Neighbourhoods

Young people as community centre inspectors

I don't follow the youth work press but from time to time I hear of good things happening in Sunderland, so wasn't surprised to learn they've been running a project in which young people are trained to inspect community centres.

Once they have been selected, the candidates, who are all volunteers, go on a two-day course that prepares them for their future task. On the agenda: role playing, communication workshops, feedback exercises… teaching them how to observe, listen, put together reports and work as a team. Once they have been awarded their "certificate of proficiency", they are ready to pay a visit to one of the city’s 42 Community Centres...

The experience conducted in Sunderland has not only considerably improved and maintained the quality of the city’s Community Centres, but it has also won over the local youngsters. Each year, fifteen future inspectors are recruited.

More here on the URBACT site.

Someone went to mow

Over on Front Porch Forum, as it used to be known, I liked this message from a woman described as a senior citizen who had put out an online neighbourhood request to have her lawn mowed:

Wow. What a response to my mowing plea. The 1st one came in at about 1 AM. I am not a regular computer person yet so didn’t check my email until late in the day by which time someone had called me on the phone and then actually mowed my lawn. Thank you so much to the other 5 or 6 people who offered...

...I have another topic. Last night I lost one of my hearing aids. I was getting a ride home up North St. on the back of a motorcycle and it was in my left hand pocket. We rode from parking space in front of the brick houses on Elm St. on UU Church property to North St. and then up North St. to 447. There is a $100 reward. Thanks.

I for one will be disappointed if it's not found by 1 am, reward or no reward. (NB in this case, calling the lady on the phone may not work).

Neighbouring, privacy, and the outsourcing of social control

In today's Guardian Lynsey Hanley reflects on her own recent experience of neighbouring, with allusion to some of the things she and I were discussing recently.

Her chance first meeting with a next-door neighbour who had been there eighteen months stimulated a sense of guilt. But it's not uncommon of course, and indeed several of the blog comments provoked by the article confirm that that's the way a lot of people like it  - respect for privacy, discreet distance rather than anything that could remotely be considered nosiness.

A few pages further on, Gillian Draper offers what in my view is a wholly justified attack on the culture of surveillance. She describes what seems like comprehensive camera coverage in a public access residential area of Sevenoaks in south east England, with the footage in the hands of a residents' association which has no accountability to non-residents.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's interested in the connection between the themes of these two articles - a connection explored in this book (excuse the self-promotion: it was referenced by Lynsey Hanley but unhelpfully cut out by a Guardian editor).

We have less need to be neighbourly, and increasingly we expect privacy and seek to defend it. As we do so, we have less and less common ground on which to establish connections with those around us; and so we find we need to worry more about incivility and anti-social behaviour. Which leads us to outsource our social control; for which the technology comes in very handy.

It seems obvious to me that by allowing the surveillance culture to proliferate, we're starting at the wrong end: we need to be working out solutions to the crisis of depleted and impoverished local social relations, not exacerbating it. Which brings us back to Lynsey's point:

I felt my cheeks redden in sheer shame and confusion that we had lived next door to each other for over a year without even seeing each other to pass the time of day. My smugness was replaced with a feeling that our ability - as comfortable, materially sated humans - to respond to a basic inner need for social interaction had gone awol.

Three bunches a fiver

This is the increasingly famous Columbia Road flower market in east London, a compact sunday morning burst of banter, engagement, fragrance and colour.

Get there early and treasure the diversity, the wealth of accents, the scents and hues. Oh and the bargains. Unmet strangers marvel at colour or value, laugh and jostle on. A trader helps a lady whose friend has lost her dog: would she like roses, would she like lilies?

And keep in mind that this is some people's neighbourhood, transformed for a time - it's not a purpose-built yard or adapted town centre. The market fits into the necessary space that everyday life has to fit into, with style and without overwhleming anything.

Self-regulation in public spaces

It's nice when two or three shafts of ongoing interest come into alignment and allow you to see combinations in a new light...

I've been thinking about third places a bit lately as I'm giving a presentation for Caloundra City Libaries next month; pondering neglected and hidden places in suburban and outer urban contexts as, getting fitter, my training runs take me further afield; coordinating some last-minute suggestions about informal interaction and encounters for the Commission on Integration and Cohesion; and drafting a review of JRF's latest work on public space.

So I rather liked this para from the summary of the latter by Ken Worpole and Katharine Knox:

Commercial pressures or local legislation can create areas where certain behaviours are possible and allowed, but others are not. In the long term this may undermine the self-regulation of use and behaviour that occurs in public spaces. ‘Slack’ spaces are needed (or should be acknowledged where they already exist) where minor infringements of local by-laws, such as skateboarding, den-building, informal ball games, hanging out and drinking, are regulated with a ‘light touch’.

Projects don't always work

Proboscis have published a report written by Giles Lane and myself about some work we carried out with a residents' organisation in Southall, west London, in 2006.

In the Conversations and Connections project we set out to explore how some of Proboscis' public authoring tools can be harnessed by a community organisation to stimulate connections between residents and thereby increase levels of participation at local level.

