Neighbourhoods

Suburban gaze

This image is by Christopher Campbell and comes from an exhibition of paintings about London's infamous A406 North Circular Road. To most people who have to negotiate it, the North Circular is an obstacle or a set of traps, not a road in which people live. Yet the homes were built to the high expectations of suburbia.

If you've read Edward Platt's fascinating study of the homes and inhabitants of the (not dissimilar) A40, Leadville, Campbell's images will be all the more compelling. Like Platt, Campbell takes the mundane, refuses to heat it up, and yet still creates something I'm reluctant to look away from. The exhbition is at StArt Space, Columbia Road, east London until 25 May.

Among the comments Edward Platt made from his interviews with residents, I'm occasionally reminded of this one:

It is not the noise on the road, but the noise of her neighbours that upsets her.

Learning from the local: engagement and cohesion

A quick note about yesterday's Learning from the Local conference organised by the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths.

The main purpose was to report on a recent local project, the Newtown Neighbourhood Project (report will be linked here when I'm told it is available). This material was well contextualised with other presentations, including an update from Marj Mayo on a current JRF project on community engagement, governance and ethnic diversity - 'fluid communities, solid structures'; and a session on researching and working with gypsy-traveller groups.

The Newtown Neighbourhood Project worked in a predominantly white area with a sizeable proportion of residents of gypsy/traveller origin. The partnership (a housing association, a community engagement consultant, and CUCR, with Housing Corporation funding) seems to have worked really well, so that participative research was possible and small specific actions followed from consultative exercises.

The event got me thinking about the ways in which the community engagement agenda may be merging with (or coming into collision with) the community cohesion agenda.

My take on it at the moment, FWIW, is that the two agendas come from different drivers but just because there are tensions between them - for example, there are practices of engagement which might seem to contribute to segregation; and at the same time, as Michael Keith pointed out in response to a question, there's a politics of cohesion which is fairly reactionary - I don't see why there should not be a natural combining process here.

I'd like to live in a society where people incontestably have the right to informed participation in decision-making processes that affect them, and where at the same time people from different backgrounds get on well together. Doesn't sound too much to ask.

Living library: take out a prejudice

Ronni Abergel, one of the originators of the 'living library' idea, is in London next week launching a new guide at this event -

Local Level is currently organising a series of public library-based Living Library events, so we were struck by the slogan 'take out a prejudice'.

It will be interesting to try and find out whether this challenging approach (developed in the context of youth work, I believe) attracts people who might otherwise not be encouraged to explore experiences that are new to them, or whether they might be put off.

Our Living Library events will take place as follows:

Norton Canes Library, Staffordshire

Sat 26 April, 1000-1200; Wed 7 May, 1000-1200 & 1330-1500, Thurs 15 May, 1700-1900.

Bradford Central Library

Wed 14 May, 1500-1900, Thurs 15 May, am, Sat 17 May, am.

Bournemouth Library

Sat 3 May, 1000-1200, Wed 7 May, 1400-1700, Mon 12 May, 1000-1300.

Sevenoaks Library, Kent 

Tues 29 April, pm, Sat 10 May, am, Wed 14th May, am.

Neighbourhood Project Conference, London 15 April

The Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths has organised a free one day conference on 'Developing innovation and good practice in neighbourhood work' -

Tuesday 15 April 2008, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths, University of London
Lewisham Way, New Cross SE14 6NW

Details.

There are sessions on:

• 'Cohesive neighbourhoods or diverse neighbourhoods?'
• 'Working with gypsies and travellers in neighbourhoods'
• 'Neighbourhood improvement, neighbourhood management and neighbourhood know-how'
• and 'Participatory and action research in neighbourhoods'

I don't intend to be put off by the unfortunate implied hierarchy of the speaker list: this one looks to be based on solid local experience and I'm looking forward to it.

Register email - cucr (at) gold.ac.uk, 020 7919 7390. Venue.

(Thanks Will)

Lights, camera, just popping next door

Channel 4 are showing a Cutting Edge documentary called My street on Thursday 21 February 2008 at 9pm.

