here’s a harmless looking sentence hidden in a recent report on Neighbourhood policing:

We think that local communities, police forces, police authorities and partners should decide what neighbourhoods mean, rather than being told by the Government.

A process has begun in the UK, largely unrecognised, to objectify neighbourhood. Administratively it makes sense of course, with the forces of localism pressing (downwards) for meaningful local structures, and the community development movement pressing (upwards) for more capacity to influence decision-making processes. But one of the lessons of civilisation, ha, is that when we objectify or formalise something, we lose something less tangible. (I maybe shouldn’t have written that down;-)). Is the sentence quoted really saying “government requires everybody to define their neighbourhood, and, er, it’ll need to be systematic, you’ll just have to get together and agree it...”?

This is not unwelcome, but perhaps we should be thinking hard about what gets lost when we try to do so. Much of the meaning of neighbourhood is felt at the individual level, one person’s seldom quite corresponding to another’s. In community development we’ve probably not done enough to appreciate the personal benefits of what gets initiated - we tend to flounder over the shifting relationship between the individual and the collective, trying to apply old models and paying insufficient attention to notions like 'solidaristic individualism' (Rothstein), 'networked individualism' (Wellman), or 'network sociality' (Wittel). At the very least, there are contributions to be made here by the community psychologists. There’s research out there about the psychological meaning of neighbourhood which just might be helpful in the unfolding policy process.

Afterthought: maybe it’s just a semantic nicety? Should we adopt the word canton, say, for the administratively most local, and retain neighbourhood as a comfortably unspecific feelgood term…? There, that’s sorted then.

Lest we forget

I’m always careful to avoid what I call the ‘rose-tinting’ of community. Here’s a reminder of why neighbourhood life can be a regular pain for some folk.

A noisy neighbour who was thrown out of his flat for anti-social behaviour was arrested within hours of moving into a new home.

John Johnstone, 59, had been drinking to celebrate being re-housed when his new neighbours called the police.

Greenock Sheriff Court was told how Johnstone was heard shouting at the top of his voice and stamping on the floor at Montgomerie Street, Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, on Friday.

He later assaulted two constables as they drove him to the police station.

(Via Neighbours from Hell).

Understanding tranquillity

The CPRE and the Countryside Agency have published a report on their 'Mapping tranquillity' campaign. There's a report summary here, which is mostly about developing a methodology to assess tranqillity as an attribute of the rural landscape. But I'm interested in neighbourhoods as residential areas so I want to know what characteristics it might be possible to recreate in urban and suburban contexts.

So the exercise clarifies, for instance, that you can't have tranquillity when there are motor vehicles around. But that greenness and natural sounds are strongly associated with tranquillity - neither of these should be too hard to get in urban areas. The idea of vistas or distant views also comes across - tranquillity as being associated with a sense of space. The new tranqillity maps are said to be "highly detailed, revealing small, local pockets of tranquillity which might otherwise be overlooked." Population density is a bit awkward of course, but it all suggests to me that some of the attributes of tranquil locations can be designed in residential areas, if we have green spaces that are safe but uncontaminated by motor traffic, with room to see the sky and into the distance, and the chance for bird life to thrive.

Of course, if people struggle to experience tranquillity - and some may never have had the chance or may have backed away in the face of it - then perhaps that's a different issue for social education. I guess it helps explain that grating phenomenon of ghetto-blasters on the beach, blocking out the dread of calm.

A couple of vignettes

Just thinking about the myriad ways in which neighbourliness manifests itself. I was talking to an old lady whose husband had died recently, leaving her with relatively little practical knowledge or experience. She found that she'd punctured a tyre on her car, just outside her house, and really didn't know what to do. A young bloke from across the street noticed and offered to change it for her, then directed her to a good dealer to get a replacement at a very reasonable rate.

A couple of weeks ago my 17 year-old daughter was at home alone during the day when the gas-meter man called. Knowing he was doing his rounds, our next-door neighbour knocked on the door a minute or two later, just to check.

Involving young tenants

People for Action are about to launch (on Wednesday next, in London) their new report on Involving young tenants in decision making. I happen to think this is important stuff and not easy. Passing on the baton of community participation in an increasingly fragmented and individualised world takes effort, skill and insight - it won't just happen. Launch info is on their site here.

Diversity and neighbourhood renewal

Diversity and neighbourhood renewal factsheet: harnessing the strength of diversity to renew neighbourhoods and build sustainable communities

Here's a handy set of short case studies from the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, which identifies key diversity issues, and sets out the legislative rights of the different communities of interest and the obligations of public authorities. Covers faith communities, gender, disabled people, lesbian, gay and bisexual people, older people, children and young people, and ethnic minorities.

