Thursday, 14 January 2010

Vertical neighbourhood vitality

Tower 2 Some years ago, following some time working with the Sustainable Tower Blocks Initiative (for which, see Chris Church's summary here) I got very interested in issues of neighbourliness in high rise blocks, carried out a few interviews with residents, and floated a number of proposals but failed to get anyone to fund any work on it.

I think there was a (mistaken) feeling generally that many towers are so emphatically designed to minimise interaction amongst residents that whatever we learned, we would not be able to change much. I also suspect that there was an assumption that these kinds of apartment attract disproportionately the least sociable and the most reclusive, and that's that - as if it's somehow the best place for them.

Well it's time to look up. Recently, Diane Dyson reported that a study is underway in Toronto into 'the role of housing in neighbourhood vitality', subtitled 'an investigation into the impact of high-rise living on personal well-being and neighbourhood vitality'. There's a little extra info here.

The research, which is partly based on the excellent neighbourhood vitality report published a few years ago, is due to report later this year. I'll be keeping an eye out.

14 Jan 2010 21:44:21 | Neighbourhood relations, Space and place

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Informal local support in severe weather Two cheers for CLG who have rushed out a short document called Volunteering and neighbourliness: helping out in severe weather. It's an odd mixture of advice about hypothermia and frostbite, some useful suggestions from Volunteering England, and encouragement to 'call in regularly on elderly friends, neighbours and relatives to see if they need help staying warm or getting provisions'. It feels like some of the content should be on posters in shops, banks and post offices etc; some belongs in press releases so that local newspapers and other sources reproduce it; and some might even belong in leaflets for more general distribution. Perhaps it's also worth thinking about a more considered version in advance of the next cold snap. Things like neighbours placing a home delivery order with a supermarket for an older person who may not have internet access; thinking about the welfare of their pets, which often worries them; walking in the house with an older neighbour - up and down the hall to get a bit of exercise can be very important. And CLG could be thinking about getting messages like these out through hyperlocal sites: by next winter please.

Kevin Harris

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