After 14 years of living on the same road Sue knew practically none of her neighbours. Intrigued by what stories might lie on her own doorstep, she began knocking on the 116 doors on her street and meeting some of the 300 people who are her neighbours.

Or you could organise a street party. Try to stifle the allegations of cheap programme-making, nothing wrong with that, and it looks like a good initiative.

I'm more curious about this as another example of the grudgingly slow recognition by the media and politicians that, as forces associated with globalisation stretch their influence ever thinner, there's often something quite interesting at local level that the rest of us are already talking about. It sounds as if the programme may be almost confessional in that respect.

More here, including a clip with this comment from Sue Bourne, the director:

I didn't find a huge sense of community and neighbourliness but there were pockets of it...

It will be interesting to see whether the programme spends any time exploring why this is; whether it is as widespread as my forthcoming Age Concern review suggests; the factors that explain why she knew so few of her neghbours in the first place; and to what extent it matters.

Friends Out There: launch event

Fings are fairly frantic, frazzled and fraught for Friday's funfest charity launch event Friends Out There in Watford. If you're within striking distance, I hope you'll find your way there, come and feast yer ears and eyes. Here's the blurb. Here for bookings.

We need £5,000 before we're allowed to establish the charity so please come and help make it happen! Tickets available on the night, just mind the fire-jugglers and Mad Matt the robot statue as you come in.

Meanwhile, among my less exciting roles, I've been tinkering at the charitable objectives. Here's the pop version -

• Friends Out There will create connections between different schools and neighbourhoods across the world – working at the local level, globally.
• Friends Out There will use art, music, dance, drama and writing to help people explore diversity and to promote understanding of different cultures.
• Friends Out There will record, evaluate and publish the processes and outcomes of our work so that it can be shared and experienced widely.
• Friends Out There will contribute to the relief of hardship where appropriate in the areas where we work by helping to build financial, social and cultural capital.

If you'd like to get on board, say hi over on the FOTblog.

Street parties for engagement

Chris Gittins of Streets Alive is running a training event on street parties, for the National Neighbourhood Management Network, in London, 27 March 2008. Details.

Places to Go? conference

The latest Living Streets newsletter tells us that to get back to child-friendly public spaces we need 'a range of concrete measures.'

We can be sure that the real and the metaphorical will be clearly distinguished at the conference Living Streets are running with Play England, Sustrans and the National Children's Bureau:

The Places to Go? conference will explore the opportunities represented by The Children’s Plan and address some of its challenges. It will present policy and practice for professionals in planning, landscaping, play, school travel, public health, traffic and transport. It will explore links between the twin imperatives of creating a public realm that is enjoyable, healthy and accessible to children; and environmentally sustainable.

The conference takes place in London, 20 May 2008. Flier.

Friends Out There - 15 Feb in Watford

Here's my friend Bev Carter promoting a crazy event she's roped me into - the launch event for a charity which will run arts based projects with residents of Umulogho Village, Nigeria.

Friends Out There takes place at Watford Colosseum (WD17 3EX - just 20 mins from London) on 15 February. Map. Further details and ticket prices. It's going to be a blazing celebration of African dance, art and music.

• African drumming, dance, juggling and art workshops for children and adults
• Matt the Statue
• Food, refreshments and craft stalls
• Art exhibition and information about links made between Umulogho Village and schools in Watford.

Doors open at 6pm with live performances from 7.45pm until 00.45am, featuring -

• Kakatsitsi, Master Drummers from Ghana
• Chimanimani from Zimbabwe, music to which apparently even I could not remain seated
• Fire juggling and stilt walking by Area 51, the Masters of Breathtaking
• and Rolf Harris has kindly agreed to perform live, accompanied by his friend Shining Bear on didgeridoo.

More details and tickets available from the box office: 01923 225671, or contact Bev Carter on 0208 387 0483, bevalittlesomething (at) hotmail.co.uk

The main aim of the event is to raise funds to improve facilities in Umulogho village and establish a new school building. We also expect to have an outrageously good time. I'm helping with event management so if you are able to come, ask for me and come and say hello. But be warned, I may be on the lookout for volunteers.

Citizens' day framework

The Citizenship Foundation has published guidance for local authorities and community sector partners on how to set up citizens days.

