Friday, 03 June 2005

Your key or mine ?

4keys It's not my usual read, but a newspaper article drew my attention to this month's issue of Reader's Digest. Both the Belgian as well as the Dutch issue feature an article on neighbourhood relations.

The article points out the importance of local neighbourhood relations as a foundation for (feelings of) security and mutual support (water plants during holiday, go to the pharmacy if neighbour needs medicine, ...).

Interestingly, they did a small survey in both countries. I haven't seen the Dutch version yet, but the Belgian survey indicates we don't know our neighbours very well. Only 38% knows what kind of job their neighbours do, less then half of us know the names of all their neighbours. However, only a very small minority of respondents would want stronger neighbourhood relations than they currently have.

And that's where there's a strong inbalance between the nostalgia of local social networks that is still used as a norm for healthy social cohesion, and the reality of citizens who are mobile and liberated from the neighbourhood (see Wellman's literature on this). I honestly wouldn't want to limit my social networks to those living within e.g. a one-km. radius. But an multi-level approach (having both a local social network AND a dispersed network) is beyond what many can cope with. Too  much policy is based on the nostalgia and too few on the complexity of modern life.

Also nice to know is that 4% of people have problems with the kids in the neighbourhood, while 14% is annoyed by the dogs of their neighbours.

The newspaper cliping also promised data on key holding among neighbours, but I haven't seen those. Probably in the Dutch version.

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3 Jun 2005 09:43:01 | Neighbourhood relations

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Hedge laws The puns have been flying so I'll restrain meself. I've been away a couple of days but I ought really to log the new legislation on what The Guardian called 'antisocially high hedges.' To clarify: new UK legislation allows local authorities to consider complaints about a neighbour's hedge(s) under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003. It seems that authorities can charge up to £550 to investigate a claim. In The Times a comment refers to 'Trivial disputes between neighbours' and laments the government's impulse to 'regulate the minutiae of private conduct.' Here's the ODPM press release, and it contains this significant clause: 'The complainant must show they have tried to resolve the matter with the hedge owner.' I've made occasional comments on this blog about the extent to which it is possible for government to get inside people's property (answer: you ain't seen nothin yet) and this is the obvious angle for objections to the new legislation. None of the commentary I've read, however, has focussed on the more general issue implied in the whole business - that of neighbours trying to resolve matters between them. And while it's apparent that people are calling for this kind of regulation in the slipstream of the antisocial behaviour bandwagon - not everyone thinks it's trivial, by any means - we should keep in mind that (a) if we need such laws it implies low levels of neighbourliness and widespread reluctance to articulate a grievance and to negotiate to someone else's viewpoint; and (b) worryingly, addressing that shortfall seems not to be under consideration. The ODPM's rampantly overgrown page on hedges is here. More here on the website of Steve Pound MP who put forward the private members' bill on the topic a couple years ago. Mediation UK's page on neighbour disputes is here.
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Turkey and the network society I've been in Turkey the last few days, courtesy of what is pronounced as the 'Britsh Councl,' trying to contribute to a national Information Society strategy there, and gained a few interesting insights which I'll post. What was striking as far as the Information Society thinking was concerned, was the central contrast of the UK experience of transformation, from a society of very mixed social networks; compared with the predominance in Turkey of strong family-based support-oriented networks of strong ties. I happen to think this could be a major issue for them. If Turkey is putting its hand up and saying, yes we want to be a modern nation, a connected nation participating in the new world economy and part of Europe, then it's likely that the traditional family-based structure of social relationships will be greatly weakened, and that could be quite painful. I don't think that's necessarily a reason not to go ahead, but I think you gotta know what you're doing.

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