Neighbourhoods

How to really annoy the neighbours at Christmas

For the affluent, there's no need to hang around in the neighbourhood and risk encountering the neighbours, you can annoy them remotely by outsourcing the task to the technology. Just piss off somewhere expensive and leave a burglar alarm switched on.

A moaning burglar alarm is a highly efficient communication device. It tells you four things:

(i) this house is not occupied

(ii) we think there's something here worth stealing

(iii) we can't be bothered to connect with our neighbours and ask them to keep an eye on the place while we're away

(iv) we haven't got the intelligence to realise any of the above.

Harvest, neighbourliness and altruism

I generally treat narratives of the decline of neighbouring with cautious respect. Here's a comment responding to a post on the global Irish Central site, raising a valid point about the impact of technology on local social relations, which I don't recall having heard before:

'When I visited Ireland as a child, saving the hay was a community event. The neighbors would pitch in and help each other. The mechanization of farming has removed that shared sense of community gained from helping one's neighbors.'

There's no doubt that community involvement in the economically-critical harvest applied in many countries over centuries. We think of Levin over-exerting himself with the serfs, in Anna Karenina. Excluding imaginative aristocrats, most of the participants in such scenes would have experienced intermittent mutual dependence which defined community for them. The basis was necessity neighbouring: individuals had self-interested motivation for co-operating with their neighbour (and coercive religious practices often did the rest). Failure to maximise the harvest, perhaps with too few hands available to bring it in before the weather changed, seriously threatened the chances of the whole village getting through the winter.

We might also ask about some of the oppressive social structures under which this sometimes tortuous labour was unavoidable (no apols for sounding momentarily marxist) - who was benefitting most from this skilled, physical, coordinated effort? - and therefore the conditions under which the mutual commitment that we call 'community' arose.

By all means we should reflect on the contrasts (and similarities) between local social relations in other societies and those that prevail today. But let's at least recognise that versions of 'community' which may have become scarce and and are now regretted, had their basis in motivations that were not necessarily altruistic, and in economics that were not necessarily inclusive.

The contemporary challenge might be expressed thus: how does neighbourliness and sense of community emerge in societies that lack identifiable, manifold mutual dependence?

 

'They leave each other in peace while they grow old and die'

The persistent problematic weather in the UK, blown-in on the prevailing bitterly cold politico-economic weatherfront, has brought plenty of appropriate calls for us all to look out for older people in our neighbourhoods. I think this is genuine and welcome change: politicians, councils, broadcasters and newspapers have reminded people, and local websites have reinforced the message.

Coincidentally I found myself reconsidering the penultimate chapter of the Tao; as you do. The poet writes of, and appears to favour, a small sparsely populated country. In the famous translation of Feng and English:

'They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbours,
And crowing cocks and barking dogs are heard across the way,
Yet they leave each other in peace while they grow old and die.'

This is deceptive: can Lao Tsu be condoning un-neighbourly behaviour? I wouldn't rule it out; and if you have a neighbour with noisy livestock, there may be a temptation to, er, contemplate their demise. But the poet seems not to be referring to neighbours in the sense of local co-residents. As I understand it, throughout the section he is being prescriptive about how citizens should relate to nearby countries.

This sense emerges from other, less seductive editions, where you feel the translators struggling while trying to be more explicit. Here for instance:

'The neighbouring place can be overlooked, can be so near that one may hear the cocks crowing in it, the dogs barking; but the people would grow old and die without ever having been there.'

Or in this rather ungainly version (trans. James Legge):

'There should be a neighbouring state within sight, and the voices of the fowls and dogs should be heard all the way from it to us, but I would make the people to old age, even to death, not have any intercourse with it.'

Well there you go: I think this means that in Lao Tsu's model state, you would be content but not be granted a passport. Whether this favouring of segregation was contrasted with a proactive attitude to cohesive residential neighbouring, we do not know, but it would not be that unusual.

