Neighbourhoods

The problem of civility: a parking vignette

I thought I was lucky to grab a parking slot on the edge of a row, with a yellow crossed box marked on the passenger side. This kind of thing matters if you’re moving from place to place with a growing bairn who is hard to manoeuvre into his seat at the best of times.

I got back to the car to find a large van snuggled up alongside, leaving me enough room to get the door open about one and a half feet. Aware of the potential havoc to my back I cautiously got the bairn strapped in and closed the door. I then heard the van driver approaching to say ‘You alright there mate?’ I grumphed audibly. ‘Where do you want me to park?’ he says, ‘on the roof?’

Er, well how about legally?

‘Oh what you gonna do?’ says he, ‘call the police?’

Which epitomises the problem of respect and civility in public spaces. It’s impossible for any system of government to oversee all potential disputes, so our society depends on most of us taking other people into consideration in the first instance (citizenship), before questions of legality come into play. Some people seem to see inconsiderate acts first and foremost as either legal, or illegal-but-can-be-got-away-with.

One of the popular questions of our time is whether the proportion of the population in the latter category is increasing. I’m more than ever persuaded that this perception is related to the amount of time we spend cocconed in our cars, a peering position which subtly alters the relationship to the Other. And if it is increasing, I think the next question to ask is: where’s the tipping point?

 

A glance back

Big society belittled, arab spring-summer-autumn and winter, localism, neutered community development, disturbances in English cities... Here's a quick glance back at some sample posts, as it's been such a curious year.

In January - ('thought leaders my arse') - a post about street reps and new forms of governance. Are we 'witnessing the ungainly, messy emergence of the new order'?

In February, in a year when we finally saw the global power of technologies that foster horizontal communication, some thoughts on networks and democracy.

And a slightly caustic post in which I suggest that anyone who can write 'the extent to which communities are willing to seize the opportunities available' without self-parody is manifestly part of the problem.

In March I wrote about the 'request scruple' - for me an essential post on Lilian Linders' insightful research into neighbourliness, after an inspiring study tour in the Netherlands.

And I was asking 'who's next for the Grand Tour for Saviours of Low-Income Neighbourhoods?'

In May a gentle chuckle observing pétanque, seule, and some reflections on the sense of generalised respect in the French public realm, compared with the British.

In June, here's a more serious moment, squaring up to the idea of community development without the politics:

'government would like to see lots of community action where people do not recognise that some of their problems are externally-determined and are the consequence of unequal and unfair policies.'

(I hit the same nerve in November).

And one of my favourite juxtaproses.

Also in June, some thoughts about the assault on the public, asking

'what will it take eventually to spark a serious debate about the nature of 'public' in this country?'

Here are two posts about the disturbances that started in London in August (no, they weren't 'riots') - first, Maybe capitalism didn't quite work:

'If you relentlessly celebrate consumption; unambiguously and unashamedly pursue policies that promote an unequal society; encourage the spectacularisation of culture (a key component in what we're seeing, I think); demolish whatever is public that you can get away with; and then confiscate a lot of state support that gives young people legitimate occasions to test their need to disrupt things - don't suddenly look surprised.'

and 'The suspension of civilisation' in which I referred to young people’s need to disrupt things:

'That is what young people do: get used to it. A responsible society will find ways to help this process take place creatively and without negative consequences – in sporting encounter, in adventure, in semi-formal flexible environments like youth centres, by giving young people space without obsessive surveillance or devious assimilation. What chance is there now that our society’s neurotic control-freakery towards young people can be cured?'

In October I had the chance to report on a remarkable social inclusion project - Helping young people locate themselves.

In November I blogged about the publication of my essay on picnic and community, launched that month.

OK, there have been very few vignettes this year, but this one earlier this month, although dated, I thought you might quite like.

