Neighbourhoods

Changing the acoustics for citizens' voices

The other day I was at CABE for a meeting about community engagement and public space. We seem to have been wobbling on this theme for years without quite getting our balance or momentum, but there are signs that we're all gaining in confidence. Public libraries have been going through a similar process. This is about getting clarity on what constitutes a democratic public realm. Democracy is at last beginning to shift from an emphasis on its mechanics to an appreciation that it depends on the quality of conversations in public. But it's later than you think.

It was an upbeat meeting, including presentations from (among others) Ivan Ball on consultation for Caterham Barracks, William Perrin on Talk About Local, and Alison Drake on the now-famous regeneration work of Castleford Heritage Trust - and that astonishing bridge which, as a public space (as Sarah Gaventa suggests) 'can offer as much as a street, public square, or park.'

Among the themes discussed was the promise that developers will invest in community engagement because it helps them make money. If this is true and becomes acknowledged, it seems to me, it will change the power dynamics: will some community groups come to expect a cut, will they be charging outsiders for their own views about their own locality?

One of the difficulties with discussions like this is that we all make assumptions about the nature of local communities, and have to pass over awkward niceties: like the fact that not all neighbourhoods are neatly defined topographically - and those that aren't are probably easy pickings for unscrupulous developers (if there is such a thing); or the fact that not all neighbourhoods have confident, articulate, respected, energetic local champions like Alison representing their interests.

But what struck me most about the stage of thinking we're at, is that these initiatives imply significant changes to the acoustics for citizens' voices. Organised community action - in meetings around the town as in Castleford or (especially) online as in some of William's examples - is starting to bring about a far more audible articulation of local people's views and experience than we have had before. And don't be fooled by the rhetoric from above, which to use Alison's phrase tends to mean 'big people not listening': much of it is in spite of, not because of, official action.

School-run parking

David Hembrow posts about a school stopping ban in the town of Groningen, NL, which he says makes it illegal to stop with a car adjacent to the schools between 8 am and 4 pm on week days.

I've only been to Grongingen once but I remember it as a fairly quiet town: the roads really aren't as packed as urban and suburban Britain. As David says, 'By British or American standards, the rate of children being taken to school by car is already extremely low.'

I always take an interest in this theme because I recall my mother campaigning on it (with some difficulty) in the 1960s, when levels of car-abuse were significantly lower than they are now.

So when I look at the (altogether typical, but scary) images David offers of examples of parking outside a school in England, I find it disheartening. The arrogant selfishness of people when they get into cars has a deep psychology to do with cocooned individual privilege and suspended denial of the interests of others.

Steve Stradling's 2004 study in Scotland found that around a third of those surveyed would be able to shift from car to bus for short trips, but just eight per cent were 'both willing and able'.

Previously: Unwillingly to school?

School run report

Yes, kids walk

The curse of the free rider

Theft and vandalism continue to plague the Paris self-service bicycle hire scheme, Vélib ('la ville est plus belle a velo').

'The Curse of the Free Rider is everywhere' wrote Joost Beunderman on the 00 blog back in March, and in a comment I wondered if it's partly a problem of scale. The scheme in Lyon apparently has been less troublesome. (I also alluded to thefts from public libraries, which are not insignificant but not so high as to endanger the model of a public resource).

According to the Independent,

'vandalism and theft remain so rampant that Paris city authorities were obliged yesterday to come to the aid of the private company which runs the scheme. In less than two-and-a-half years, 8,000 bicycles have been stolen and 18,000 have been damaged beyond repair. In other words, each of the 21,000 Vélibs, which cost €610 (£550) each, have been replaced at least once.'

So the business model changes slightly, but hopefully the idea is not in danger. It would help if it could be demonstrated that the scheme had contributed to reduced pollution engine and influenced health.

Via Regen and Renewal.

An everyday tale of park management

Here's another little story about parks. I heard today of a London park where the friends group have struggled and failed to get their council to recognise as key stakeholders their own operational staff - meaning the two blokes who have looked after the place for the past 30 years.

They tend the flower beds, plant the bulbs, keep it neat and get to know people. If something has happened, they'd be the ones to ask, but they're not allowed to have a say in how the place is managed, in spite of requests from the friends committee.

I suppose this gets classified under 'people behind desks not recognising expertise if it doesn't wear a suit and tie'.

Whose shelter?

I heard this the other day from a student researcher. A council got some money to improve conditions in a local park, partly with the intention of influencing the behaviour of some of the young people in the area who 'needed somewhere to go'. They conducted what I understood to have been a glossy but somewhat spurious consultation process and decided to provide a 'youth shelter' in the park.

The researcher spoke to some older people who resignedly voiced the expectation that the youngsters would probably trash the shelter. She then spoke to some of the young people and was told that they would probably use it for a bit, but it wasn't anything to do with them and it would probably just get trashed after a while.