 

Informed and willing participation

Last week I mentioned the government's 'barrier busting' initiative designed to free-up local action. Now the National Association for Neighbourhood Management have published their idea for a 'liability waiver form', drafted in the summer, which is

intended to make it easier for people to undertake practical but informal activities which involve some kind of potential hazard and where an owner of land or equipment is concerned about the risk of claims of liability against them.

NANM describe it as

a way to help people get on and do things like mow a grass verge, clear a patch of derelict ground, or… (like the folks in Longlevens in Gloucestershire – see below) help clear the snow and ice.   It is loosely based on what you’d sign to hire a mountain bike or go paintballing and basically says “we’ve chosen to do what we’re doing, there might be a small risk, but we won’t pin the blame anyone if we get hurt”.

If you make use of it or have some comments, tell the good folk at NANM.

 

"I think the whole community found out"

The problem with this communications technology is, it's too darn efficient. You wanna do the Hallelujah Chrous like this, not like this.
 

A divisive localism

I think I'm not the only commentator who has remained neither inspired nor gobsmacked by the publication of the Localism Bill.

This is partly because so much of it was thoroughly trailed beforehand, and partly because, well, it doesn't seem to be nearly as radical as we had been led to believe. Shades of the Empowerment white paper a few years ago. Perhaps that is why the gloomy news about funding arrangements for local councils was released at the same time.

I will be most curious about CLG's 'barrier-busting' initiative, described as follows:

'Some local authorities want to deliver public services in new ways. Others are keen to do new things, such as invest in small-scale green energy. And volunteers, community groups and social enterprises of many kinds would like to play a bigger role in local life.

But sometimes barriers get in the way. Red tape, rules and regulations stop people putting good ideas into action. Not only is this frustrating – it means that local people miss out.

The barrier busting team is here to help. We want to help you get things done for your local community.'

Of course, you have to go through a few bureaucratic processes to make your case, and rightly so. I'm only going to say this once: don't let me catch you putting in a request to the barrier-busters to bust their own barriers, ok?

Meanwhile, there was more interest in the published information about cuts to local council funding. Ben Toombs over on the RSA Projects blog notes that 'councils with the most deprived residents seem to be facing the deepest cuts precisely because their residents are the least affluent.'

'I think there is plenty to suggest that in practice ... the empowering effect of the Bill will be weakest in the very areas where cuts are to be deepest. If this is the case, the effect of the Bill is likely to be to widen the gap between communities, not narrow it.'

Indeed. So no surprises there either. I may be wrong about the radical impact of the Localism Bill, but I don't think Ben is wrong about the effect of the cuts on those who are least able to deal with them. These cuts are doing what cuts do: they divide.

Community development now: time to start preaching to the unconverted

In times of exceptional public sector funding constraints, when the state is constantly looking to do more for less, you might think the stage was set for community development to make a lasting impression. But the case still needs to be made, laboriously, to policy makers. Last week, seven days before the publication of the Localism Bill, CDF published the report of its ‘Independent Expert Panel on Community Development’.

The report has been based on several background papers and input from across the field: it’s harder than it looks to coordinate that and come up with a series of statements that are more or less coherent and have impact. But we do need to have something we can all sign up to which says things like this:

there is a direct and crucial link between CD expertise and the government's desire to promote people's self-reliance, confidence and capability.

However the role of CD is not only to support communities to provide self help or to design and deliver better public services. It also has a critical role to play in analysing the underlying causes of the problems facing disadvantaged communities and in developing preventive strategies.

It’s good that the panel’s work is to continue. This document feels like it was a necessary clearing of the desk which reveals how different packages are going to be needed for different audiences. There are recommendations for government, foundations, trusts, business, civil society and local government: but the main audience for the report seems to be CD practitioners and organisations themselves. Take this, for example:

While there may not be a wider understanding or commitment to CD practice, it is important that CD adopts an open and pluralist approach to those seeking to work with communities rather than adopting a purist ‘walled off’ practice.