The booklet offers a range of advice and examples to explore how projects can help bring together people from different backgrounds.

Interwoven freedom

One of the most striking features in the long anti-slavery campaign was the role of women and the degree to which this involved local networks and highly organised community action (Adam Hochschild, Bury the chains). Local responses to global issues are nothing new.

Now here's an attractive exhibition put together by English Heritage and the Sparkbrook African and Caribbean Women’s Development Initiative (SCAWDI) in the west Midlands.

Interwoven Freedom enabled a group of women to explore slavery and abolition in Birmingham. They visited archives, exhibitions and historic sites with links to slavery and worked with creative writer Ava Ming and textile artist Karina Thompson. Taking inspiration from Birmingham’s abolitionist women and Black enslaved women who campaigned for the end of slavery – they have interwoven their own personal response with the story of freedom.

Drawing on the tradition of abolitionist women who created and distributed workbags filled with anti-slavery manifestos, the participants have written their own manifestos which mix historical facts with vivid fictional stories and powerful poems. They have made workbags from fair trade cotton and African cloth. Woven into their bags are integrated references from their past and personal histories, images of slave ships, photographs and Jamaican and Ghanaian flags.

Various locations in the west Midlands until 19 May 2008.

CDX annual conference

Who cares about neighbourhoods?

Community Development Xchange annual conference organised in partnership with Tenants Participation Advisory Service.

19-20 November 2007, Harben House, Milton Keynes

Details.

Tailoring streets for people

Does one street fit all? Tailoring streets for people
Living Streets conference
Tuesday 20 November 2007
Central London EC1V 2TT

Topics include:
• Shopping streets: redressing the balance for people on foot
• Destination places: rejuvenating Manchester’s Chinatown
• Save our Streets Campaign
• Playing streets
• Slower speed initiatives
• Shared space, shared surfaces
• Building sustainable city centres and more.

Poundbury lecture and tour: 'Removing the roadblocks'

This lecture and tour explains how Poundbury 'looked away from conventional highways thinking to successfully establish safe, inviting streetscapes that promote modes of transport other than the car and contribute to effective community living.'

Wednesday 14th November 2007, 10.30am - 3.30pm
Brownsword Hall, 13 Moraston Street
Pummery Square, Poundbury, DT1 3RG

More here.

Some video tours here, which show the surprisingly broad streets, unexpected in-yer-face garage doors and house walls, and the scarcity of pedestrians.

Tenant groups' telephone conferences

Sarah Bird has come up with another enticing autumn programme of telephone conferences for residents and tenants.

I've long been a fan of this format - the events are accessible and rewarding. Highlights from the programme include:

• Empowering older people, 19 October 2007, 11:00 - 12:00
• Clean streets and public places: tackling failure, 29 October 2007, 13:00 - 14:00.

There are also sessions on time banks, and on avoiding activist burnout. Check the programme for more information.

Block Parties 101

Neighbors Project in Chicago has just published a short guide to organising block parties. (Nb some of the online content is not suitable for vegetarians).

Compare Chris Gittins's street party content.

Home improvement: women on housing estates

Yesterday I was at a really cracking event organised by the London Women and Planning Forum, on 'Home improvement: women on housing estates.' There were presentations by Lynsey Hanley, Rebecca Tunstall and Jess Steele - which frankly ought to have been a good enough line-up to attract many more than the 30 or so of us who took part in an informative and absorbing discussion. (Where was everyone?)

Lynsey Hanley offered a presentation on 'estates and women's mental health' based on her book, Estates. She talked in passing about 'the wall in the head' - the idea that once you're there, on an estate such as that where she grew up, you’re not expected to leave. With sensitive reference to family and social history she talked about how, after the war, the class system was reinforced through housing policy.

Lynsey also spoke about how the estate on the edge of Birmingham had no clear identity. It wasn't a town, it was described by planners as a township, but people who live there describe it as an ‘estate', a term which has a lot of negative connotations. She talked about the 'siege mentality,' the negative sense of community, and the lack of available 'talking therapies' for women, describing their experience with the sense of being cast away and cut off.

