Friday, 27 July 2012
Friday, 23 March 2012
Comfortable Chaos
Cities, places and neighbourhoods are social networks that operate through the social media of homes, streets, spaces, shops and facilities.
Like any network there is a variety of actors and characters within it which have certain kinds of network behaviours and characteristics. Some like to observe and play around the edges; dipping in and out of the activity according to their specific needs and interests. Some on the other hand are prolific; connecting an esoteric and diverse range of others and interests. There are amplifiers, operating as nodes broadcasting information and news to others and collecting information across other networks. Then there are influencers whose activities, ideas and behaviours can change the shape and direction of a network and stimulate a diverse range of others.
In any given place, at any given time, we are all participating in this social networking whether we realise it or not. In the conversations we have with other people, the decisions we make and the things we do. These transactions and flows of activity are governed by a multitude of things; love, habit, belonging, money, convention, belief, morality, trend, ego, curiosity, envy, friendship, impatience, need, want etc, etc.
How much of them are to do with direct government intervention? How much of them compel us to do something for the benefit of others or our neighbourhood? What is the government’s role in enthusing and encouraging people to get involved in their neighbourhoods?
Yesterday afternoon I spent three fascinating hours with some familiar and new faces at DCLG talking about how to mobilise neighbourhood action and engage people to take more of a role in their local area. An issue close to Mend’s heart. So a bunch of us ranging from urban designers, community workers, housing trusts, voluntary organisations, networkers and think tanks took it in turns to give our insights, experiences and theories on what works at a neighbourhood level.
There was a lot of consensus around the need for trust, bottom-up approaches, flexibility and patience. Also some words of caution about what the government’s role in mobilisation should be and what consequences and context around mobilisation are (see Julian Dobson http://livingwithrats.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2012/03/why-mobilise-neighbourhoods-clarity.html )
Here’s mine for what it’s worth…..
Unfinished business: Networking is an on-going process, as is place-making and community building. You don’t get to an end point and say “tick”. As such, the network is always unfinished, full of gaps and holes. These can manifest in problems such as a gap in service provision or social tension. This is where some network actors come in; they have identified a gap or rip and they want to mend it. They try to mobilise resources and activity in order to draw attention and address the gap with varying levels of success and support.
Mobilising mobilisers: A key success factor is their ability and capacity for engaging others, demonstrating the common interest and relevance and communicating the shared benefits and meaning to them and others outside the network to participate. But this is not a role for everyone. Some people just don’t want to get involved – and that’s fine. There are plenty that do and will. But there is a group of people on the cusp of participation and mobilisation who need a nudge and a bit of convincing. They may lack the confidence to participate, or do not fully realise the value they can give or that they are needed. There needs to be a way to match need with action. And this will be different in different places?
Comfortable chaos: What we need at place level is “comfortable chaos” where government put the bones of support in place and let communities and their partners in to play and do what they know works. Transplanting what worked in Place A and embroidering it on Place B is not good enough. Place A has a different network, experience and everyday reality than place B.
We need to acknowledge the importance of mess – the unfettered, unplanned, unpredictable and idiosyncratic-ness in a place. This is what gives it its unique feel and identity. Therefore implementing macro-level programmes and policies that do not respect the mess of a place and require them to shoehorn themselves into an alien and remote box do not work. There needs to be space in a local approach to place and mobilisation that allows room for comfortable chaos and letting relevant and meaningful local interventions crystallise out of its mess.
This requires a degree of trust on the part of government that communities (their actors, supports and resources) know what works and will address the gaps in their area effectively and rewardingly. Mobilising people is one thing – but squandering it by giving them a bad experience, taking advantage or by not making the most of their support is worse. Do it well, and you may mobilise someone beyond the issue in hand and well into the sunset.
It also requires an element of risk because things may not work. But that should be ok? Places and communities are complicated. They don’t follow scripts, things change and people move about. Snapshots of snapshots. Therefore what might have started out to work could seem wildly ridiculous over time….and let’s face it bidding processes, evaluations and appraisals take time. But this is where we learn, by trying things, seeing what works, tweaking and trying. I appreciate there is scant funding resource but there is an abundance of local knowledge and experience and creativity at local level. We need to be using that to punch through and inform local action.
Making everyday life better: When we come down to it, what do people mobilise locally for? It’s to essentially make everyday life better or address an injustice that ensures everyday life remains an unattainable luxury for some over others. It’s not sexy; it’s mundane but that’s why it’s important. Because if the backdrop to our everyday lives and experiences was a constant blur of white-knuckle excitement we would keel over and make a bid for ordinariness. We mobilise more because we want our everyday lives to be less crap than about it being a festival experience. That means, services that are responsive and effective, spaces that are well looked after and used, decisions that are authentic and responsive and development to be about the people that love there and not just that make money out of it.
Local logic: So if you want people to get involved than you need to ensure there is strong attachment to place in the first place. You do that by providing opportunities and spaces to meet, share and have good experiences; foster local identity through recognising the value of informal things people care about not just the things the council or business say you should, listening when people are making a noise and celebrating the mess that makes a place unique. It’s not about being told to do it, putting a snazzy label on it or creating a new programme.
If you support the spaces and people that mobilise, neighbourhoods will mobilise themselves. You make it fun, creative and authentic about that place – not somewhere else or a remote view of that place. You engage young people with their limitless energy to do and think, unrestricted by policy, convention or that it won’t work. You are flexible about when and how money can be spent. And you trust local people to be the experts on their own places. Which are themselves reflective of the social network, relationships behaviours going on there. Fund the glue that holds those networks together and that builds new connections and you will make them, ultimately, more resilient.
Like any network there is a variety of actors and characters within it which have certain kinds of network behaviours and characteristics. Some like to observe and play around the edges; dipping in and out of the activity according to their specific needs and interests. Some on the other hand are prolific; connecting an esoteric and diverse range of others and interests. There are amplifiers, operating as nodes broadcasting information and news to others and collecting information across other networks. Then there are influencers whose activities, ideas and behaviours can change the shape and direction of a network and stimulate a diverse range of others.
In any given place, at any given time, we are all participating in this social networking whether we realise it or not. In the conversations we have with other people, the decisions we make and the things we do. These transactions and flows of activity are governed by a multitude of things; love, habit, belonging, money, convention, belief, morality, trend, ego, curiosity, envy, friendship, impatience, need, want etc, etc.
How much of them are to do with direct government intervention? How much of them compel us to do something for the benefit of others or our neighbourhood? What is the government’s role in enthusing and encouraging people to get involved in their neighbourhoods?
Yesterday afternoon I spent three fascinating hours with some familiar and new faces at DCLG talking about how to mobilise neighbourhood action and engage people to take more of a role in their local area. An issue close to Mend’s heart. So a bunch of us ranging from urban designers, community workers, housing trusts, voluntary organisations, networkers and think tanks took it in turns to give our insights, experiences and theories on what works at a neighbourhood level.
There was a lot of consensus around the need for trust, bottom-up approaches, flexibility and patience. Also some words of caution about what the government’s role in mobilisation should be and what consequences and context around mobilisation are (see Julian Dobson http://livingwithrats.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2012/03/why-mobilise-neighbourhoods-clarity.html )
Here’s mine for what it’s worth…..
Unfinished business: Networking is an on-going process, as is place-making and community building. You don’t get to an end point and say “tick”. As such, the network is always unfinished, full of gaps and holes. These can manifest in problems such as a gap in service provision or social tension. This is where some network actors come in; they have identified a gap or rip and they want to mend it. They try to mobilise resources and activity in order to draw attention and address the gap with varying levels of success and support.
Mobilising mobilisers: A key success factor is their ability and capacity for engaging others, demonstrating the common interest and relevance and communicating the shared benefits and meaning to them and others outside the network to participate. But this is not a role for everyone. Some people just don’t want to get involved – and that’s fine. There are plenty that do and will. But there is a group of people on the cusp of participation and mobilisation who need a nudge and a bit of convincing. They may lack the confidence to participate, or do not fully realise the value they can give or that they are needed. There needs to be a way to match need with action. And this will be different in different places?
Comfortable chaos: What we need at place level is “comfortable chaos” where government put the bones of support in place and let communities and their partners in to play and do what they know works. Transplanting what worked in Place A and embroidering it on Place B is not good enough. Place A has a different network, experience and everyday reality than place B.
We need to acknowledge the importance of mess – the unfettered, unplanned, unpredictable and idiosyncratic-ness in a place. This is what gives it its unique feel and identity. Therefore implementing macro-level programmes and policies that do not respect the mess of a place and require them to shoehorn themselves into an alien and remote box do not work. There needs to be space in a local approach to place and mobilisation that allows room for comfortable chaos and letting relevant and meaningful local interventions crystallise out of its mess.
This requires a degree of trust on the part of government that communities (their actors, supports and resources) know what works and will address the gaps in their area effectively and rewardingly. Mobilising people is one thing – but squandering it by giving them a bad experience, taking advantage or by not making the most of their support is worse. Do it well, and you may mobilise someone beyond the issue in hand and well into the sunset.
It also requires an element of risk because things may not work. But that should be ok? Places and communities are complicated. They don’t follow scripts, things change and people move about. Snapshots of snapshots. Therefore what might have started out to work could seem wildly ridiculous over time….and let’s face it bidding processes, evaluations and appraisals take time. But this is where we learn, by trying things, seeing what works, tweaking and trying. I appreciate there is scant funding resource but there is an abundance of local knowledge and experience and creativity at local level. We need to be using that to punch through and inform local action.