The pic comes from the site of a supplier, no not that kind of supplier, whose text reads a bit like a parody of new Labour policy over the years:

'Our youth shelters also have a community feel to them by design, which means that they are accessible to people of all ages, whether it be a neighbour walking his dog or a young family needing a pit stop for a quick picnic.'

So as the anecdote suggests, it might be questionable to call it a 'youth shelter'.

Ageing in urban neighbourhoods

Ageing in urban neighbourhoods: place attachment and social exclusion

by Allison E. Smith

ISBN 9781847422705, published by Policy Press, September 2009, (£19.49 online)

Reviewed by Kevin Harris

I was really looking forward to this book because it takes on a theme that is going to assume great significance in the next decade. In an ageing society it becomes harder to guarantee quality of life if we do not understand the factors that affect older people's experience of their local environment. Most older people have a stronger sense of attachment to place than other age groups, contributing to the aspiration that where possible, the option of 'ageing in place' is the ideal.

So we need to better understand the key factors that contribute to or diminish quality of life, especially in low-income urban neighbourhoods, and Allison Smith tries to get this underway by injecting some new research and thinking into the field of environmental gerontology. She takes 'environment' to mean 'the physical and social space of the neighbourhood', but without detaching discussion entirely from the private internal space of the home, since the two spaces overlap in important ways; and she draws on some 52 face-to-face interviews with people aged 60 and older living in low-income areas of Manchester and Vancouver.

Unfortunately the text is occasionally careless ('urban cities'?), consistently cautious, and very repetitive. The amount of padding (eg sub-section summaries) in the book is perverse given the under-developed potential of the primary material. From the testament of each of the 52 older people we are permitted approximately two hundred words in summary, with eight of them selected for more analysis (though very little quotation) as case studies in the middle of the book.

When the residents' voices are allowed to come through, they can be hugely refreshing: the case of Elizabeth Laing (p128-131) is a good example. But in general the voices are, sadly, stifled, which is an ironic echo of the everyday reality for those involved. Presumably the exercise was an academic one which required more attention to tinkering with theories - in this case, a framework of 'environmental comfort', 'environmental management', and 'environmental distress'. Let's hope that greater value from the time the participants gave to the research might emerge in something stylistically more adventurous in due course.

To her credit, Smith steps readily enough into the awkward territory of gerontological psychology, and I suspect not even the psychologists feel comfortable there. And she drops an unexpected little grenade in suggesting 'the need to consider a minimum standard for neighbourhoods'. This idea is put forward 'to spark discussion and debate', although the prospect of it leading quickly to the publication of league tables is not considered.

I was surprised at how few references there were to gardening, which presumably reflects the participants' circumstances of disadvantage (I've never before thought of gardening as a possible indicator of exclusion). I would also have welcomed some exploration of the ways in which the participants used terms like 'friend', 'acquaintance' or 'neighbour'. And there's a curious omission in chapter eight, which is about opportunities and challenges: there are brief discussions of the effects of globalisation, technology and the economic downtown, but nothing about climate change. This is not just about whether or not substantial parts of the country are likely to be under water well before my children reach old age - meaning forced urban density and associated costs - but also the impact of necessarily radically-changed lifestyles within a generation.

In the end, as the author puts it, the findings largely reflect a predictable relationship between place and quality of life. Routine is important and social networks can be also. People's identities are 'intertwined, preserved and reinforced' by the places where they live, but of course they are also sometimes confused, challenged and eroded.

 

Behaviour change and conversations

There are still sceptics about the role of policy in influencing what people do on a day-to-day basis, but I suspect there are far more people who simply don't believe that individuals can be persuaded to modify behaviour pro-socially. Yet policy has surely always sought to change behaviour (like smoking, drinking, driving, oh and thinking of course, there's an example occurs to me). In a post-welfare society under the gathering clouds of climate change, it's kinda priority.

So London's Capital Ambition programme developed a guide to options for public agencies, and LocalGov.uk has a recent article on some of the approaches being taken, 'from nudge theory through behavioural economics to approaches based on values, persuasion and deliberation.' It's written by Gillian Norton and Paul Martin, both Chief Execs of London Boroughs.

If you disregard the inevitable unreflective use of the C word for a moment, it's reassuringly positive:

'The way forward isn’t about trickery or manipulation, and it cannot be achieved by frightening or controlling people. We need serious conversations within and with our communities to win support for changes we all agree are necessary.'

The bit that will get missed out, as usual, is the 'conversations within,' ie everyday local interactions that take place irrespective of what officers are doing. What the article is up against is the fact that it's still hard to get people in positions of power to think in terms of enabling something to happen that doesn't involve them. Hopefully local online networks will bring this about anyway, but a little support from councils wouldn't go amiss.