Because CD lacks confidence and status in the policy context, points like this have to be clarified and consensus gained around them before we all stand up and roll our sleeves up.

It’s time to start preaching to the unconverted. What the report suggests to me is that we are now ready for the short punchy document with mini-case studies, that gets sent to elected members and senior local government officers, explaining irresistibly that CD is just what is needed, now, to maximise local social contribution to quality of life.

How the government is encouraging people to get more involved in politics

Some observations on yesterday's news. It's about information, poverty and power.

First, I was struck by the extent to which the government's bullying of the BBC has pushed it to the right. BBC TV coverage of events in Westminster was almost devoid of any attempt to analyse why protestors were angry. The BBC has become afraid to say anything that might upset the authorities. Luckily for them, they had a couple of over-paid celebrities to get excited about. (Incidentally, it obviously wasn't just students, there were other citizens protesting. It suits the establishment to explain the protests as just young people being over-exuberant).

I'm perplexed though at the lack of attention paid to the abandonment of education maintenance allowance (EMA), which is a proven way of supporting young people from low income families who want to stay in education. Secretary of State Vince Cable described EMA as 'enormously wasteful'. Well, it helps poor people with the objective of trying to equalise opportunity, so why would this government want to fund it? The arrogance and complacency seem impregnable. And they're surprised that people are angry.

We don't get many opportunities to be proud to be British (and frankly I don't look for them) but yesterday sort-of counts. While Wikileaks has left most of America apparently supine in acceptance of the arrogant stupidity of its bullying powermongers, in London people have come out and shown the politicians and authorities that their stupidity is unacceptable. I use the word 'unacceptable' because the Haves have been queuing up to use that word with reference to yesterday's street performances. And I use the word 'stupidity' with reference to leaders in the US and UK who have completely failed to grasp the role of new communications media in these confrontations. It's laughable how the establishment feels that the old hierarchies built on hierarchical communication systems (most obviously the bible and the pulpit, but by extension the analog divide generally) can still be depended on to keep people in their places.

Yes, the old question 'why do we have such stupid people in power?' applies as forcefully as ever, but it's gratifying that ethical hacking globally, and the use of google maps to outwit the police in central London, are exposing the powermongers' attempts to deny social justice.

One of the tenets of community development is that nothing succeeds like adversity, and this is shown to apply at the national scale. Sometimes in community development we are disappointed at people's reluctance to get worked up about things; sometimes we are taken by surprise at the vehemence of the response. I count myself among those who have been surprised, and refreshed, at the sudden and fierce discovery of readiness to take political action. It has value which is increasing in proportion to the declining credibility of those in government.

 

Seasonal gesture

This is brilliant - here's a neighbour at the door, mid-evening. Not sending cards this year, says she, I thought I'd give everybody cup-cakes.

And what strikes me is this: I imagine the warmth my neighbour felt making them, and how similar is the sensation among recipients. This is a gesture uncontaminated by expectations or morality or faith or politics.

What is it about us humans in our settled settings that makes such a simple offering so powerful?

Loss of balance



Alice told me Rick, he must be nearly eighty, had gone down three times on the ice, he went down hard and his back is bad. I saw him go down on the corner she said, you know he goes out for his paper, it was treacherous, I won't go out she said, no you mustn't, I echoed.

Then up in the village by the stonemason, you know the pavement is so bad there said Alice, he fell again. How does she know these things. Anyway I said should I pop round see how he is does he want anything should I take him to the clinic, No.

And Doug said you can't do that he wont like that, you see he's very independent, he never had anyone care for him, you couldn't offer to help him, that would upset him.

Anyway I met Rick out of the paper shop a couple days later, well not very well he says when I asked, anything you need shouldn't you go to the, No, says he, Thanks, shaking.

How the government is helping young people to learn about community organising

For a long time it puzzled me that my kids and most of their peers grew up a-political. Now I realise I was not being very bright about it. For a start, I needed to turn the reflection around: it was probably as much that politics was 'a-young-people'.