Making everyday life better: When we come down to it, what do people mobilise locally for? It’s to essentially make everyday life better or address an injustice that ensures everyday life remains an unattainable luxury for some over others. It’s not sexy; it’s mundane but that’s why it’s important. Because if the backdrop to our everyday lives and experiences was a constant blur of white-knuckle excitement we would keel over and make a bid for ordinariness. We mobilise more because we want our everyday lives to be less crap than about it being a festival experience. That means, services that are responsive and effective, spaces that are well looked after and used, decisions that are authentic and responsive and development to be about the people that love there and not just that make money out of it.
Local logic: So if you want people to get involved than you need to ensure there is strong attachment to place in the first place. You do that by providing opportunities and spaces to meet, share and have good experiences; foster local identity through recognising the value of informal things people care about not just the things the council or business say you should, listening when people are making a noise and celebrating the mess that makes a place unique. It’s not about being told to do it, putting a snazzy label on it or creating a new programme.
If you support the spaces and people that mobilise, neighbourhoods will mobilise themselves. You make it fun, creative and authentic about that place – not somewhere else or a remote view of that place. You engage young people with their limitless energy to do and think, unrestricted by policy, convention or that it won’t work. You are flexible about when and how money can be spent. And you trust local people to be the experts on their own places. Which are themselves reflective of the social network, relationships behaviours going on there. Fund the glue that holds those networks together and that builds new connections and you will make them, ultimately, more resilient.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Don't waste the grey
What is it to experience urban life?
The city is a multitude of things, real and imagined. We experience it in our minds, with our feet, in our cars, out of windows, in books, on film as relic and ambition. As more and more of us live out our lives in cities it becomes ever more important to consider how we make them work better for us; or more importantly, how we can work better for them.
Because I don’t feel we really make the most of our cities. And I don’t just mean milking real estate value or pretty postcard potential. I mean something more raw and basic than that.
Cities are sponges of human experience. Over time they have absorbed and recorded our behaviour and relationships like the rings of a tree. Reading our urban landscapes and cities as living records of social experience can help us to understand the codes and keys for successful urban living. Seeing cities as fixed, bricks and mortar containers fails to acknowledge their influencing role on behaviour and well-being.
Cities are where everyday life happens. Not just the bladder-challenging massive epochal amazingly wonderful moments of collective history. But where you pop out to get your milk and bread, stagger home past the chicken shop, go and pray, eat, love, talk, mope, sigh…..etc. It’s where stuff happens. It’s the arena in which we play out our lives. The experiences and times we share that may not on the surface seem that exciting but add up over time to be the full record of our lives and relationships with others. Everyday life has been dealt a hard hand; its sheer ubiquity makes it bland beyond detection. It happens without us noticing so we think its crap. It just isn’t though is it?
Listening to Mary Rowe a few months ago giving a talk up in Birmingham at MADE’s offices about the unbelievable mending that went on in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina by ordinary people trying to get back to ordinary life, I was struck by the thought that it’s only when things so spectacularly awful that the one thing you crave for is a return to the ordinary and everyday? To be able to switch on the light or go get some water. For the shops to be open and to be able to get on the bus to the job you still have. Then: ordinary becomes luxurious and unattainable.
What can we do to make ordinary a thing of value and wonder? By paying attention to its inherent value; not the value that has been created or taken away by advertising or rules. By recognising the beauty of the informal and imperfect. In the city; it’s about seeing the beauty in the forgotten spaces and places that haven’t been branded or given an identity; it has crafted one of its own by the people that use it. We are so apt to be told what is nice and what isn’t. Which places are “in” and which are swiftly about to replace them. Like any creative construct, cities are prone to fashion, trend and fad. The white noise of clattering place snobbery and blindness to quirk and difference have been presiding for too long.
What is it to experience the city?
The stark crevices of the abandoned building. Scantily clad skylines and foreboding suburban maze. Billboard fantasy lands of monocultural zombies and their identikit balconies. The reality being the vacant apology of a new build. Adopted and official area maps that render white featureless deserts out of juicy territory, pitted with local lore and finds like a pomegranate. Take instead the joy of randomly making the connection between one bit of town and the other. The jammy wormhole that opens up and makes sense of a place. The unexpected park. Secret shops and looping alleyways. Never looking but always finding.
Cities are parallel universes; they exist in our minds as well as “out there”. The purpose of planning should be to make real the connections between them. And this is where it falls apart. Because planning just isn’t real. It is an art of the abstract. It is a form of version control; used to impose a single, official and usually narrow view of what and who the city is for over other, alternative and informal views. Whilst everyday life and urban reality goes on, the grid of planning floats above in abstract, bearing no resemblance to the networks, flows, actions, reactions, mess of the world below.
To control the city is to literally control our lives. We rely on the good nature of plans, planners, decision-makers to not make us climb urban equivalents of Mordor in a Tolkien quest to get to work everyday or see our loved ones. But in doing so we handover the capacity for dictating the form and quality of our everyday lives. I’m not talking guys in placards and loud speakers herding us into lines and giving us daily instructions….then again….no, seriously; I mean our urban environments planned to an extent that we sleepwalk our way through them oblivious to the wonder of discovering things for ourselves, or paying attention to the detail. Looking up at what is happening in the first floor window when so much attention has been paid to the ground floor lure. What are the conversations going on outside, the noises, the body language.
Why has the station you go to everyday got such crap lighting, why does it exit “there” instead of “here”? What I’m saying may sound trivial but when you have annoying journeys every. single. day. it starts to eat away at your core and you start to wonder at the sheer buffoonery of the person that designed it and had they really thought through what it was like to actually use this bloody space!?
So this is what I mean about making cities work. It’s the detail, the experience and the behaviour of places that can only be appreciated at a micro level but this is exactly what gets left out of plans. They draw imaginary lines around even more imaginary perceptions of place and the richness and complexity of actually experiencing and being in that place and what works get lost.
An antidote? Life/experience/behavioural-led planning.
I think it's time for a reality-check. An approach to planning and designing cities that is behavioural led and that appreciates the experiences and everyday quality that can be generated by them. A new benchmark for place is not award-winning spankery - but how good everyday milk-buying would be.
I've heard psychogeography is having a revival and I'm all for it. Appreciating that the urban environment has specific effects on human bahaviour and emotion is an established idea. So can we build cities along psychogeographical lines and grow urban life and experience as more than occasional note-worthy episodes with a bit of grey filler in between?
(Mend is looking at a form of planning that is founded on behavioural economics, cognitive psychology and psychogeography. We woukd like to hear from you if you are interested in getting involved.)
Where plans try to impose order and control and the holy grail of predictability onto an emergent system such as a city or place, which has no truck with any sort of that behaviour thank you, we kid ourselves into thinking that urban life will concur and fall into line.
Cities are in charge of us and they will go their own way.
What is it to experience the humans…..
The city is a multitude of things, real and imagined. We experience it in our minds, with our feet, in our cars, out of windows, in books, on film as relic and ambition. As more and more of us live out our lives in cities it becomes ever more important to consider how we make them work better for us; or more importantly, how we can work better for them.
Because I don’t feel we really make the most of our cities. And I don’t just mean milking real estate value or pretty postcard potential. I mean something more raw and basic than that.
Cities are sponges of human experience. Over time they have absorbed and recorded our behaviour and relationships like the rings of a tree. Reading our urban landscapes and cities as living records of social experience can help us to understand the codes and keys for successful urban living. Seeing cities as fixed, bricks and mortar containers fails to acknowledge their influencing role on behaviour and well-being.
Cities are where everyday life happens. Not just the bladder-challenging massive epochal amazingly wonderful moments of collective history. But where you pop out to get your milk and bread, stagger home past the chicken shop, go and pray, eat, love, talk, mope, sigh…..etc. It’s where stuff happens. It’s the arena in which we play out our lives. The experiences and times we share that may not on the surface seem that exciting but add up over time to be the full record of our lives and relationships with others. Everyday life has been dealt a hard hand; its sheer ubiquity makes it bland beyond detection. It happens without us noticing so we think its crap. It just isn’t though is it?
Listening to Mary Rowe a few months ago giving a talk up in Birmingham at MADE’s offices about the unbelievable mending that went on in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina by ordinary people trying to get back to ordinary life, I was struck by the thought that it’s only when things so spectacularly awful that the one thing you crave for is a return to the ordinary and everyday? To be able to switch on the light or go get some water. For the shops to be open and to be able to get on the bus to the job you still have. Then: ordinary becomes luxurious and unattainable.
What can we do to make ordinary a thing of value and wonder? By paying attention to its inherent value; not the value that has been created or taken away by advertising or rules. By recognising the beauty of the informal and imperfect. In the city; it’s about seeing the beauty in the forgotten spaces and places that haven’t been branded or given an identity; it has crafted one of its own by the people that use it. We are so apt to be told what is nice and what isn’t. Which places are “in” and which are swiftly about to replace them. Like any creative construct, cities are prone to fashion, trend and fad. The white noise of clattering place snobbery and blindness to quirk and difference have been presiding for too long.
What is it to experience the city?
The stark crevices of the abandoned building. Scantily clad skylines and foreboding suburban maze. Billboard fantasy lands of monocultural zombies and their identikit balconies. The reality being the vacant apology of a new build. Adopted and official area maps that render white featureless deserts out of juicy territory, pitted with local lore and finds like a pomegranate. Take instead the joy of randomly making the connection between one bit of town and the other. The jammy wormhole that opens up and makes sense of a place. The unexpected park. Secret shops and looping alleyways. Never looking but always finding.