House swap: the policy

Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps, the man whose very name sounds like a third sector funding crisis, has announced that under a Tory government every family living in social housing "will have the chance to move around the country by exchanging their home for another one". (Sources: Regen & Renewal, New Start).

'A Tory government would set up a national database that would enable social tenants to find alternative accommodation anywhere in the country.'

Maybe don't knock it just yet - it could have some positive consequences for use of housing stock. Moves are surely more likely to be local than regional or national; but some cases could get singed by eg inflammable family tensions over child-care versus employment opportunities, being further from extended families, reluctance to change schools and so on.

If I knew more about the contemporary stream of tacky television programmes, I might just be suspicious that the idea occurred to someone in a Tory think-bowl without their even having to move from their own sofa. That's what we need, a government that is frugal on its own development costs and lets the broadcast media do what it's good at.

No, the tech doesn't weaken local social ties

The results of Keith Hampton's latest study, on Social isolation and new technology, have just been released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The study surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2,512 adults in summer 2008. It finds that Americans are not as isolated as has previously been reported. People’s use of mobile phones and the internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks. Internet use in general and use of social networking services in particular are associated with more diverse social networks.

The researchers claim that the number of Americans who are truly isolated is at most only slightly higher than it was 30 years ago. Few people have no one with whom they can discuss important matters, and even fewer have no one who is especially significant in their lives. But they do confirm a more pronounced change, over the past two decades, in the size and diversity of people's core networks.

These paragraphs, I feel, are important:

Compared to the relatively recent past, most Americans now have fewer people with whom they discuss important matters, and the diversity of people with whom they discuss these issues has declined. There is a wealth of scholarship to suggest that the implications of this trend for individuals and for American society are starkly negative. Smaller and less diverse core networks diminish personal well-being by limiting access to social support. There are simply fewer people we can rely on in a time of need – whether it is a shoulder to cry on, to borrow a cup of sugar, or to help during a crisis.

Small and narrow core networks also impede trust and social tolerance; they limit exposure to the diverse opinions, issues, and ideas of others. If we increasingly rely and trust only a small inner circle of likeminded others, it becomes increasingly difficult to recognize, accept or understand opposing points of view. A great deal of research has shown that diversity within our closest relationships – even in the age of the internet – is vital for the flow of information, for informed deliberation, and to maintain the participatory ideals of a democracy.

As we would expect, Hampton and his colleagues clear up some of the thinking about the contribution of technologies to this trend:

What is the source of this change? We don’t know. But, we believe we have ruled out one likely source: new information and communication technologies such as the internet and mobile phone. Our survey finds the opposite trend amongst internet and mobile phone users; they have larger and more diverse core networks.

What about local social networks? The researchers conclude:

Our findings also suggest that there is little to the argument that new information and communication technologies decrease participation in traditional, local social settings associated with having a diverse social network. When we look beyond people’s core network, to their full network of relations, we find that most uses of the internet and mobile phone have a positive relationship to neighborhood networks, voluntary associations, and use of public spaces. There is some evidence that very specific internet activities, such as use of social networking services (e.g, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn), substitutes for some neighborhood involvement – the internet allows people to obtain traditional forms of neighborhood support from a social circle that extends outside of their neighborhood. Yet, internet users continue to give support to their neighbors, and the level of face-to-face contact with neighbors is the same for internet users as it is for non-users.

As we know, many people use the internet to reinforce local connections. The research finds that people who belong to a neighborhood discussion forum are far more involved locally than are others. (Previously: Maybe neighbourhood blogs reflect neighbourhood demographics?)

From the press release:

“There is a tendency by critics to blame technology first when social change occurs,” argued Prof. Keith Hampton, the lead author of the Pew Internet report, Social Isolation and New Technology. “This is the first research that actually explores the connection between technology use and social isolation and we find the opposite. It turns out that those who use the internet and mobile phones have notable social advantages. People use the technology to stay in touch and share information in ways that keep them socially active and connected to their communities.”

Summary. Full report.

There's no there, there

The Sunday Telegraph has this story about a non-existent village in Lancashire, apparently spawned by Google maps. Just green fields.

Maybe it's just as well. I seem to recall that one riposte to Gertude Stein's famous comment about Oakland ('The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there's no there, there') was something like:

'The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, it's there.'

Sign here if you want more petitions

As our governments grope ever more desperately for formal solutions to problems that require attention to informality, the difficulties they create as they go just serve to complicate things. Encouraging e-petitioning as if it embodies empowerment is one example. Here's Anthony Zacharzewski on the Local democracy blog the other day:

'I don’t have a problem with people saying that they want the council to spend more money – people do that all the time. It’s just very likely that the appeals to spend more money will push for higher and higher spending at a time when there’s less money than ever for doing new things.

'Easier petitioning means councils will need to get (even) better at saying no.'

Every time a council says no in a democratically accountable way it has an administrative cost.