Becky Tunstall reported on her research into 25 years on twenty estates (which I also covered previously). There's a huge amount of detail in the research to which I can't do justice, but her conclusions seemed to be that improvements in the conditions of our least popular estates were more down to basic housing (allocations) policy than to regeneration policy, and to the national context of an upbeat economy, rather than to estate-based factors.

I was struck by Becky's identification of a 'dilution of decentralisation' on these estates, from estate offices to area offices - ie previously there was a move to provide highly localised services in a selection of estates, whereas now the trend is to provide such services area-wide but more comprehensively.

Jess Steele, now Head of Consultancy at the Development Trusts Association, made some big points about community action and community development on housing estates, stressing how the relationship of poor women with the state is particular, very intense and often fraught.

Her main point was about the need to recognise that estates house concentrations of claimaints, and she called for their needs to be linked to the creation of work in the 'phantom economy' of everyday local tasks ('mini-jobs' like low-level care and support, shopping, cleaning, school crossings, basic warden roles and so on) which are not part of the standard labour market. (Some of this of course is estate management with added social care, as practised very succesfully for example at Pembroke Street in Devonport). Jess wants a system of ‘community allowance’ which would allow people to do these jobs under contract to community organisations without losing their benefit entitlement.

Each of the speakers referred to the importance of community action on estates and women’s dominant role in that. Becky for instance, reviewing the twenty estates covered in her research with Alice Coulter, said that ‘community activity has been extremely important in the way these estates have developed’. While we touched on the question of whether or not practitioners have learned from the mistakes of the past, it was striking that there is a huge gap between the significance of community action and its influence on policy. Will that really change, in our looming age of localism?

Another major theme to emerge was a widely-shared scepticism about planned mixed tenure as a policy. Becky Tunstall, who is currently researching this theme, confirmed that there is no evidence to suggest that it ‘works’. (Hopefully, her research will clarify what we mean when we say it works or doesn’t). (LSE have a lunchtime seminar on this theme coming up, London 6 July 2007, with Susan Popkin from the Urban Institute, Washington DC: for details 020 7955 6562, a.tamas(at)lse.ac.uk).

This is essentially about living with difference, and I note that the theme is touched on, without a great sense of authority, in the recent report of the Integration and Cohesion Commission:

Cohesive and integrated communities are more easily achieved where there is a mix of housing types and tenures, and where people are able to move between tenure types and between sizes of home as they move through life and face different personal demands. (para 8.30)

I keep returning to this question of living with difference because it feels like an iceberg social problem and we’re on a collision course. That doesn't mean I'm into rearranging deckchairs when I say I look forward to future events organised by the forum: I'm told current plans include seminars on art in public places; and gardens.

Housing associations and neighbourliness

Aha, I see The Young Foundation promise a seminar (13 July in London) on some joint research with the Housing Corporation about neighbourliness and governance.

It's not been easy to find out about this project - I recall two or three phone calls to the Housing Corporation, one of them lasting a good 30 minutes with several uncertain respondents, making enquiries after I picked up rumours about it, and drawing a blank. Still nothing that I can find on the HC site. I really don't understand why people don't want others to know what they're doing with (what I assume is) public money.

Well sorry, guess I'm just feeling nitpicky because of the contrast with the Open Innovation Exchange, whose progress (hopefully unstoppable) at the Cabinet Office today has just been blogged by David Wilcox. Whatever happens, well done to Simon and Jane Berry, Ben Whitnall and David, and the others involved, for putting such effort into being straightforward.

Sorry business at The Dreaming

Last week, courtesy of my generous hosts at Caloundra, I got to spend time at The Dreaming, billed as Australia's international indigenous festival and in its third year. It's the kid brother or sister to the famous Woodford Folk Festival.

Unhappily there was 'sorry business' and I didn't get to see any dancing. Early in Saturday’s programme, a dancer collapsed and died. (Report). He may have travelled far and possibly had been tragically affected by the cold weather we all experienced. Out of consideration for the families affected, the dance area was closed.

I still got a buzz just being in this intensely diverse collection of ethnic groupings and age-groups. The festival offers drama, film, dance, comedy and a few spontaneous acts - like these stilted tree-characters - that you encounter as you wander round.