Cities are parallel universes; they exist in our minds as well as “out there”. The purpose of planning should be to make real the connections between them. And this is where it falls apart. Because planning just isn’t real. It is an art of the abstract. It is a form of version control; used to impose a single, official and usually narrow view of what and who the city is for over other, alternative and informal views. Whilst everyday life and urban reality goes on, the grid of planning floats above in abstract, bearing no resemblance to the networks, flows, actions, reactions, mess of the world below.
To control the city is to literally control our lives. We rely on the good nature of plans, planners, decision-makers to not make us climb urban equivalents of Mordor in a Tolkien quest to get to work everyday or see our loved ones. But in doing so we handover the capacity for dictating the form and quality of our everyday lives. I’m not talking guys in placards and loud speakers herding us into lines and giving us daily instructions….then again….no, seriously; I mean our urban environments planned to an extent that we sleepwalk our way through them oblivious to the wonder of discovering things for ourselves, or paying attention to the detail. Looking up at what is happening in the first floor window when so much attention has been paid to the ground floor lure. What are the conversations going on outside, the noises, the body language.
Why has the station you go to everyday got such crap lighting, why does it exit “there” instead of “here”? What I’m saying may sound trivial but when you have annoying journeys every. single. day. it starts to eat away at your core and you start to wonder at the sheer buffoonery of the person that designed it and had they really thought through what it was like to actually use this bloody space!?
So this is what I mean about making cities work. It’s the detail, the experience and the behaviour of places that can only be appreciated at a micro level but this is exactly what gets left out of plans. They draw imaginary lines around even more imaginary perceptions of place and the richness and complexity of actually experiencing and being in that place and what works get lost.
An antidote? Life/experience/behavioural-led planning.
I think it's time for a reality-check. An approach to planning and designing cities that is behavioural led and that appreciates the experiences and everyday quality that can be generated by them. A new benchmark for place is not award-winning spankery - but how good everyday milk-buying would be.
I've heard psychogeography is having a revival and I'm all for it. Appreciating that the urban environment has specific effects on human bahaviour and emotion is an established idea. So can we build cities along psychogeographical lines and grow urban life and experience as more than occasional note-worthy episodes with a bit of grey filler in between?
(Mend is looking at a form of planning that is founded on behavioural economics, cognitive psychology and psychogeography. We woukd like to hear from you if you are interested in getting involved.)
Where plans try to impose order and control and the holy grail of predictability onto an emergent system such as a city or place, which has no truck with any sort of that behaviour thank you, we kid ourselves into thinking that urban life will concur and fall into line.
Cities are in charge of us and they will go their own way.
What is it to experience the humans…..
Resurfacing
Friends, colleagues, casual observers, inquisitives, patrollers and bit-parters; apologies for an overly long absence.
Much has happened and changed.
Life throws things at us and as unprepared and ill-equipped we may feel about this we have a knack of keeping our heads up and our hearts strong.
Mend has been mending in may unexpected ways.
We always hoped it would and knew it could.
Feels good.
So this is space that has been begging to be filled and now you're asking; fill it we will.
More. To. Come.
L&K.
Much has happened and changed.
Life throws things at us and as unprepared and ill-equipped we may feel about this we have a knack of keeping our heads up and our hearts strong.
Mend has been mending in may unexpected ways.
We always hoped it would and knew it could.
Feels good.
So this is space that has been begging to be filled and now you're asking; fill it we will.
More. To. Come.
L&K.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
London Hadron Colliders
If the actions of those participating in the recent riots could be helpfully explained away as” just” mindless vandalism why is there such complexity in the debate surrounding why they did it, where they did and when? The word mindless has a specific meaning; it is utterly without thought. And this is where I struggle. I think this was a riot was a very different animal. And there was most definitely thought involved – it was calculated, strategic and very specific. The anatomy of this riot differs on many levels to your Poll Tax Riots of the 90’s, the anti-globalisation riots of the 00’s and the student protests of the recent 10’s.
This was young people on a mass scale quickly sensing an opportunity to seize control of a situation of confusion and anger with the authorities, appropriating it, networking with terrifying efficiency and mobilising for a collective and very violent vent.
The speed and ferocity with which they achieved this; its continuation and geographic reach, speaks of more than deprivation and “old local pain”. Yes many of these places are and have suffered economic decline. Yes these places have a history of social and economic tension; struggling to remain resilient after the battering ram of unemployment, transience and physical underinvestment keeps on coming.
But what this is really about, for me, is a chronic sense of a generation under siege from society, media, consumerism, government and themselves on a daily basis for what has felt like decades. From a society that considers young people to be fair game for a kicking. Now that siege is against us. Mental health problems amongst young people are higher than ever. Victims of violence are more likely to be young people. Youth unemployment is at its highest levels for decades. Student debt is rising. Portrayals in the media range from lazy, hoody, violent and feral, stupid and disengaged. What impact is this having on individual and collect self-esteem. Where do we think this anger comes from?
As a sister and a friend and employer of young people I consistently find that what matters to their development and success is a sense of identity, self-confidence and self-esteem. Without these come fear, detatchment, lack of empathy for human feeling, alienation and isolation.
I’m not for a second condoning what this group of young people have been doing over the last few days with seemingly high levels of delight, satisfaction and frenzy. This was not about urban social protest in its traditional sense; it was rampant acquisitive crime. Why would so many kids be motivated to do this on such a mass scale? Mindless vandalism or because they’ve been taught that having “stuff” is key to morale and a sense of self-worth and if I can’t have it I’m going to fake it or take it with little disregard to impact or consequence?
But I also don’t condone the growing sense of detachment, cynicism and materialism that has pervaded our lives and our places - that have themselves become detatched, alienating, isolating and lacking in any empathy for fellow human feeling. Just looking at some of the development that has “regenerated” our towns and cities over the last few years and how prevailing social conditions get frozen in architecture and you’ll see how chilly and uninspiring they can be.
It always amazes me how, what so often gets relegated as the “fluffy stuff” – i.e., consideration of social regeneration and community development – quickly becomes very spiky when it’s absent or got wrong; and how it soon becomes the explanation for everything in those circumstances. Either it’s important or it’s not? Either make an effort to take it seriously and effectively build in the need for community services and support or don’t wonder when communities that are under pressure and under-confident explode?
There was quite clearly a spectrum of reasons people got involved ranging from ego, boredom, peer pressure, anger, sheer bloody-mindedness, greed, territoriality, hatred and for a sense of thrill. They were unlikely to be abject hunger or a threat to liberty or security. These people wanted trainers and tellies and to give you the finger in the most visceral way possible – burning YOUR and THEIR city.
Yes, these our OUR cities. The places we hand control over to councils, government, private sector interests as we get through our lives over-worked, stressed, sat in front of our tvs or in our communities; the places that we go to when we’re not out working or buying stuff. When things like this happen – suddenly it’s like the city is an extension of your very body, and you feel they’ve actually set fire or trashed you, and you want that city back?
Why is this attachment to place, city, street, community, each other so hard to come by these days that we need to loot several neighbourhoods and set up a city-wide twitter campaign to reclaim the street with a broom? We have been having our own riot, it just happens on a low-level daily grind – these kids stuck into the social equivalent of a Hadron Collider; fuelled by opportunity, social media, and an incredibly strong network; in a vacuum of responsibility and activity; and boom they kicked off.
I sympathise with their utter frustration with what feels like a wobbling mask for society that is close to the edge but keeping calm and carrying on because that’s what we do. But really; we are all being pushed to the edge and or places, faces and kids are saying it all.
I sincerely hope that as a result of this, serious questions will be asked about how we support communities raise individual and collective levels of confidence and self-esteem to withstand social and economic change, remain resilience and be able to grow our young people properly instead of leaving them to do it themselves. I also hope that we recognise that our places have not just been a backdrop to this but have been the one thing that has brought us together through a sense of attachment and ownership.
This was young people on a mass scale quickly sensing an opportunity to seize control of a situation of confusion and anger with the authorities, appropriating it, networking with terrifying efficiency and mobilising for a collective and very violent vent.
The speed and ferocity with which they achieved this; its continuation and geographic reach, speaks of more than deprivation and “old local pain”. Yes many of these places are and have suffered economic decline. Yes these places have a history of social and economic tension; struggling to remain resilient after the battering ram of unemployment, transience and physical underinvestment keeps on coming.
But what this is really about, for me, is a chronic sense of a generation under siege from society, media, consumerism, government and themselves on a daily basis for what has felt like decades. From a society that considers young people to be fair game for a kicking. Now that siege is against us. Mental health problems amongst young people are higher than ever. Victims of violence are more likely to be young people. Youth unemployment is at its highest levels for decades. Student debt is rising. Portrayals in the media range from lazy, hoody, violent and feral, stupid and disengaged. What impact is this having on individual and collect self-esteem. Where do we think this anger comes from?
As a sister and a friend and employer of young people I consistently find that what matters to their development and success is a sense of identity, self-confidence and self-esteem. Without these come fear, detatchment, lack of empathy for human feeling, alienation and isolation.
I’m not for a second condoning what this group of young people have been doing over the last few days with seemingly high levels of delight, satisfaction and frenzy. This was not about urban social protest in its traditional sense; it was rampant acquisitive crime. Why would so many kids be motivated to do this on such a mass scale? Mindless vandalism or because they’ve been taught that having “stuff” is key to morale and a sense of self-worth and if I can’t have it I’m going to fake it or take it with little disregard to impact or consequence?