And, as I suddenly realised while reading a marvellous, passionate article by Suzanne Moore in today's Guardian, for a long time they didn't have a cause of their own. For myself and my brothers and some friends, as we bemoaned our youngsters' apparent disinterest, it feels in retrospect like we expected them to take up other causes, which is not necessarily an easy route to early political awareness.

Moore writes of excitement and energy in the current student protests. No surprise that, as she says,

'these kids are able to quickly organise new kinds of creative chaos'.

And as we'd expect, the learning they are going through is invaluable:

'These people have discovered the politics of self-organisation quickly. Some of what was going on was the painfully slow but necessary business of process. How does such a diverse group make rules for itself?'

What interests me even more is the sophistication of their disquiet: it does not seem to be raw anger or outrage - the kind of last-ditch, backs-to-the-wall desperation that characterised the miners' strike for instance.

What seems to be happening is a calculated rejection of the kind of political attitude - imitated across the country by the embarrassing complacency of the Haves - that has no qualms in dumping ordinary people perceived to be incapable of organising their own resistance. In some ways the students' resistance is perverse, in that there is nothing anarchic about it:

'their main contention is wanting access to state institutions.'

We are being governed by two political leaders who exude contempt for anyone not swimming in the mainstream, and seem ignorant of the risks of their lofty disdain. If Moore is right and young people make the clearest demonstration that this politics is morally unacceptable, I for one will find it very inspiring.

And it would be pleasing if in a few years' time we can look back at today's learning about the organisation of resistance as providing the platform for a revitalisation of community politics. That would resonate sweetly with the rhetoric of big society.

 

'Fantastic and important' - the Online Neighbourhood Networks report

Tuesday saw the launch, at Mary Ward House in London, of a report on online neighbourhood networks which I co-authored with Hugh Flouch. In spite of torrid weather conditions, around 90 people showed up and we had a hugely positive day.

There's a four-page summary of the research, an extended summary, a full report, several video interviews and some background papers. Over on the NN blog we've posted an informative note about it: here I thought I would allow myself a few personal reflections.

I've probably put more into this report than anything else I've ever written. It is consistent historically with some things I wrote fifteen or 20 years ago, but the issues seem excitingly fresh, I suppose because they are less speculation and more evidence. And it's a report I've been wanting to write for years - at least since I met Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman in Toronto ten years ago. I listened to how Keith was processing his findings from the pioneering Netville study and returned to the UK wanting the community development field to appreciate the implications of neighbourhood online networks and take a lead in developing the movement. Fat chance.

I managed to get some dosh from central government to get Keith to England in 2004, and he gave some inspiring presentations. In one post I wrote at the time I noted:

'Government is paying attention, but (apart from the interest of the Oxford Internet Institute) where were the academics?'

Maybe I was partly misled. I'm writing this from a hotel in Oxford, having been invited through the ever-enterprising Tim Davies to present our research to the aforementioned OII this evening. Only Tim turned up. Some students apparently have deadlines tomorrow. Staff have better things to do.

While an hour spent chatting to Tim is not the kind of opportunity I'd ever pass up, this is very telling.

Overnight I'd received an email from Keith Hampton saying that, having read our report, he thought it was 'a fantastic and important piece of work'. The OII, having no track record in taking the local social aspects of internet use seriously, is not even motivated to find out if he might have a point.

I do realise that doesn't really matter too much. It's not all that surprising to reflect that among the first people to be left behind by ideas or social change will be academics studying the internet. What's gratifying, and does matter, is that a load of practitioners get it. Hugh and I have had a flurry of reassuring comments: William Perrin described it as 'superb original research', Steven Clift refers to 'neighbourhood awesomeness coming out of the UK.' Most of all I appreciated some generous remarks from Richard McKeever:

'Recognising how people actually live in neighbourhoods and identifying the additional convening and organising power that can be added by the use of online networks is the right way round.'

More thoughts soon on some of the issues.