Sure, it was a hippy tea-party - storyteller Gail Robinson said it's a bit like preaching to the converted - but we shouldn't forget how important it can be to celebrate and reaffirm common values. Australia doesn't have tangled and knotted cohesion problems like the UK but it still has a job to work-through some large-scale and profound issues of ethnic relations. Those who are doing so have to come together from time to time and draw strength, and that's what I think I witnessed.

My thanks to Gail and her partner Charlie who were perfect stewards.

The third place game

Last thursday in Caloundra, Queensland, I helped facilitate a game about third places with storyteller Gail Robinson and city librarian Louise Bauer, as a prelude to their third place forum. We're preparing a write-up: meanwhile here's my short account.

The Third Place Forum was established as a libraries initiative, but we wanted to explore the characteristics of third places generally in order to bring out some tensions we anticipated around 'community'/public, public/commercial, inclusive/cliquey, and so on.

I worked online with Louise and Gail for a week or two before I went out, sharing ideas for what could be done, and we came up with a five-part exercise. About a dozen good folk, enough for three groups, were recruited into the Caloundra art gallery early on thursday evening.

The game started with a plenary flipchart exercise to warm people up and get a set of attributes of 'community life'  -  features like 'inclusive,' 'green,' 'supportive' - which they believed to be important.

Each group was then given a set of cards representing suggested third places, and asked to discuss each one and record some notes about the features of community which it relates to, is there a cost at point of use, what are the key attributes of the third place, who uses it, and who's excluded?

Groups then took the cards to a large-scale aerial map of the city to locate examples of the third places they'd worked on. Anticipating that the cards would be clustered, we'd grandly invested in some toilet roll stands and clothes pegs, only the best will do, in order to show where the places occurred on the map. This classy high-tech solution had the advantage of adding a physical third dimension to the map as it developed.

The third stage of the game required each group to spend a few minutes developing an imaginary character and inventing a set of problems that the character faced. (With this technique in particular we acknowledge the ever-present influence of Drew Mackie and David Wilcox, (see their Useful Games site). One of the 'characters' was in fact a small family, the others were an old man living alone and a young professional woman who is wheelchair-bound.

The character was then 'introduced' to the next group who had to spend time developing 'a week in the life' of their character and recording this on the sheet. Whenever the group made reference to a third place, they noted it on a small colour-coded post-it, which was afterwards removed to the map.

The final phase was to discuss, in plenary the narratives constructed by the groups about their characters, and what lessons might be learned from the card-clustered map.

There are follow-up phases too: first, some insights may be gained from an analysis of the notes made on the cards (when I get round to it) and these can be explored with participants online. Secondly, participants suggested that it might be interesting to explore third place use during a week in their own life, so we're thinking about how best to follow this up: it won't be a representative survey but we could test some methodology.

On the whole it worked very well for a first run, especially the links from one phase of the game to another. We haven't cracked the uncertainties you get when you mix fictional characters or venues with real, mapped places. And we may have needed to be less selective and more comprehensive in our list of third places (which would be a challenge). A final point is that it was noticeable how these Aussie participants, with their unfailingly positive outlook, managed to sort most of the characters' problems and left them living pretty much happily ever after. I'll be surprised if we can get a similar effect running the game in the UK.

Once we've done the write-up and clarified next steps, I'll post again about this.

Managing open spaces

The Neighbourhood Management Network is hosting an event looking at innovative and successful ways of managing and improving open/green spaces. It takes place in east London next Tuesday 19 June 2007.

This event will look at:

• The impact that open spaces have on the physical and mental well-being of individuals, and in building cohesive communities
• The views of central and local government on open space maintenance and development
• Tips on how initiatives are working to keep spaces clean and safe
• Why and how to involve the community in the design and planning of public spaces
• Overcoming practical problems when changing/developing a public space.

Speakers include Matthew Frith from Peabody, Demos's Melissa Mean, Richard Hebditch from Living Streets and Richard Sharp and Philip Morris from Canning Town Regeneration.

Details here. Contact Anita Delaney: londonandse (at) neighbourhoodmanagement.net, 020 8586 9493.

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.

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.