But I also don’t condone the growing sense of detachment, cynicism and materialism that has pervaded our lives and our places - that have themselves become detatched, alienating, isolating and lacking in any empathy for fellow human feeling. Just looking at some of the development that has “regenerated” our towns and cities over the last few years and how prevailing social conditions get frozen in architecture and you’ll see how chilly and uninspiring they can be.
It always amazes me how, what so often gets relegated as the “fluffy stuff” – i.e., consideration of social regeneration and community development – quickly becomes very spiky when it’s absent or got wrong; and how it soon becomes the explanation for everything in those circumstances. Either it’s important or it’s not? Either make an effort to take it seriously and effectively build in the need for community services and support or don’t wonder when communities that are under pressure and under-confident explode?
There was quite clearly a spectrum of reasons people got involved ranging from ego, boredom, peer pressure, anger, sheer bloody-mindedness, greed, territoriality, hatred and for a sense of thrill. They were unlikely to be abject hunger or a threat to liberty or security. These people wanted trainers and tellies and to give you the finger in the most visceral way possible – burning YOUR and THEIR city.
Yes, these our OUR cities. The places we hand control over to councils, government, private sector interests as we get through our lives over-worked, stressed, sat in front of our tvs or in our communities; the places that we go to when we’re not out working or buying stuff. When things like this happen – suddenly it’s like the city is an extension of your very body, and you feel they’ve actually set fire or trashed you, and you want that city back?
Why is this attachment to place, city, street, community, each other so hard to come by these days that we need to loot several neighbourhoods and set up a city-wide twitter campaign to reclaim the street with a broom? We have been having our own riot, it just happens on a low-level daily grind – these kids stuck into the social equivalent of a Hadron Collider; fuelled by opportunity, social media, and an incredibly strong network; in a vacuum of responsibility and activity; and boom they kicked off.
I sympathise with their utter frustration with what feels like a wobbling mask for society that is close to the edge but keeping calm and carrying on because that’s what we do. But really; we are all being pushed to the edge and or places, faces and kids are saying it all.
I sincerely hope that as a result of this, serious questions will be asked about how we support communities raise individual and collective levels of confidence and self-esteem to withstand social and economic change, remain resilience and be able to grow our young people properly instead of leaving them to do it themselves. I also hope that we recognise that our places have not just been a backdrop to this but have been the one thing that has brought us together through a sense of attachment and ownership.
Friday, 15 April 2011
loving your work tidy street
Tidy Street in Brighton is wearing its energy use on its sleeve by recording their daily energy usage and telling the world about it in a giant infographic painted on the street outside. Local street artist Snub is providing the graphical know how and over March and April 2011 they will not only be able to see their own electricity use but how they measure up against households across the uk.The project is part of Change, a collaboration between Goldsmiths, Nottingham Uni, Sussex Uni and the Open University - check it out here - http://www.changeproject.info and follow the progress of Tidy Street at ww.tidystreet.org
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Community Permission: Seeing the community as client
Communities are all too often bystanders in the regeneration and development process despite being profoundly affected by the changes that the process can bring. The planning process can also be a mystery, shrouded in tiny fonts, aggressive institutional-speak, over-the-top bureaucracy, the safety blanket of policy and a funfair of forms. Instead of being receivers of development, local people should be agents of change, helping to define and steer the shape their own neighbourhoods take? 
The Localism agenda provides an unprecedented opportunity to place communities at the heart of the local decision-making process by creating important new roles and responsibilities for them. The community is now a client and needs to be satisfied that development is meeting their needs. But they also need to manage the responsibility and burden of being a permission-giver. Following from this, developers now need a mandate from a community to develop in their area. They need to obtain “community permission”.
If communities are expected to run services, take on assets and give permission for development then they need a new set of behaviours, skills and competencies that are currently not there in abundance and often have to be brought or bought in. This is all very well but communities often lack the confidence to articulate their needs effectively and play with the people that don’t normally play with them – i.e., developers. So, we need to gear up communities to become savvy clients and representative permission-givers and we need to do this fast.
Developers and communities often have uncomfortable experiences of going through the planning process and gaining permission can be painful for both sides. We need to change the relationship between developers and communities from the adversarial to being much more collaborative. Developers also need to be up-skilled in communicating better with local people. Obtaining community permission needs to be considered as important and startegic to the success of a development proposal as obtaining planning permission or getting environmental consents. The costs of gaining community permission therefore need to be built into the development model from the start just as gaining expert advice on planning, enviornmental matters and design is.
Community as Client is not a new thing – we have a long tradition of community regeneration in the UK, but it is about how the exception becomes the rule. The government is pushing for all of this but there is a worrying lack of clarity and funding for practical pathways for communities to have some control. The granularity of where things work well, and why, is being lost in the noise of the debate over what we should be doing at a national level – cue Big Society.
How can best practice on the ground punch through to inform government thinking and change behaviours in the development industry? This is important if communities are really going to see the benefits of Localism as the Bill implies and critically determine it away from being just an exercise in dismantling the planning system at the local level.
The Localism Bill demands a set of roles and responsibilities that communities do not have in abundance. Some key questions arise from all of this, namely:
- Who will these community permission-givers be?
- What roles, skills, and support do communities need in order to become clients?
- What structures do communities require to confer permission and participate in the process instead of just rubber stamping it at the end?
- What form will permission given by the community take?
- How will developers obtain community permission effectively?
Community as client starts with making best use of the resources that already exist at a local level. Valuing what is already there and reactivating it to suit new needs and realities. It is about seeing local people as the experts on their own places; they know what works, doesn’t work and what change they want. They are a wealth of untapped resource in terms of the places, knowledge, experience, skills and networks that are built up over time. Allowing people to stamp their identity on a place gives them more than the role of caretaker at the end of the process, but the role of designer, catalyst for change, community champion. This is something developers can benefit from to inform their development and ultimately make them more attractive and palatable to local people.
Facilitating the development of a mandate and galvanizing local people and developers to work together requires a type of glue that can help build the social bonds and positive behaviours to keep everyone working as a team. The outcomes will be better achieved if the community client is engaged as part of the project team from the very start. We work with the community client and the developer to create a shared charter setting out the key outcomes and outputs being sought from the development by the community and developer. It is our job to steer the project according to this charter.
We help developers understand the range of existing resources and capability in the community (including assets, unemployed and retired people, volunteers, arts and social enterprises, youth organizations and the third sector) and mobilise them to be part of the development project. This helps build the vital bridging capital between people and groups choosing to cooperate and support each other, which is needed to build community strength and confidence. The confidence, capacity and competency built in the community through the development process can be used to fuel other projects such as community asset transfer, social enterprises and volunteering.
Mend has developed a process and set of procedures to help communities take on the role of the client and to help developers gain community permission. We are pro-development in the sense of seeing the development process as an opportunity to improve a local area, not replace it. So the way we see community permission working is a bit like marriage guidance counseling; reconciling different and competing agendas or personalities and identifying common ground and affinity.
Fundamentally if we want better development we have got to be prepared to be a good client; and if we want community permission we have got to be prepared to respect the community as the client.
The Localism agenda provides an unprecedented opportunity to place communities at the heart of the local decision-making process by creating important new roles and responsibilities for them. The community is now a client and needs to be satisfied that development is meeting their needs. But they also need to manage the responsibility and burden of being a permission-giver. Following from this, developers now need a mandate from a community to develop in their area. They need to obtain “community permission”.
If communities are expected to run services, take on assets and give permission for development then they need a new set of behaviours, skills and competencies that are currently not there in abundance and often have to be brought or bought in. This is all very well but communities often lack the confidence to articulate their needs effectively and play with the people that don’t normally play with them – i.e., developers. So, we need to gear up communities to become savvy clients and representative permission-givers and we need to do this fast.
Developers and communities often have uncomfortable experiences of going through the planning process and gaining permission can be painful for both sides. We need to change the relationship between developers and communities from the adversarial to being much more collaborative. Developers also need to be up-skilled in communicating better with local people. Obtaining community permission needs to be considered as important and startegic to the success of a development proposal as obtaining planning permission or getting environmental consents. The costs of gaining community permission therefore need to be built into the development model from the start just as gaining expert advice on planning, enviornmental matters and design is.
Community as Client is not a new thing – we have a long tradition of community regeneration in the UK, but it is about how the exception becomes the rule. The government is pushing for all of this but there is a worrying lack of clarity and funding for practical pathways for communities to have some control. The granularity of where things work well, and why, is being lost in the noise of the debate over what we should be doing at a national level – cue Big Society.
How can best practice on the ground punch through to inform government thinking and change behaviours in the development industry? This is important if communities are really going to see the benefits of Localism as the Bill implies and critically determine it away from being just an exercise in dismantling the planning system at the local level.
The Localism Bill demands a set of roles and responsibilities that communities do not have in abundance. Some key questions arise from all of this, namely:
- Who will these community permission-givers be?
- What roles, skills, and support do communities need in order to become clients?
- What structures do communities require to confer permission and participate in the process instead of just rubber stamping it at the end?
- What form will permission given by the community take?
- How will developers obtain community permission effectively?
Community as client starts with making best use of the resources that already exist at a local level. Valuing what is already there and reactivating it to suit new needs and realities. It is about seeing local people as the experts on their own places; they know what works, doesn’t work and what change they want. They are a wealth of untapped resource in terms of the places, knowledge, experience, skills and networks that are built up over time. Allowing people to stamp their identity on a place gives them more than the role of caretaker at the end of the process, but the role of designer, catalyst for change, community champion. This is something developers can benefit from to inform their development and ultimately make them more attractive and palatable to local people.