The report describes what we attempted and explores the reasons why the project did not succeed fully. The main reasons were the lack of consistent community development support on the estate, and the weakness of connections between the core group members and the majority of residents. This project illustrates the old principle that sorting the people issues can be harder than sorting technological issues.

The report refers back to the Common knowledge essay which I wrote about community development on the estate.

The project was funded by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, now the Ministry of Justice.

Walking to school

Next week is Walk to School Week. It still spooks me a bit to think things are so bad that such a campaign is necessary, but as the site tells us,

Walking to school is an adventure for children and a great way to develop basic life skills.

And I learned something new as I read... It says here that 'contrary to popular belief, pedestrians generally experience the lowest levels of exposure of all road users.'

Demographic mix matters more than income or tenure mix

Recent research on population change at neighbourhood level suggests that the most important factor driving turnover is the demographic mix of an area, particularly the proportion of the population who are young adults or very young children.

Using neighbourhood level data covering England and Scotland from the 2001 census, the researchers show a tendency for young adults (aged 19-29) to move into deprived areas on balance and for other age groups to move away, especially households containing 30- to 44-year-olds and those under the age of 18.

Among other things, this suggests that deprived areas are home to more than their share of people making the transition from living with parents to living on their own.

They suggest that policies designed to achieve stable or ‘sustainable’ communities may need to pay greater attention to promoting demographic mix as much as income or tenure mix.

Indeed, policies to promote income or tenure mix could potentially undermine stability if they target single people and couples, perhaps through the development of starter homes.

The analysis also shows that:

• deprived areas do not have a general problem of instability; turnover levels are only slightly above average
• deprived areas do not generally see significant net out-migration of less deprived individuals; there are flows in both directions and these are nearly in balance
• an average of around 50% of migrants move to/from non-deprived areas each year.

The report, Population turnover and area deprivation by Nick Bailey and Mark Livingston, was published last month JRF and Policy Press.

Invest in it, and they will come

I've had several conversations recently about the dearth of 'community venues' and third places in many neighbourhoods - just somewhere for people to go that is local and either neutral or gives them a sense of ownership or belonging.

Now the Quirk review of community management and ownership of assets, anticipated in last year's local government white paper, has been published. Originally stimulated by successful initiatives in Scotland, it concludes that

'there are no substantive barriers to prevent councils transferring assets into community management or full ownership. Powers already exist for this but the report finds that many are not fully aware of them, or are not using them to full benefit. Therefore a change in culture is required so that every community has the chance for more active citizenship, a greater role in running services and owning assets, and improving wellbeing in their communities.' (Press release).

From today's Guardian:

'Local authorities have powers to sell or lease assets at below market prices, compulsorily purchase derelict property or require landowners to clean up sites that are adversely affecting the local neighbourhood. But the Quirk report finds these powers are not often used and calls for a "major culture shift" in local authorities to help promote more active citizenship and give people a greater part in running in local services.'

Easily said. It may not be massively complex running a community building but it's not straightforward, with regulations to be adhered to and procedures to be made transparent. In recent decades as the community sector has been detached from mainstream funding, it seems that many buildings have probably fallen into neglect and decline, and almost certainly there are fewer people around with the knowledge, experience, and commitment to run them.

It doesn't sound like a revolution and I suspect we won't see a great rush from authorities to sell off their assets; but this review should stimulate a lot of activity in making better use of them, hopefully with local authorities committing staff time to closer and more productive liaison with community centre managers and volunteers.

If we are to have a renaissance of community centres, we need to avoid the plight of public parks that was highlighted by Jane Jacobs. In other words we don't want investment in assets that fail to serve a social purpose. I hope there will be lots of conversations about why the centres are there and what roles they can fulfil, then developing ways of monitoring their continuing fulfilment of those roles, in relation to any other third places in the same locality.

My note about Stephen Thanke's 2006 report on community assets is here.

The pic, why not, is of the new Windhill Community Centre in Shipley.

The next big thing will be lots of little things: us

From time to time I offer mumbled thoughts about informality and collaboration and take a snipe at formality, hierarchy, managerialism, and linear thinking. I take this stance partly because I think there is a profound and under-appreciated connection between the quality of neighbourhood life and the importance attached to informal social relations.

One angle on this is to see how we can minimise the eagerness of authorities to determine what we do and where we do it - Hans Monderman's removal of traffic lights and restoration of ambiguity is a perfect illustration of this potential. And in societies where the 'responsibilisation' of citizens through community engagement (or by any other principle) seems to be becoming irreversibly programmed, we can expect to see the movement gather pace and influence.

And so a belated welcome for Charlie Leadbeater's current text, We think: the power of mass creativity, in which he explores the phenomenon of creative collaboration.

Charlie released the text on a wiki inviting contributions and thereby ensuring a nice blending of medium, message and principle. The intention is to publish hard copy in the next couple of months. It's important stuff because of the recognition given to social enterprise, the human impulse to share, and the transformations implied in the public realm.