Just trying to be sociable

"Previous research suggests that U.S. residents may use holiday decorations on their home's exterior to communicate friendliness and cohesiveness with neighbors. In the present research, we examine whether strangers (naive raters) can accurately identify the more friendly residents, and what aspects of the homes' exteriors contribute to their impressions. We also examine the possibility that residents who decorate for Christmas but who have few friends on the block may be using the decorations and other cues as a way of communicating their accessibility to neighbors. Participants rated residents based only on photographs of their home and front yard. Stimulus homes had been preselected to represent the four cells of a two by two factorial design crossing the presence/absence of Christmas decorations with the resident's self-rated social contact with neighbors (low/high). As expected, a main effect for the decorated factor indicated that raters used Christmas decorations as a cue that the residents were friendly and cohesive. Decoration interacted with sociability in a complex but interpretable way. In the absence of Christmas decorations, raters accurately distinguished between the homes of sociable and nonsociable residents; in open ended comments, they attributed their impressions to the relatively more 'open' and 'lived in' look of the sociable residents' homes. When Christmas decorations were present, raters actually attributed greater sociability to the nonsociable residents, citing a more open appearance as the basis for their judgments. The results support the idea that residents can use their home's exterior to communicate attachment and possibly to integrate themselves into a neighborhood's social activities."

Werner, C et al (1989), Inferences about homeowners' sociability: impact of Christmas decorations and other cues. Journal of environmental psychology, 9, 279-296.

 

The social life of pop up spaces

More ideas like this please, as described on the Placemaking blog - the New York City Department of Transportation has been partnering with local restaurants to install pop-up cafés in parking spaces. They offer a short time-lapse video of the use of one such space.

It raises a few creative questions. In what sort of locality would this work best? Obviously not town centre, but given the apparent expense and need for sponsorship, it's unlikely to happen in low-income areas or on peripheral estates. Probably it's best suited just off the suburban high street.

But could a sponsoring agency - perhaps a housing association with many suitable sites - have the portable hardware available for rent and delivered to estates at low cost, and the rest done by tenants' associations?

And what other legitimate uses can be squeezed into the idea without distorting it? Could you have a creche for some of the time? Could you have a volunteer bureau occupy a table there for an hour or two? Suggestions please.

 

What is social participation?

‘Social participation comprises three dimensions: neighbouring, trust, and interest in politics.’

This comes from a chapter of early findings from the ESRC’s Understanding society programme (the new household longitudinal study, described as ‘the world’s largest household panel survey’). The sentence is regarded as sufficiently important to be given a large-font margin box all of its own, so they must have meant it.

It’s certainly different. Those who construct these large national surveys have to make a few questions go a long way, which ain’t easy; but it’s quite hard to see how you could get to this 3D reduction from the mix of concepts covered for example in this mindmap which I knocked up a few years ago. And we need the survey makers to get their structures right because they will set in train a whole lot of subsequent research, policy and practice for years to come.

We can compare and contrast the Understanding Society framework with, for instance, the framework offered in the recent Pathways through participation report. Distinguishing social, public and individual participation, the PtP summary report suggests that social participation includes

'being involved in formal voluntary organisations, informal or grassroots community groups, and formal and informal mutual aid and self help.'

The PtP project put a lot of intellectual effort into the topic, and the tag cloud on their site boasts an enticing array of terms; but I don’t see the words ‘neighbouring’ or ‘trust’. There are just two items for ‘politics’.

So here we have two national level initiatives offering quite different frameworks for a concept that affects all of us and has increasing salience in policy. The Pathways approach is more thorough and altogether more convincing, but unfortunately the Understanding Society approach is likely to have influence for some time as the next waves of data build up and get used.

In their effort to explain their framework, the Understanding Society authors trip themselves up quite quickly:

‘Neighbouring captures informal social participation, while general trust and interest in politics capture participation in formal organisations.’

Well no, they don’t, not by a long way. I’m not an academic so I don’t know what the protocol is, but I suspect that if this was an undergraduate essay you’d send them off to start again.

Safe neighbourhoods: the role of design

Anyone who thought agencies like CABE were a waste of public money should look away now. In their current status as part of the Design Council, using material generated in their previous independence, CABE have produced a set of clear, directive briefing papers on Creating safe places to live through design. They are well worth spending time on.

There are six case studies augmented by a summary of lessons learned. The summary hits four main issues:

• Parking and problems associated with parking are 'a major source of neighbour disputes, anti-social behaviour and in some cases criminal damage and assault'. Issues discussed include paying attention to where visitors are likely to park.

• Design quality… Specific elements that need extra design input are:

'Corner properties – they are at greater risk of crime and need careful resolution to ensure they provide overlooking to both streets.
Avoiding situations that expose rear access to dwellings – all dwellings should be the right way around with fronts and backs resolved properly for every dwelling.
Ensure the movement network passes to the front (or if necessary overlooked sides) [of] dwellings rather than to the rear and is logical, fitting in with wider movement routes.'