Facilitating the development of a mandate and galvanizing local people and developers to work together requires a type of glue that can help build the social bonds and positive behaviours to keep everyone working as a team. The outcomes will be better achieved if the community client is engaged as part of the project team from the very start. We work with the community client and the developer to create a shared charter setting out the key outcomes and outputs being sought from the development by the community and developer. It is our job to steer the project according to this charter.
We help developers understand the range of existing resources and capability in the community (including assets, unemployed and retired people, volunteers, arts and social enterprises, youth organizations and the third sector) and mobilise them to be part of the development project. This helps build the vital bridging capital between people and groups choosing to cooperate and support each other, which is needed to build community strength and confidence. The confidence, capacity and competency built in the community through the development process can be used to fuel other projects such as community asset transfer, social enterprises and volunteering.
Mend has developed a process and set of procedures to help communities take on the role of the client and to help developers gain community permission. We are pro-development in the sense of seeing the development process as an opportunity to improve a local area, not replace it. So the way we see community permission working is a bit like marriage guidance counseling; reconciling different and competing agendas or personalities and identifying common ground and affinity.
Fundamentally if we want better development we have got to be prepared to be a good client; and if we want community permission we have got to be prepared to respect the community as the client.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Scenius & TechCity: A new form of place-making?
"TechCity" is the official brand name given to David Cameron’s vision for a hub in east London which could rival Silicon Valley for attracting high profile technology firms and spawning the next technological innovations. The concept builds on the existing hive of tech creativity and innovation based in Shoreditch and the plans are to extend this to link up with Olympic legacy assets and spaces in Stratford. This corridor could stimulate the growth in jobs and enterprise that is necessary to diversify the UK and London economy away from a reliance on financial and business services which were shaken by the global credit crisis.As a vision, it adds neatly to the collection of other “visions” that have been announced for east London over the years including those that claim to the area being a beacon of clean energy and creative industries, etc. etc. This has contributed to a confused identity and lack of focus for what should steer the future of this area. Cue TechCity......What is needed then, is the substance behind what TechCity means to the existing business ecology of East London and Shoreditch and an appreciation of what these businesses need in order to thrive.
Elizabeth Varley is CEO of TechHub, a business that provides space and services for tech start
ups. She has listened to her clients and confirms that “what businesses themselves say they want is access to affordable space and good broadband and technology support but more importantly, opportunities to network and share ideas and good coffee!” Is this possible in a conventional science park? See www.techhub.comThe "Silicon Roundabout" in Shoreditch has been busy bubbling away for a few years only for civil servants to gallantly announce its arrival. The choice of location is no accident. Old Street's scruffy charm and relative cheapness of space has been a significant factor in its success in attracting young tech creatives. This has led to an organic growth of networks and spaces for people to share and cross-fertilise ideas. Just in time for a big government scouring pad to come along and sanitise those very charms in the name of making it more corporate friendly?
Creatives are well known for pioneering new futures for city parts rendered downtrodden, forgotten and made redundant by the prevailing market preferences that shifted away from it. Their energy, ideas and networks breathe new life into a place, helping to reinvent it by reactivating old strengths and bringing much needed injections of people and money.
A critical mass builds up before it catches the eye of mainstream prevailing market preferences again, but not before the place has ascribed itself a new raison d’etre. The return of the market brings with it a levelling and sanitising urge to bring the area back into its fold. But the transition can often push out the very people, ideas and energy that brought it back to life. No matter, as the area is self-sustaining again and the pioneers move on to the next place that is ripe for reinvention.
This cycle is already being seen in and around the Silicon Roundabout and poses a challenge for the capacity of the area to continue providing a vital and fertile incubation ground for micro-start ups. Big corporate brands are eyeing Shoreditch as an alternative to the media mainstay of Soho and a few are already on their way over.
The density, granularity and messiness of Shoreditch is key to its success in generating
successful ideas through creative collaboration. They are allowed to mingle and merge until a spark catches and it grows into something really good – a phenomenon Stephen Johnson credits Brian Eno for coining as “Scenius” in his recent article in the Financial Times about information spillover leading towards lightning in a bottle. See http://tinyurl.com/6kus2p9According to Kevin Kelly (2010) “The serendipitous ingredients for scenius are hard to control. They depend on the presence of the right early pioneers. A place that is open, but not too open. A buffer that is tolerant of outlaws. And some flash of excitement to kick off the virtuous circle. You just can’t order this.”
We need to ensure that the existing quality of scenius in Shoreditch is enhanced and not compromised by the TechCity initiative so that it continues to generate and grow good ideas. This means providing an environment that is conducive to idea and information spillover
– for both micro and established businesses. So what do scenius places have in common? They are more than just what happens when space and idea collide. Density, sharing and collaboration is king; neatly organised, windowless sheds shoved on an out-of- town not-fit-for-purpose-built business-park is definitely not king. So is Kelly right - is it nigh on impossible to manufacture or plan scenius because is largely people and idea driven?Well yes and no. People-driven it might be but these people are attracted to certain places; shared spaces and environments that in turn attract other like-minded people and help them share facilities, tastes and activities. It builds through an accretion of experience and success building on top of each other, attracting and sticking to a place. Place is where these attributes collide and I agree about the serendipity of that collision to a certain extent but doesn’t old skool hard stuff like, rents, transport economics and proximity to a supply and customer network also matter to the development of a shared place?
What emerges for me is that the serendipity factor is actually the seeming magical cauldron of
hard spatial economics alerting pioneers to a space where people can share and co-create ideas and sparks that in turn attracts a critical mass of scenius “actors” in the form of entrepreneurs, creatives and facilitators and investors. There is a scenius process. (i.e., cheap rents and opportunity permitting sharing of a specific network in a fringe place) that might seem hidden to the naked eye but like any place-making phenomenon it is often only visible after it has taken plight and possibly moved on.Is the answer then not to try and manufacture scenius places, but accelerate the process of sharing by scenius actors in these scenius places; support and connect the people and ideas bit and leave the spatial economics bit alone? This is a radical approach to regeneration which has seemed addicted to building stuff and not paying enough attention to the stuff that goes on inside? Time to do that.
The planning profession has a massive opportunity to participate in this if
we recognise that we are not just about planning buildings but the magic cauldron that helps grow scenius places and lets successful ideas take off. This is what will help us out of a recession, this will help unlock the rich seam of innovation, experience and ideas of our communities and this will help us move on from a coda of place-making being just about kit. Shoreditch is teaching us that space is far from being a static container for activity but a key factor in generating and attracting creativity.I’m excited about what happens next here. If we can start to articulate the answers to these question and explore what the implications are for the existing scenius spaces in Shoreditch we can provide a strong mechanism for retaining the small and micro businesses in the area that are vital for keeping it so pioneering.
This does not preclude room and opportunities for more established brands and companies from coming in and adding to the richness. It should be possible for large and small companies to co-exist and potentially share resources, support and ideas for mutual benefit? But the needs of micro-businesses community must be met if the area is to continue to thrive in the way it has.
Mend is interested in engaging with the existing business community in Shoreditch to understand the local business ecology and what barriers/opportunities they face in order to remain there? What they think is the reason for Shoreditch being a scenius place? How can the public sector support them more effectively? How can we use TechCity to grow smart scenius communities?
We are interested in hearing from and working with anyone who would like to share ideas so get in touch if you want a chat....with good coffee!
Monday, 7 February 2011
Mend is on air!
Last Tuesday Mend officially hit the airwaves as we recorded our very first Mend London Blog Show on Shoreditch Radio! Shoreditch Radio is a community radio station based in Hackney and is the latest in a long tradition of community radio in London. We have yet to hear the final edit but I am already bracing myself for being transported to my 16-year old grunge loving self when I hear my own voice back....! How do proper broadcasters ever get used to that?
Every fortnight we will be interviewing local residents, businesses, politicians and organisations on the important issues and topics affecting people in Hackney. Our first show features Euan Mills discussing the process and progress of establishing one of the first Neighbourhood Plans in London for Chatsworth Road. Check out their website here to get involved: www.chatsworthroade5.co.uk
Emily Webber from Hackney's very own hyperlocal site Yeah!Hackney also joined us to talk about how the site came about and the reasons it has taken off so much...it is now a major local virtual landmark and is the authority on all things happening in Hackney. The content comes from the local people using it - so nice and eclectic, up to the minute and extremely friendly. Go see: www.yeahhackney.com/
We also briefly talk about the vagaries of government claiming things that are already doing very nicely for themselves thank you....namely the tech hub recently dubbed the "Silicon Roundabout" in Shoreditch which has been busy bubbling away for a few years only for civil servants to gallantly announce its arrival! How to kill something sexy.....For many, Old Street's
scruffy charm is the key to its success in attracting young tech creatives and the last thing they need is a big government scouring pad to come along and make it nice and corporate friendly....or do they? Cameron is keen to brand the area and its extention out to Stratford as "TechCity" but is this yet another example of chucking stuff in East London to keep it busy or is there a genuine cluster emerging here?Check out the show here: www.shoreditchradio.co.uk/show/mend-london/
Get involved, tell us what you think or want us to talk about next, suggest some tunes or invite yourself in as a guest.
Monday, 10 January 2011
Recession: The Album
Tough times, inordinate struggle and challenging situations provide a much more potent creative muse than times of relative calm and ease. Struggle and pressure brings out the best of us creatively. Many an artistic movement has been borne of rebellion and oppression.