"In field after field we are witnessing the same phenomenon: large groups of committed and knowledgeable amateurs, working without pay, are creating highly collaborative forms of organisation, which operate with little hierarchy and bureaucracy and yet mobilise resources of a scale to match the biggest corporations in the world..."

"We are told that to be organised we need an organisation. Yet all these are complex and highly organised activities without a single organisation being in charge of everything that goes on. We are told that to make sure order is maintained someone has to be in control. Yet these activities seem ordered precisely because no one seeks to be in control and so people have to exercise their sense of responsibility, adjusting to one another, sorting out disputes as they go. The order comes from within these communities not from the top. To get complex tasks done reliably we have assumed we need a clear division of labour, so everyone knows in advance what they are supposed to do, whose job it is to do what. Yet in these non-organisations people seem to voluntarily distribute themselves to work, as and when it needs to be done."

And from chapter three:

"The new forms of structured self-organisation – We-think - witnessed now across fields from software and computer games, to music and basic information sharing – could bring our societies very large benefits in terms of competition, efficiency and innovation, freedom, democracy and social justice. But they also pose a significant challenge to all institutions – not just media organisations – that have relied on high barriers to entry and professional control of knowledge and information."

Meanwhile, the Open Innovation Exchange bid to the Office of the Third Sector, in which my good friends Simon Berry and David Wilcox, along with several others, coordinated an open source bid for a £1.2m government contract, is another example of this phenomenon. (See David's latest update here).

The binary us-and-them mentality of organisational decision-making, political point-scoring and regulation is beginning to erode, and I anticipate a flowering of ways in which non-hierarchical approaches contribute to the quality of life at local level.

A mouthful of Africa

If I was in the country at the time, I'd be going to this:

A Mouthful of Africa

Thursday 7 Jun 2007, 7pm

Oxford House Theatre, Derbyshire Street, London E2 6HG

African exiled writers and performers portray the ambivalent imagery of memories of home food and yearning in the place of exile.

Their concerns of the personal interact with the political significance of food in areas disrupted by war and migration, with edible food being an integral part of the production. Post-performance discussion and an opportunity to enjoy an African buffet. The exiled writers and poets are: Handsen Chikowore, Shona speaking poet from Zimbabwe, Shereen Pandit, journalist and prize-winning fiction writer from South Africa, Said Hussein, Somali story-teller and translator, Tsehay Alemayehu from Ethiopia, who writes fiction in both Amharic and English. Producer: Isabelle Romaine, Director: Ernst Fischer.

Cost: £10 to include food and £5 concessions. Please book in advance by sending a cheque made payable to Exiled Writers Ink at 31 Hallswelle Road, London NW11 0DH.

Via the Welcome to Your Library digest and Creative Exchange.

A clue about respect

We had a buzzy discussion last night at the Swindon festival of literature where Lynsey Hanley and I busked a session about estates, neighbourhoods and neighbourliness.

The pic suggests one of those 'aaaah' moments when someone asks the killer question... Or this may have been the question about front gardens and gossip. The questioner came up to me afterwards and said she was now persuaded to grow potatoes in her front garden, implying cheerily that I was to take credit for this.

There were also several points made about the role of third places, especially community-based venues  - like Community Crossroads (formerly the railway museum) where we found ourselves  - which play such a crucial and often under-appreciated part in the community sector.

And it's curious the coincidences that bump into you, however quietly you might try to move about, on this planet... It happens that someone came up to me afterwards and asked what I meant by 'respect'  - as in personal respect, or as in 'Respect agenda'. Then later, on the train home, a quick crossword in an available newspaper offered this clue to my weary eye:

Respect (4)     H _ E _

That's one I wouldn't have thought of, even under the outgoing political regime.

Oi you!

A recent Women's Design Service survey report includes this comment:

Public spaces are improved by design, by encouraging more people to enter them and use them, and providing the facilities for them to do so in a responsible way. This includes reducing traffic, providing easy sustainable access, lighting, shops that people want to use, safe crossings, facilities and leisure, and giving them back to people.

It's not exactly an outburst is it? More like a tired list of odd jobs for the weekend. So why does it take new labour's talking surveillance cameras to elicit such simple sensible advice to government?

Be patient and wait for the next development - school competitions are to be organised so that selected children's voices can be used for these disembodied street reprimands. (There's an official somewhere in Whitehall thinking, 'Yup, that should do it.') No wonder they want everyone in the country to be able to understand english.

I'm hoping I'll get the chance to test these devices out - (can they detect negative thoughts yet, do you think?) -  and if I find their syntax or grammar at fault I hope I have the presence of mind to launch into the most caustic philippic I can muster. No wait, better still, we should have a smart-mob organised mass confrontation, with loud speakers and children's pre-recorded protestations of innocence...

But do they understand mockery?

Sustainable travel towns conference

In all likelihood, sustainable travel means sustainable neighbourhoods. The third annual sustainable travel towns conference takes place in Worcester, 23 and 24 May 2007. The Sustainable Travel Towns are Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester, part of a five-year programme part-funded by the Department for Transport.

Details. The programme warns, be prepared to cycle, walk or paddle.