• Management and maintenance strategies – noting problems resulting from the rise of buy-to-let properties owned by absentee landlords.

• Gating - 'strong perimeter security through gating is not a panacea for good design within a development. The highest crime scheme in the research was the only one that was gated.'

The image below comes from the case study of the gated estate. Never mind the fencing and gating, the door appears to have been designed so that we can all keep prison life firmly in mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(And what is that slit at the bottom of the door? Designed to make anyone delivering post bend down unnecessarily? Or is it a squat cat flap? Time to leave I think).

 

 

Lifetime neighbourhoods

Four years ago I posted a note about an excellent CLG discussion paper on lifetime neighbourhoods prepared by the International Longevity Centre. CLG have now published a new report by Mark Bevan and Karen Croucher from the Centre for Housing Policy in York. It’s an important document which brings together a wide range of material to give this theme some welcome momentum.

The main components of lifetime neighbourhoods are given as

• supporting residents to develop lifetime neighbourhoods – especially resident empowerment
• access
• services and amenities
• built and natural environments
• social networks/well-being
• housing.

There are several valuable strengths in this report. I would highlight the appropriate breadth of research and practice material, the significant number of practice examples, and the emphasis on resident empowerment. It’s also very readable.

Against that, there are two weaknesses that struck me very quickly. The main one is that there is no recognition of the damaging over-emphasis on cars in our local environments, of the way design has too often privileged the driver, and the knock on effect on local social quality of life.

A few years ago the designer Wayne Hemingway told me a story about trying to get residents in a new tower building to accept an underground car park in the design. They wouldn’t, because they wanted to be able to see their cars from their windows – hence using up vastly more land to accommodate them, than was necessary. People treat cars as extensions of their homes, and as a way of marking territory, probing out into the world. It’s hard to see how we can develop lifetime neighbourhoods without confronting this peculiar obsession, but it doesn't help to overlook it. As a society we seem to be in denial.

The other unexpected weakness is a lack of insight into the potential of digital media to strengthen social networks. We can anticipate a future in which residents will expect to be connected and to enjoy and exploit the benefits of their networks, online and face-to-face. And as the Online Neighbourhood Networks study suggested, there are benefits to service providers.

 

Network ennui

Today the Guardian community action hub published an article by Rosie Niven on ‘social media in community building and development’, and I added two or three comments explaining some aspects of the Online Neighbourhood Networks research which I carried out with Hugh Flouch.

I thought I’d mention here that in passing I refer to the notion of ‘network ennui’, which I have decided will become contagious - a period not too far in the future when swathes of the world’s population just get pissed off with the dreary effort of maintaining our social networks and do other stuff like looking where we’re going on the street, experiencing silence and playing solitaire WITH REAL CARDS… the age of social media will just quietly die with an untweeted whimper.

I can’t tell you more cos it’s already started, must go.

 

Neighbour relations can reinforce boundaries - or break them down

We have builders working on the house, this time it’s Dave from just five doors away, and his mate. Yesterday was pretty cold up on the scaffolding, so I heated up some of the apple crumble that my next door neighbour had brought round a little earlier, and took two portions up the ladder for them. They had the chance subsequently to thank her from above as she popped out.

A slightly unusual triangle of service and support then - perhaps an exception to theories of standard neighbour behaviour. Theory tends to inspect some wider social problems - class tensions, ethnic relations - in neighbour relations and then to generalise back out from there. There are symbolic boundaries that we use to differentiate ourselves, and according to this recent paper in Sociological research online, neighbouring reinforces those boundaries rather than breaking them down.

It seems to me that people do both in the neighbouring setting. I can learn a bit about Nigerian culture from a family a few doors along, crossing cultural boundaries with ease for example just by asking for a recipe; or I could shut out all contact from the Irish Catholics next door if I was minded to, just by limiting interaction to a grunt.

 

 

Taxes and governmental powers: what are they for?

When I dropped out of school and went into ‘the world of work’, as it used to be called, I remember being disturbed by the fact that the education system left me utterly ignorant of what government and local government do, and what taxation is for. It looks like things have got little better, in spite of the introduction of citizenship to the curriculum.