I've been thinking about how some of the best music has been written about a recession or times of economic decline - The Boss, The Clash, Led Zep. Introducing........ "Recession: The Album" !!
Maybe The Guardian will chuck out a free CD with the Saturday Papers?!
I've made a start but as we are so early on in these times of austerity most of the tracks are from the 70's and 80's with a smattering from the 90's and 2000's. The 90's seethe with grunge, a rejection of the vanity and diva-ish-ness of stadium cock-rock. Not to mention the angry and rebellious rave scene that stuck two-fingers up to Thatcher's social conservatism. But rave lyrics are few and far between and grunge's tales of struggles in love and life could make Byron look whimsical.
Rock and rap seem to be the most fertile ground, both being intimately connected to the street and city life. There's also the country music and blues that came out of the The Great Depression of 1930's US that captured the replacement of rural poverty for urban poverty as people tragically and mistakenly thought they would find work in the city. New genres such as grime seem ripe for a new crop of young people/NEET fodder about life struggling on the UK streets.
In short, here is the list so far but I know I've barely scratched the surface. I need your help to grow it and bring new angles on how music has shaped the historical, folk and social record of economic upheaval. So, my Muses of Madness, feed me your songs of so we can learn from the masters and build our own catalogue for the heavy-lifting generation.......
In no particular order:
1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
2. Manic Street Preachers - Slash and Burn
3. Simply Red - Money's Too Tight To Mention
4. UB40 - One in Ten
5. The Clash - Career Opportunities/White Riot/Guns of Brixton
6. The Specials - Ghost Town
7. Bruce Springsteen - Johnny 99
8. Ray Charles - Hard Times
9. Jane's Addiction - Being Caught Stealing
10. B.B. King - Recession Blues
11. Goldie - Inner City Life
12. The Source - You've Got The Love
13. Pink Floyd - Money
14. Steely Dan - Black Friday
15. The Kinks -Gallon of Gas
Plato said "if anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet....without the Muse's madness, he will fail and his verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds." So it seems if you want to write damn good lyrics you need a bit of madness and despair? How about a recession for bringing about a bit of that?
I've been thinking about how some of the best music has been written about a recession or times of economic decline - The Boss, The Clash, Led Zep. Introducing........ "Recession: The Album" !!
Maybe The Guardian will chuck out a free CD with the Saturday Papers?!
I've made a start but as we are so early on in these times of austerity most of the tracks are from the 70's and 80's with a smattering from the 90's and 2000's. The 90's seethe with grunge, a rejection of the vanity and diva-ish-ness of stadium cock-rock. Not to mention the angry and rebellious rave scene that stuck two-fingers up to Thatcher's social conservatism. But rave lyrics are few and far between and grunge's tales of struggles in love and life could make Byron look whimsical.
Rock and rap seem to be the most fertile ground, both being intimately connected to the street and city life. There's also the country music and blues that came out of the The Great Depression of 1930's US that captured the replacement of rural poverty for urban poverty as people tragically and mistakenly thought they would find work in the city. New genres such as grime seem ripe for a new crop of young people/NEET fodder about life struggling on the UK streets.
In short, here is the list so far but I know I've barely scratched the surface. I need your help to grow it and bring new angles on how music has shaped the historical, folk and social record of economic upheaval. So, my Muses of Madness, feed me your songs of so we can learn from the masters and build our own catalogue for the heavy-lifting generation.......
In no particular order:
1. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
2. Manic Street Preachers - Slash and Burn
3. Simply Red - Money's Too Tight To Mention
4. UB40 - One in Ten
5. The Clash - Career Opportunities/White Riot/Guns of Brixton
6. The Specials - Ghost Town
7. Bruce Springsteen - Johnny 99
8. Ray Charles - Hard Times
9. Jane's Addiction - Being Caught Stealing
10. B.B. King - Recession Blues
11. Goldie - Inner City Life
12. The Source - You've Got The Love
13. Pink Floyd - Money
14. Steely Dan - Black Friday
15. The Kinks -Gallon of Gas
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Letters from Malmo
Good news today! Mend has been invited to present a paper at the "Psychoanalysis and Politics Summer Symposium" in Malmo, Sweden. The Symposium will be looking at the theme of "Narratives and Collective Fantasies" and will look at the junction of politics and psychoanalysis with literature, rhetorics, film, linguistics, etc.
We are ridiculously excited and not just because we've been reliably informed that the venue is so close to the sea that we can take a swim during breaks - oh, go on then!
Our abstract was submitted earlier in December and outlined our "Psychotherapy for places" idea that we posted on here a few weeks ago. We now have an opportunity and incentive to explore and develop this idea in time for the symposium in August.
Our basic concept is that places have personalities that are as complex and multi-layered as people. The theme of narrative and collective fantasy hooks onto this idea: that a place or the city itself is a character that we develop in our cultural imagination. In literature the Victorians talked about the Pathetic Fallacy- where descriptions of the landscape and the weather are used as a metaphor for human emotions and relationships.
Film and graphic novels take it a step further. The setting of a film (and a novel) is picked specifically to evoke a particular feel, emotion and social context. Blade Runner was a key source in my Planning MPhil because of the way the city itself is brooding and in conflict just like
the main character. A powerful illustration of the relationship between our environment and our behaviour - and not messing with Darryl Hannah! Interestingly the Architects Journal presented their Top Ten Comic Book Cities in 2009 as a selection of the greatest illustrated urban spaces - there are stunning ones in there such as Dean Motter's Radiant City and of course Gotham City.
http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/5204772.article
The graphic novel genre is a unique in that the city becomes more than just a backdrop to the frame of each illustration - it is a character itself. The city is used to communicate and illustrate the story so in this way urban space is read as text - it carries symbols, signs and meanings that we interpret visually as comic book illustration. This act of reading space is itself evidence that space is capable of holding and attaching emotional and behavioural information that we can then read.
The panels can present a distorted and mutated city to make or it can be brutally accurate pointing out warts and all - or it can be softened and sanitised, heavily stylised to appear beautiful and other-wordly, or nostalgic presenting an idyllic view of life as golden. Whichever, the graphic novel helps illustrate perfectly how place can have a personality.
Graphic Novels and comics grew as urban life grew and their depiction and portrayal of city life - whether its futuristic sci-fi terms, or the undeterred city detective, or underworlds and sub-cultures - have single-handedly managed to convey the personality and contemporary visualisation of what cities look like for over 100 years. We have them to thank for thinking that cities all look like Gotham City! (See the excellent "Comics and The City" J. Ahrens eds. 2010)
So these are the sort of things we will draw upon when we explore our ideas. We will keep you posted....maybe via comic strip...
The symposium is being organised by the Norwegian Psychoanalytical Society/University of Oslo/University of Copenhagen
Photo Credits: Dean Motter and Marc Antoine Mathieu
We are ridiculously excited and not just because we've been reliably informed that the venue is so close to the sea that we can take a swim during breaks - oh, go on then!
Our abstract was submitted earlier in December and outlined our "Psychotherapy for places" idea that we posted on here a few weeks ago. We now have an opportunity and incentive to explore and develop this idea in time for the symposium in August.
Our basic concept is that places have personalities that are as complex and multi-layered as people. The theme of narrative and collective fantasy hooks onto this idea: that a place or the city itself is a character that we develop in our cultural imagination. In literature the Victorians talked about the Pathetic Fallacy- where descriptions of the landscape and the weather are used as a metaphor for human emotions and relationships.
Film and graphic novels take it a step further. The setting of a film (and a novel) is picked specifically to evoke a particular feel, emotion and social context. Blade Runner was a key source in my Planning MPhil because of the way the city itself is brooding and in conflict just like
the main character. A powerful illustration of the relationship between our environment and our behaviour - and not messing with Darryl Hannah! Interestingly the Architects Journal presented their Top Ten Comic Book Cities in 2009 as a selection of the greatest illustrated urban spaces - there are stunning ones in there such as Dean Motter's Radiant City and of course Gotham City.http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/5204772.article
The graphic novel genre is a unique in that the city becomes more than just a backdrop to the frame of each illustration - it is a character itself. The city is used to communicate and illustrate the story so in this way urban space is read as text - it carries symbols, signs and meanings that we interpret visually as comic book illustration. This act of reading space is itself evidence that space is capable of holding and attaching emotional and behavioural information that we can then read.
The panels can present a distorted and mutated city to make or it can be brutally accurate pointing out warts and all - or it can be softened and sanitised, heavily stylised to appear beautiful and other-wordly, or nostalgic presenting an idyllic view of life as golden. Whichever, the graphic novel helps illustrate perfectly how place can have a personality.
Graphic Novels and comics grew as urban life grew and their depiction and portrayal of city life - whether its futuristic sci-fi terms, or the undeterred city detective, or underworlds and sub-cultures - have single-handedly managed to convey the personality and contemporary visualisation of what cities look like for over 100 years. We have them to thank for thinking that cities all look like Gotham City! (See the excellent "Comics and The City" J. Ahrens eds. 2010)
So these are the sort of things we will draw upon when we explore our ideas. We will keep you posted....maybe via comic strip...
The symposium is being organised by the Norwegian Psychoanalytical Society/University of Oslo/University of Copenhagen
Photo Credits: Dean Motter and Marc Antoine Mathieu
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Localism and other fairytales
The forthcoming Localism Bill is being speculated upon left right and centre. If the delays in publishing it are a cynical drive by the coalition to divert attention away from a myriad other hot political potatoes then it is almost working. The proposals will have far reaching influences upon the way local decision making will take place in our local areas, our interface with local authorities and require a level of community cohesion, joint mindedness and a commitment to working for the common good......no wonder debate is raging.
