Green homes, the N word, and local alliances

I've moaned often enough over the years about the uncritical and unreflective use of the C word, but I've hardly mentioned the trend in using the N word (The C word has a companion). (Although, naming no names, I've been quietly admiring the effortless way one well-known academic writer switched as if it were just a question of Find and Replace).

So here's an interesting example - the government's £100m 'Green Neighbourhoods Initiative' launched yesterday which we're told

'will give a green makeover to up to 100 neighbourhoods in England with an aim to reduce their carbon footprints by more than 60 per cent.'

At first sight it's not about neighbourhoods, it's about homes and their owners' use of energy. But it's a laudable aim, and it has a neat contortion that seems to have been missed by commentators. The initiative will call for local alliances -

'between householders, community groups, local authorities, energy suppliers, private companies, and banks to bid for funding. To receive funding, bidders will need to join together and commit substantial levels of funding from their own resources to help transform the environmental performance of a street or local area.'

I'd say that was a gamble, which I applaud. Will people be bothered or motivated to get together and act collectively? Will it just be the ones with the social and cultural capital ('their own resources'?) in the wealthy areas, who get their large but inefficient Victorian terraced houses made over to be worth more when it comes to resale? The press release refers to 'poorly insulated tower blocks' so perhaps the work of the Sustainable Tower Blocks Initiative will finally be followed up after all these years.

It will be interesting to see how well the fund gets taken up. And I hope someone's going to evaluate it from a community development perspective: how do the alliances get formed, and what else springs from their coming together?

Comments

[Alex Dupuy]

You're right about the misuse of neighbourhood here - to me, a green neighbourhood is not about energy efficiency in the houses, it is about having a walkable urban core, with streetscapes that don't encourage driving, and an effective mass transit network that eliminates the need to even own a car. These are attributes of the neightborhood / town / city in the large, not merely the aggregated attributes of the houses and persons that make them up.

It's also worth remembering that even drafty and inefficient Victorian row houses can be as energy efficient as well-insulated modern detached houses, simply by virtue of their adjacency and much lower surface area to volume ratio. And even the most poorly insulated tower blocks may have a per-capita carbon footprint that is lower than the equivalent number of suburban McMansions.

@alex

[Hilary Burrage]

Yes, it's a great idea - and I really hope as you do that there is adequate 'community impact' assessment.

I'd also say, however, that we should actually encourage those with 'social and cultural capital' to get involved alongside (NOT instead of) others.

This is an initiative which requires champions, and it would be great if a way were found to get those who lead the way (some, let's face it, will be those already with 'capital') to take on that 'championing' role.... One of the reasons the truly excellent Sure Start / Children's Centres idea hasn't really taken off as yet is that unfortunately it's been a bit stigmatised as 'just for poor people'. Not good...

We need people who have know-how and confidence as initiators; and SOME of these will be people who are not 'disadvantaged'. So why not make it a condition of everyone's involvement, wealthier or not, that they then spread the word and get everyone else enthused?

Sustainability is unavoidably an issue for us all. So I'd say, Go for it, whoever you are...