Community engagement and the public realm

Living Streets are running a conference on 'Community engagement and the public realm,'
Wednesday 4 July 2007, London.

The challenge for local authorities is to find ways to engage their communities in service provision – particularly streets and the public realm. This conference will set out the new requirements on community engagement, and how this will affect the way public space is designed and managed. It will hear about some of the new tools which are being used to engage residents. It will look at innovative ways to ensure that it’s not just ‘the same voices’ which are being heard. And finally, it will showcase some of the best examples of community engagement from around the UK.

Judging by the cost, it's just aimed at professionals, reducing the chance of getting a real mix of people. Details.

Improving the ecology of housing estates: seminar

Where the wild things grow: biodiversity, groovy plants and veggies on housing estates: a free seminar on improving the ecology of housing estates

NeighbourhoodsGreen seminar, London SW1
26 February 2007, 10.00 - 14.00

'This seminar will launch specific guidance to assist social landlords and their residents in bringing some life to their local spaces. Please join discussions with a panel of experts to talk about improving the ecology of housing estates.'

Details.

Integration: developing community relations

CDF have set up a major national conference on integration, London 8 March 2007.

Does integration mean you can be different and equal? Should we expect migrant communities to assimilate and adopt a “British” way of life? How can community development help communities find common ground while respecting diversity?

The event will bring 'a wide range of perspectives and experiences together to discuss what integration means for communities while promoting community development's contribution to building community relations and tackling tensions.'

Speakers include Ted Cantle, Michelynn Lafleche, Darra Singh, Harriet Crabtree, Alison Gilchrist, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Nick Johnson, Ed Cox, Rushanara Ali, and Osman Skeikh. But meself I'd be more interested in the workshop themes. Check them out here. Conference leaflet is here.

Measuring the quality of public space

CABE have developed Spaceshaper, a practical toolkit for use by local community groups or professionals to measure the quality of a public space before investing time and money in improving it.

The toolkit works by capturing the perceptions of both professionals involved in running a space and its users. The results are discussed during facilitated workshops which aim to debate issues of design quality and build a better understanding about how the space works for the different stakeholders. The toolkit aims to be positive and aspirational, encouraging people to demand more from their local spaces.

CABE Space will be running a series of introductory taster sessions looking at how to maximise benefit using the toolkit.

London, 23 January and 31 January 2007
Bristol, 1 February 2007
Birmingham, 2 February 2007
Sheffield, 7 February 2007.

A version for children and young people is also being developed.

Neighbourliness seminar, London, 27 February

Shared Intelligence are organising a seminar on neighbourliness, at NCVO in London, 27 February. If it weren't for the fact that I'm speaking, I'd say it looks like a good event. You get to hear Liz Richardson, you get a copy of that book, and as it's you, a glass or two of wine. I recommend showing up late. Here's the blurb.

Walkability workshops

Living Streets has announced four walkability workshops in England for February 2007.

Sheffield 6 February
Preston 8 February
London 27 February
Wolverhampton 28 February

'Walkability is about improving places where people live, work, visit, study, shop and play. The walkability audit approach can be applied to a whole community or town centre or to specific streets or facilities such as schools, hospitals, workplaces, shops, parks and leisure centres. Learn how to organise walkability audits and win funding to improve residential and business districts, education, health, work and leisure facilities and transport hubs.'

More here.

The World in our Neighbourhoods conference

Haringey Council and the Young Foundation have organised a conference to explore 'how globalisation, migration and cultural diversity impact on neighbourhoods in London and other cities around the world.'

Monday 11 December 2006, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, north London. More here.

"The conference will feature high profile speakers" it says, and unfortunately it seems to be saturated with them, but it still could be worthwhile.

Neighbourhood L!fe conference - updated programme

*THIS CONFERENCE HAS BEEN CNACELLED due to very low take up*

Here's the slightly updated programme for the Neighbourhood L!fe conference, which takes place in Bristol 22-23 November. The link includes further information and booking form. Please join us if you can for either or both days, for a celebration and exploration of neighbourhood life in 21st century Britain.