However, way back in 2001 when New Labour published its "Strong Local Leadership, Quality Local Services" it spelled out that “By removing restrictions and requirements on planning, spending and decision-making and providing new powers to trade and charge, we will free up councils to innovate and deliver tangible improvements in the quality of services and effective community leadership.”
Sound familiar? It’s not the first time policy has been recycled, repackaged and resold?
Many are seeing the proposed relaxation of planning permission and increase in local decision-making as a traditional Tory assault on the planning profession reminiscent of the “jobs locked up in filing cabinets” sentiment of the Thatcher days. A further trip down memory lane would elicit such gems as “been spending most my life living in a NIMBY paradise” “Me & Mrs Jones (and her fat brown envelopes)” and “an unscrupulous developer ate my greenbelt”.
Except these are the things people are complaining will happen under Localism. Is this really all that public planning debate really amounts to still? Who is to blame for this cynical and stereotypical outlook on what planning is about and for? Why is it that people only engage with the planning system when they are thoroughly browned off, want to complain or officially object? How did it become such a deficit model?
Planners? Well, what have we as a planning profession done to alter the perception of us as process monkeys seduced by the resounding kerrr-thunk of the “REFUSED” stamp? For most local people the planning process is a mystery, shrouded in tiny fonts, aggressive institutional-speak, over-the-top bureaucracy, inability to see things without the safety blanket of policy and a funfair of forms. Is this fit-for-purpose and in the public interest? No. It alienates people and divorces them from their local area by sticking up all manner of opportunities for them to go: “it’s just not worth it.” That is not good enough.
Councils? Councils are in the proverbial rock and a hard place; refuse development and they risk stifling any chance of local recovery; so under pressure to let development through it risks chucking hard-won goals to weave strategic, balanced and consultative planning framework
s out of the window. RSS’s have gone, LEPS are coming, LDF’s and AAP’s sit alongside outmoded UDP’s and the landscape is getting very crowded......oh and with less resources. But committee meetings are death by typeset, unsociable hours and go on forever. Why would anyone ever want to sit through that?!
Central Government: to quote Greg Clarke “The current sum of circulars, policy statements and so forth is bigger than the complete Works of Shakespeare, and not nearly as entertaining. Guidance on this scale flirts with the absurd: there’s no way a practitioner can keep it all in mind. “Thanks for your concern, but actually I know many a planner that prides themselves on being able to do this! It didn’t all arrive overnight. Some of us write, research, study and argue it out in court not to mention implement it on a daily basis! These people are also unlikely to be person reading your lovingly laminated planning notice in 5pt arial tied to a lamppost at the dark end of the street.....
Developers? Ah planning, the whipping boy of the development process and then some. Got an issue with your development – got to be something to do with planning! Why can’t I develop what I want, where I want, with what I want and not ask anyone what they think and then just walk away when I’ve got my magic number? Planning is a necessary evil guarding against unfettered development and irresponsible land use. It’s not perfect, is open to abuse and has many holes but it is there for a reason – to protect local areas and local communities from being rode roughshod. Developers need to engage with communities in ways that avoid the adversarial and that means real dialogue and real relationships.
Us? Afraid of putting local decision-making on planning in local hands? It’s as if you expect local people to just be in it to screw each other, self-promote, thwart everyone else’s happiness? It’s not like we are tone deaf when it comes to design, woefully narrow minded and petty, always moaning and never thinking beyond the garden fence? Well, there are a lot of people who ar
e interested and do care but don’t have the time, resources or skills to participate. Or they did once and they were roundly patronised and ignored. Or this is the umpteenth time I’ve been asked to do this now why will this time be different? It will only be different if we make it different.
OK I’m playing devil’s (pro-bono) advocate but it seems to me that we are all culpable. As a planner I would naturally say that it is for the planning profession to step up to the plate and change perceptions of us just being about fulfilling a process and more about enabling it. Communities, councils, developers, activists, businesses, organisations all have a role to play in that process. The real question is what will a planning system look like without planners?
Planners have to manage a wide variety of diverse and often conflicting issues, seeking the best outcome that marries the local with the global and represents wide interest whilst also thinking strategically and decades into the future. That is a craft and a skill and should not be undervalued and undermined. We need to be vocal and assertive about this and the need for sound planning rigour to underpin any transfer of power and decision-making to communities. Without it we could be counting the costs and consequences for a long time. Planners are not the vanguards of doom (mostly).
Localism could make a difficult and convoluted process even more so. Or it can provide an opportunity to offer clarity to local people, restore trust and faith in the planning process and profession, allow proper engagement between developers and the people they will be affecting and finally......treat community as client instead of receiver.
Or.....maybe that’s just my fairytale.
However, way back in 2001 when New Labour published its "Strong Local Leadership, Quality Local Services" it spelled out that “By removing restrictions and requirements on planning, spending and decision-making and providing new powers to trade and charge, we will free up councils to innovate and deliver tangible improvements in the quality of services and effective community leadership.”
Sound familiar? It’s not the first time policy has been recycled, repackaged and resold?
Many are seeing the proposed relaxation of planning permission and increase in local decision-making as a traditional Tory assault on the planning profession reminiscent of the “jobs locked up in filing cabinets” sentiment of the Thatcher days. A further trip down memory lane would elicit such gems as “been spending most my life living in a NIMBY paradise” “Me & Mrs Jones (and her fat brown envelopes)” and “an unscrupulous developer ate my greenbelt”.
Except these are the things people are complaining will happen under Localism. Is this really all that public planning debate really amounts to still? Who is to blame for this cynical and stereotypical outlook on what planning is about and for? Why is it that people only engage with the planning system when they are thoroughly browned off, want to complain or officially object? How did it become such a deficit model?
Planners? Well, what have we as a planning profession done to alter the perception of us as process monkeys seduced by the resounding kerrr-thunk of the “REFUSED” stamp? For most local people the planning process is a mystery, shrouded in tiny fonts, aggressive institutional-speak, over-the-top bureaucracy, inability to see things without the safety blanket of policy and a funfair of forms. Is this fit-for-purpose and in the public interest? No. It alienates people and divorces them from their local area by sticking up all manner of opportunities for them to go: “it’s just not worth it.” That is not good enough.
Councils? Councils are in the proverbial rock and a hard place; refuse development and they risk stifling any chance of local recovery; so under pressure to let development through it risks chucking hard-won goals to weave strategic, balanced and consultative planning framework
s out of the window. RSS’s have gone, LEPS are coming, LDF’s and AAP’s sit alongside outmoded UDP’s and the landscape is getting very crowded......oh and with less resources. But committee meetings are death by typeset, unsociable hours and go on forever. Why would anyone ever want to sit through that?!Central Government: to quote Greg Clarke “The current sum of circulars, policy statements and so forth is bigger than the complete Works of Shakespeare, and not nearly as entertaining. Guidance on this scale flirts with the absurd: there’s no way a practitioner can keep it all in mind. “Thanks for your concern, but actually I know many a planner that prides themselves on being able to do this! It didn’t all arrive overnight. Some of us write, research, study and argue it out in court not to mention implement it on a daily basis! These people are also unlikely to be person reading your lovingly laminated planning notice in 5pt arial tied to a lamppost at the dark end of the street.....
Developers? Ah planning, the whipping boy of the development process and then some. Got an issue with your development – got to be something to do with planning! Why can’t I develop what I want, where I want, with what I want and not ask anyone what they think and then just walk away when I’ve got my magic number? Planning is a necessary evil guarding against unfettered development and irresponsible land use. It’s not perfect, is open to abuse and has many holes but it is there for a reason – to protect local areas and local communities from being rode roughshod. Developers need to engage with communities in ways that avoid the adversarial and that means real dialogue and real relationships.
Us? Afraid of putting local decision-making on planning in local hands? It’s as if you expect local people to just be in it to screw each other, self-promote, thwart everyone else’s happiness? It’s not like we are tone deaf when it comes to design, woefully narrow minded and petty, always moaning and never thinking beyond the garden fence? Well, there are a lot of people who ar
e interested and do care but don’t have the time, resources or skills to participate. Or they did once and they were roundly patronised and ignored. Or this is the umpteenth time I’ve been asked to do this now why will this time be different? It will only be different if we make it different.OK I’m playing devil’s (pro-bono) advocate but it seems to me that we are all culpable. As a planner I would naturally say that it is for the planning profession to step up to the plate and change perceptions of us just being about fulfilling a process and more about enabling it. Communities, councils, developers, activists, businesses, organisations all have a role to play in that process. The real question is what will a planning system look like without planners?
Planners have to manage a wide variety of diverse and often conflicting issues, seeking the best outcome that marries the local with the global and represents wide interest whilst also thinking strategically and decades into the future. That is a craft and a skill and should not be undervalued and undermined. We need to be vocal and assertive about this and the need for sound planning rigour to underpin any transfer of power and decision-making to communities. Without it we could be counting the costs and consequences for a long time. Planners are not the vanguards of doom (mostly).
Localism could make a difficult and convoluted process even more so. Or it can provide an opportunity to offer clarity to local people, restore trust and faith in the planning process and profession, allow proper engagement between developers and the people they will be affecting and finally......treat community as client instead of receiver.
Or.....maybe that’s just my fairytale.