Yup, it’s time for a bit of seasonal gloom, with the British Social Attitudes report published today and plenty of publicity given to this statistic:

The proportion who think we should pay (more) taxes to improve health and education and social benefits is only 30% in England, 40% in Scotland. A decade ago it was 60% in both nations. (BBC)

Like a separating galaxy, it looks like we are moving at speed away from the traditional civilising notion of the ‘common weal’. (In case you missed it, here’s the link to requirements for people who don’t want to pay taxes).

Do people who think like this imagine, for instance, that business could function without publicly maintained roads and systematically tested vehicles, or a managed wider economy? Or that the police could maintain order without some sort of funding; or that the food and water they consume could be guaranteed to be hygienic without public agencies? Perhaps it does not occur to them?

Ah wait, perhaps what really bugs them is that poverty is self-imposed, not structural:

63% believed parents who don't want to work were to blame for children living in poverty.

I suggest you blink hard, and re-read that figure: almost two thirds.

According to Mark Easton on the BBC site today, the UK ‘has long been the most judgmental of the needy in Europe.’ In a way, that’s a relief; but yes we do seem determined, disastrously, to become more and more like the US. Income inequality is increasing, with a government apparently comfortable with polarisation. And we seem to be a bit angry too.

Dark age ahead, as Jane Jacobs warned. Jane listed five pillars of culture including ‘taxes and governmental powers that are directly in touch with needs and possibilities’. But civilisation will pay a heavy price if too few citizens really appreciate what they’re for.

 

Pavements are for people

I recently mentioned the Living Streets campaign against pavement parking. By coincidence, clearing out some old papers, I just came across this little gem. It's 25 years old and appears to have been part of a national campaign, the leaflet being distributed with vehicle licensing documents. After that, everyone pretty much gave up I think.

The unedited writer

When I was working on my essay about picnic and community, I took a decision not to share the text with critical friends, nor to use an editor. The Bookleteer publishing process made this realistic, but it was a little scary.

I’ve just posted a note on the Bookleteer blog, discussing what this was like and why I did it:

‘The key justification for me was that to submit to editorial control would have been a crass betrayal of one of the essay’s themes. The essay contrasts picnic with formal meals, it contrasts organisation with networking, and disorder with order, as a way of exploring our tendency to idealise community in structured, formal terms. I felt that by submitting to the convention of editing – a fundamentally conservative process – I would have contradicted that theme in a rather feeble way.’

More here about the essay, and orders can be placed here.

 

Communication vignette

This blog is eight years old today, but the following note predates it. I found this text among several forgotten vignettes in a dusty corner of the hard drive.

A woman got on the train at Gatwick, although not particularly burdened with luggage as so many air travellers are at that station. I was wearing dark glasses as I was trying to sleep. She clattered through the door between carriages, the sound woke me from a doze. She spoke as she clattered through – “Is this the train for Brighton?” At first her words were directed at the woman closest to her, but immediately she noticed that passenger had a walkman and was not ready to receive the question, which was deflected, by the enquirer’s glance in flight, to me. By the time she had reached the question mark, I had flicked the shades up from my eyes, and genuine face-to-face interaction took place, so that I was able to reassure her.

The woman sat down and to my delight, shortly after the train moved on, took out a portable typewriter, opened it up, and hammered a few keys to the rhythm of the train.

June 2002

 

Effectively censored

This lady can’t get her home village of Effin accepted on her Facebook profile page. Facebook apparently screens out some place names, claiming in this case that the village is too small to be featured as a home town on the website.

And yet the phrase ‘Effin Facebook’ seems very familiar.

 

Picture this

Thanks to a fascinating academic meeting this week about ‘researching contemporary communities,’ I was directed to this striking image based on shopkeepers’ countries of origin. It comes from an ethnographic study of the Walworth Road in south London, carried out by Suzanne Hall, an architect. The illustration is dated 2006. It neatly captures what Doreen Massey meant by a ‘global sense of place’.

I like this particularly because of the immediacy of the story it tells. Rather like Donald Appleyard’s famous (1981) drawings of local social interactions on ‘light traffic street’ and ‘heavy traffic street,’ you get the message straight away, and it confirms what you are already likely to know, so it’s more reassuring than thought-provoking or challenging.