Streetscapes conference

'Taking risks, reaping rewards: finding the formula that unlocks quality, creativity and individuality in public spaces'

Kensington, London, 11 May 2005

Programme includes case studies from Nottingham, Kennington and Liverpool. Speakers include John Adams on 'The impact of risk aversion in street design.'

Details here.

The governance gap

Classically active workshopping today at an event on the future of governance, run by the British Council and Demos. Plenty use of images, press cuttings, post-its etc for storyboards, and a graphic record created on a mural by Tim Casswell of Creative Connection as we went along.

A couple of busy hours later and we'd clarified what we each thought was the 'governance gap,' much of it to do with lack of trust, disincentives to participation, a weakened understanding of the notion of a public good, and fractured notions of citizenship. Some of us thought that inappropriate 'organisational structures and models' was one of the key causes of the gap. Demos has been pretty good at hitting that particular button I think. (For a quick read try Paul Skidmore's 'Leading between' in the Democratic papers collection).

A good use of time and money? Make no mistake, an expensive time is being had by all - from across Europe and beyond, about 30 bright, well-paid and experienced folk, plus meself. For sure, such exercises can be done more cheaply and less exclusively, with a more diverse constituency. But they have to happen, it's important to get some structured futures thinking done with people who are good at generalised reflection, and others who can secure the hawsers to everyday life. Tomorrow we chug out to the uncharted, 'doing the vision' for the public realm in 2025.

The democracy and governance debate is really gathering pace, and some of this stuff is sniffed-over in an article today on opendemocracy.net by Neera Chandhoke, called provocatively What the hell is 'civil society'? (I know, that's what I thought when I saw the title, but it's probably just a sub-editor's idea to get people's attention).

On the buses

Here's a quietly fun article from Lucy Mangan in today's Guardian about travelling on buses. Because it's infuriating isn't it how posh people go round in cars and indirectly spoil the journey when "an impressive amount of socialisation can be condensed into one ride." I like the way she reminds us that pausing at the bus stop, with the occasional curious conversation or observation, is all part of the journey.

"And while, in the world at large, the common good becomes an ever more unfashionable idea, in bus world everyone knows that the system only works by compromise and cooperation."

Me, I love being at the front on the top deck, better than the view from a plane. Mangan mentions also the Margaret Thatcher comment that anyone over 30 who travelled by bus was a failure. (Could there be a better way of summing up that something was rotten in the state of Thatcherism? Answers, pertinent to the blog theme, in the Comments section please).

Excluded older people

The Social Exclusion Unit has just published an interim report on its consultative research on excluded older people. The main section, reporting on the consultation exercise, is divided thematically (social services, health, housing, etc) as you might expect – but it’s striking that the first heading is ‘The local area’ (covering crime and safety, regeneration, and rural areas). I also like the fact that there is an attempt to encapsulate some of the positive things and opportunities of an ageing society. Two other points of interest:

• The report found that around 30% of people over 65 do not see any friends at least once a week (that's ambiguously expressed but I think I can work it out)
• Intergenerational households are now very rare - only 5% of over 65s live with an adult offspring.

Press release is here.

Have environment, will leg it

Here, via Planetizen is an item about US research that links ‘walking and bicycling for transportation’ (not for leisure) with amounts of urban green space available.

The significance of the study apparently is that "the number of route choices a community provides, and mix - the relative percentage of housing, retail, work and recreational opportunities in a community - appear to be important, independent predictors of walking and bicycling."

The research is published in American journal of health promotion and the abstract is here.

Buying locally

“Local authorities could increase the amount of money circulating in their area by 400 per cent by examining how they spend their money, and fostering links with local suppliers.”

Latest new economics foundation research based on a 12 month study with Northumberland County Council.

Civic education

Every time I look up it’s citizenship, civic engagement, governance… Researchers at Cardiff University have been working on an ODPM project on Civic education: good practice guidance for local government. They define ‘civic education’ as ‘educational, learning or promotional activities carried out in a local context by or on behalf of local councils, to enable people to become more involved in democratic processes.’ There was an absorbing meeting a couple of weeks ago, with participants chewing over a late draft of the proposed guidance. Among the points that I felt to be significant:

• partnerships are now the context for much of the decision-making, it’s not just about direct interaction with local councils;
• there are all sorts of tensions between democratically-elected councils or councillors, and community groups and organisations that claim to be more ‘representative’ of local people.