Neighbourhood L!fe conference: details

The Neighbourhood L!fe conference is taking shape. It's scheduled for 22-23 November 2006 at the Southville Centre, Bristol, organised by myself in association with Chris Gittins from Streets Alive. You can download the leaflet  including programme, a note about the fees, and the booking form.

Among the highlights, I'm particularly looking forward to hearing Liz Richardson talk about accountability in neighbourhood governance, with a response from local activist Martha Parry; a neighbourhood version of the community engagement game with Drew Mackie and David Wilcox; David Sillito's presentation of his BBC news material about neighbouring in England; a workshop from conflict transformation group Community Resolve; Izzy Mohammed and Adisa Folarin from Connecting Histories talking about using archives to work with community groups; Keith Hampton skyping in from Pennsylvania to tell us about his e-neighbors and i-neighbors projects; all building up to a debate about whether neighbourliness is a thing of the past. Well, is it? What do you think?

Join us - download the form and deal with it now, and help obscure community development consultants feel they have a role in life.

Neighbourhood Life conference

             

             

I've been working with Chris Gittins of Streets Alive to organise the Neighbourhood Life conference, which will take place in Bristol 22-23 November 2006.

This is a networking event for neighbourhood activists, community development workers, professionals working in neighbourhoods, local councillors, policy officials and researchers.

Highlights:

• Screening of BBC News material on neighbourliness
• Home Zone ‘walkshop’
• Play the Community Engagement game
• Launch of a new resource on neighbourhood action
• Debate: ‘neighbourliness is a thing of the past’
• Free copy of new book Respect in the neighbourhood, edited by Kevin Harris and published by Russell House, for every delegate
• Exhibition space available and networking time guaranteed.

Confirmed presenters and facilitators include:

• David Sillito, BBC News
• Saffron James, The Young Foundation
• Izzy Mohammed and Adisa Folarin, Connecting Histories
• David Wilcox, Partnerships Online
• Chris Gittins, Streets Alive
• Liz Richardson, University of Manchester
• (and more to come).

Organised by Local Level and Streets Alive. Advance information is here, this will be updated as the programme develops. Please email me if you'd like to receive further information and a booking form.

Mass blog of everyday life: 17 October

I've sometimes thought that future historians will look back at our age as compulsively informative. The publicity for the 'One Day in History' mass blogging day (October 17) fits the bill and manages to leave a few words out as it does so.

Don't let that put you off. It's an adventurous stunt and I think we should all go for it - no reason why there shouldn't be some neighbourhood or community group contributions, from the minutes of a tenants' group meeting to a record of a conversation at the school gates.

A mass blog for the national record. The History Matters campaign has designated a day for the public to make historic. We want as many people as possible ... to record a 'blog' diary of this one day to be by the British Library (sic) and others as a record of our national life.

October 17 has been chosen deliberately as 'an ordinary' weekday of no particular significance. We want to record the mundane and ordinary lives of citizens and by doing something contributing valuable to the historic record (sic). Material that could be used by historians and researchers for time to come.

More.

Quest telephone conferences

Great to see that Quest are still offering their excellent telephone-conferences for activists and professionals. They've recently announced a new programme for October here. The conferences cover:

• Funding for Community Groups
• Involving Young People
• Producing Community Newsletters
• Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour & Witness Intimidation
• Organising a Successful Event.

Street renaissance conference

Street renaissance: creating and sustaining liveable streets
London, 15 November 2006.

Living Streets conference to look at how the design and management of streets and public spaces affects the quality of life, social inclusion, empowerment and safety of people who use the streets.

Fee £180 upwards. Details.

Children's play environments: seminar

No more springy chickens: improving children’s play on housing estates
A seminar on new play environments
Monday 25 September 2006, London

Details.

Young people: new places for learning, leisure and living

This looks fun - a conference on 'Young people: new places for learning, leisure and living.'
16 June 2006, 10.00am University of East London, Docklands Campus

The programme looks a bit breathtaking and I've heard there are some reduced price places available, so get in touch with them if you're interested. UEL are collaborating with Bisset Adams architects, an interesting bunch and all credit to them for getting involved in this. They've worked with a steering group of local young people to put this package together and they've not fallen into the trap of making it 'by young people for young people' - it's by a mix of people, for a mix of people, about young people.