The guidance should emerge later this year, probably on this section of the ODPM site. Meanwhile, the research team has just published this useful-looking literature review.

Regeneration and sense of belonging

On the whole I like renewal.net’s short and sweet style of information and documentation. But here’s an example of why some people have difficulty with the whole regeneration industry –

“NDCs and other regeneration organisations have used two main approaches to try to foster a sense of belonging among residents. The first of these… is making physical changes to an area to divide it into small, clearly defined neighbourhoods and encourage a sense of ownership among people who live there. Legal measures such as special tenancy agreements, good neighbour agreements or acceptable behaviour contracts are the second approach.” (Emphasis added)

Well, another might be to acknowledge that to some degree it’s there already, and to use a dash of community development to strengthen it and bring it to the surface. And surprise surprise, the first case study (from Hartlepool NDC) suggests that their community development approach to an alleygating project made all the difference (apparently helping to spawn 11 new residents’ associations). So how come CD doesn't seem to merit attention among regeneration professionals?

Creating a sense of belonging: the experience of NDC partnerships, published January 2005, is here.

Slow cities

I have just been pondering, over a last glass of red, what Citta Slow (the Slow Cities movement) might be like if it became globally significant. I got there, perhaps belatedly, who cares, via Carl Honore's book In praise of slow.

You might think the website could do with a bit of attention maybe, a little overgrown along the verges, the hinges on the shutters creaking a bit in the breeze. But if you click on a link and you can't get there from here, well you can't. So sit back down and have another glass. What do you think, would a global Citta Slow movement seem all wrong to you, like ramming something very gently down someone's throat?

The claim is made that "The designation 'Slow City' will become the mark of quality for smaller communities (only those with less than 50,000 residents may apply). Slow Cities are not state capitals or the seat of regional governments, but are strong communities that have made the choice to improve the quality of life for their inhabitants."

Not all global movements are distasteful, I tell myself, in spite of the probability that they have must have to be heavily promoted and therefore risk distortion. So maybe - yes, just a drop more please - if we give it time and let these little snails trail their way across the planet, Italian towns and cities will have another special place in the history of social capital. I'd like to think the Citta Slow documentation could include a little about neighbourliness and trust of strangers. Noting the website only mentions Ludlow as a UK member town, I'd also like to think that there might be an aspect of the movement which works to include towns and cities that might be 'slow' but do not qualify for other reasons. What about Luton perhaps, or Portsmouth, or Doncaster? Citta Slow is about quality of life and that, I happen to believe, is not a finite resource.

Trust and community on the internet

The journal Analyse & Kritik has published a special issue on 'Trust and community on the internet.' Abstracts are available here.

(Via Cyberspace-and-society).

Civic engagement and effects of tv watching

Blog software, or the way I've set these pages up, can hide significant contributions in the comments column. So let me just draw attention to this fairly detailed note from David Halpern on his research into civic engagement, young people, and the effects of watching television. Among other things, he and Peter John found that more hours of tv watching was consistently associated with lower civic and voluntary engagement outside of the school context; but watching tv news was associated with higher civic engagement.

New Deal for Communities evaluation

The latest New Deal for Communities evaluation includes some information about sense of community in the programme areas. In 2004 some 39% of NDC area residents said they 'felt part of the local community,' an increase of four per cent over 2002. The national benchmark is 59%. Some 19% of all those who had heard of their local NDC were engaged in its activities. Sixty-two per cent (slightly more than in 2002) claimed that in their area 'neighbours look out for each other.'

Summary accessible here. Full report accessible here.

Local democracy

The Countryside Agency last week issued (and hid away) a report on recent experience in the Parish planning process. There are some nice examples, such as in one parish rides in a proposed tethered balloon so that people can get a different perspective on their village. But the report seems a bit bloated with apparently unsubstantiated assertions, verging on hype, and it comes across rather as a celebration-cum-marketing tool.

Still, it's an important area that deserves more attention, and will probably get it as neighbourhood governance gets shoved out of the hangar and onto the runway. I recently read a claim that in the UK our 'lowest' tier of government is at an average population of 118,500, compared with figures below 10,000 in other countries.

Meanwhile, Monday, the Electoral Commission published their second audit of political engagement, reporting among other things that 32% of people say they are interested in local issues but not in politics. So is it just down to definitions?

The report also finds “interest in politics markedly lower in areas with greater deprivation. Only 35% of residents in the most deprived 10% of areas of the country say they are interested in politics while 69% say the same in the most affluent 10% of areas.”