Thursday, 2 December 2010
wild hackney tonight!
the first meeting of the wild hackney project is being held tonight and we hope you can join us to talk street art. we have had some great responses from street art blogs across the world, artists, writers, the media and local politicians so we are all fired up and ready to demonstrate some localism. 6.30, Fellows Court Community Centre, Weymouth Terrace E2 8LR - the Council have already agreed to review their policy and now it is up to us to get in there and get our hands dirty.photo from scottburnham.com
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Psychotherapy for places
Last week Cameron unveiled his plans to create a Happiness Index (Happinex?!) which will measure environmental and psychological wellbeing alongside GDP measuring economic health. The Happinex will include measurables and data which will be collected and analysed at various spatial levels from post code to whole cities but what will it tell us about the experience of a place compared to another? What makes a happy place?
On the other hand unhappy places (with high crime, unemployment, poor housing etc) continue to persist despite conti
nual investment in them and all places will be made less happy by cuts to investment and services. What happens to the people that live in them and the future of those places? We need an approach to managing the negative impacts of these cuts that considers the human vulnerability of places to change. This has to happen at a local level or the Happiness Index could lead to vulnerable places being even further disadvantaged on the basis of their position in the index.
All places and areas despite their socio-economic standing will experience a material decline in their quality of life and well-being as a result of government cuts, but places that are already struggling face grim prospects. It is possible that the HI could make it even harder for those areas that are struggling to attract investment and support in the future. Therefore we need a means of guaging the level of vulnerability of places to cuts and how we can manage the negative impacts of this.
The resource invested in making places happy is minor compared to the money needed to intervene in unhappy places: to turn them around, change perception of them, and bring inward investment. The term “Feral Places” (Dr Tim Williams) has been coined to describe a place where, despite countless levels of investment and intervention it remains a problem place (high crime, unemployment, reliance on benefits, poor quality housing.) Is that because intervention has failed to tackle the “happiness” factors?
Herein lies the problem: government, developers and investors are NOT place-makers – they put kit in space. Places are made by people and their varying and uniquely local attachments to place; people are profoundly affected by change happening in their place – i.e. closure of employment centres, rise in house prices etc, which in itself makes development and regeneration process not just a physical one but actually more of a psychological process.
As we have said in other posts, we believe place is the spatial "self" and like the human self, places are vulnerable to change and negative impacts. This manifests in symptoms of decline, abuse and neglect. If places are to remain or even become happy in a climate of austerity and cuts then we must look at places as assets that require the same support, help and analysis that people need.
Places need to be examined in a way that tells us how it has got to where it has, what has gone wrong, what makes it hard to move on, what it is for, where it is going and what it needs to grow – psychotherapy for places.
Over the coming months we will be developing the idea of "Psychotherapy of Places" into a tool for helping places and communities understand, cope and respond to the coming cuts and remain resilient. As well as speaking to people living in vulnerable places we will also meet emotional geographers, psychogeographers, psychotherapists, artists, psychoanalysts, writers and filmakers, community workers and young people to understand what it means to experience and identify happy and unhappy places.
We want to look at cities and places in a completely different way - as living personalities that can be developed, grown and strengthened and appreciated for what they are - warts and all - in the face of change and challenge and able to fight back!
Let's have some urban love!
On the other hand unhappy places (with high crime, unemployment, poor housing etc) continue to persist despite conti
nual investment in them and all places will be made less happy by cuts to investment and services. What happens to the people that live in them and the future of those places? We need an approach to managing the negative impacts of these cuts that considers the human vulnerability of places to change. This has to happen at a local level or the Happiness Index could lead to vulnerable places being even further disadvantaged on the basis of their position in the index.All places and areas despite their socio-economic standing will experience a material decline in their quality of life and well-being as a result of government cuts, but places that are already struggling face grim prospects. It is possible that the HI could make it even harder for those areas that are struggling to attract investment and support in the future. Therefore we need a means of guaging the level of vulnerability of places to cuts and how we can manage the negative impacts of this.
The resource invested in making places happy is minor compared to the money needed to intervene in unhappy places: to turn them around, change perception of them, and bring inward investment. The term “Feral Places” (Dr Tim Williams) has been coined to describe a place where, despite countless levels of investment and intervention it remains a problem place (high crime, unemployment, reliance on benefits, poor quality housing.) Is that because intervention has failed to tackle the “happiness” factors?
Herein lies the problem: government, developers and investors are NOT place-makers – they put kit in space. Places are made by people and their varying and uniquely local attachments to place; people are profoundly affected by change happening in their place – i.e. closure of employment centres, rise in house prices etc, which in itself makes development and regeneration process not just a physical one but actually more of a psychological process.
As we have said in other posts, we believe place is the spatial "self" and like the human self, places are vulnerable to change and negative impacts. This manifests in symptoms of decline, abuse and neglect. If places are to remain or even become happy in a climate of austerity and cuts then we must look at places as assets that require the same support, help and analysis that people need.
Places need to be examined in a way that tells us how it has got to where it has, what has gone wrong, what makes it hard to move on, what it is for, where it is going and what it needs to grow – psychotherapy for places.
Over the coming months we will be developing the idea of "Psychotherapy of Places" into a tool for helping places and communities understand, cope and respond to the coming cuts and remain resilient. As well as speaking to people living in vulnerable places we will also meet emotional geographers, psychogeographers, psychotherapists, artists, psychoanalysts, writers and filmakers, community workers and young people to understand what it means to experience and identify happy and unhappy places.
We want to look at cities and places in a completely different way - as living personalities that can be developed, grown and strengthened and appreciated for what they are - warts and all - in the face of change and challenge and able to fight back!
Let's have some urban love!
Sunday, 21 November 2010
the signal project
In doing some research for wild hackney we came across the Signal Project, a professional street art organisation that creates large scale public art and runs graffiti workshops. They are involved in the Stockwell gallery project which got some publicity in august as a hub for street art with strict curatorship from artists including Solo One. One of the many great ideas we have come across in looking at ways for Hackney to rethink graffiti management!
Check out the work of the signal project - http://www.signalproject.com/ and solo one's great blog 'say something beautiful or be quiet' - http://soloone.blogspot.com/
Check out the work of the signal project - http://www.signalproject.com/ and solo one's great blog 'say something beautiful or be quiet' - http://soloone.blogspot.com/
Monday, 15 November 2010
I am yours
The “Hackney Rabbit” was recently saved from the threat of eviction/obliteration from the side of Premises Studios where it had been a recognisable local character for over two years. The extent of public support and activism around saving the rabbit was overwhelming and strongly suggested that the Council’s policy towards street-art needs to change to reflect local attitudes and opinions.
However, more widely we think a new policy should also cover the bundle of informal “things” in our public spaces and neighbourhoods that often go unrecognised and unvalued by formal definitions/listings but contribute massively to local identity, uniqueness and cultural landscapes. These are things like old signs and clocks, original shop fronts and architectural features, patches of grass or “spaces in between”, local characters and fonts, mosaics and stonework etc etc.
By recording, identifying and valuing these things we can help to keep them as key features in our neighbourhood that contribute to what we mean when we say “I love Hackney” in the face of rapid change and regeneration – they are pieces of Hackney and we should value them!
Mend is working with Premises Studios and taking up this campaign; using the positive local support and momentum developed from saving the Hackney Rabbit as a resource to develop a more relevant and responsive policy for our public realm. We will convene a public meeting (with reps invited from the council) to identity the things we value, define why they are important and develop key aspects of a new policy to take back to the Council.
This means taking a fresh look and reappraising what we consider to be assets and the cultural and creative value inherent in them. Some of the things people choose to value will surprise us and challenge our preconceived notions of what should and should not be in public space. Is this because we have grown accustomed to public space being full of instructions, information and guidance instead of a rich mix of experience, emotion and questions – things that prompt us to experience urban space and not just move through it like sheep?
In the 90’s Light & Smith likened post-modern urban space as sterilised sanctioned spaces that were comforting and predictable but altogether bland and unexciting – a comfy designer sofa; as opposed to modern urban space that was unpredictable and full of the messy richness and drama of everyday life – an awkward metal folding chair. But everyday life is messy and unpredictable and isn’t that what makes it so good?!
The informal stuff gets hidden and obscured by the layer of formality, sanctioned safety net of over-planned public space – a wonderland of the bits you live your everyday life in but aren’t supposed to see. The opposite of the emperor’s fictional new clothes; instead the emperor is wearing some pretty out there garb but we all pretend to just see the dissapointingly coy underwear?!
Countless councils across the UK, Europe and the US are re-examining their attitudes to formal and informal uses of space; embracing uses and activities that open our eyes to new ways of experiencing and appreciating urban space. In the US there is a wave of urban exploration or "recreational tresspassing" http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/nov/14/exploring-with-recreational-trespassers that sees people climbing huge bridges to get a glimpse of a new wof the city, exploring the hidden rivers under London through Victorian sewers, and seeing the beauty in urban decay; parkour/freerunning and its opportunities for people to touch, feel and bounce of different planes and surfaces, street-art and its movement away from the indecipherable tags and slogans of the 80’s and 90’s that told the public “this is for us, not you”........
To the Hackney Rabbit that says “I am yours, and for all of you”.
The first step in the campaign is a campaign slogan so please send through some suggestions and don’t hold back – be catchy and cheeky! Post them on here or if you would rather you can email me at: liane.hartley@mendlondon.org.uk
We will be in touch again about the campaign and details of the meeting, all are welcome!
However, more widely we think a new policy should also cover the bundle of informal “things” in our public spaces and neighbourhoods that often go unrecognised and unvalued by formal definitions/listings but contribute massively to local identity, uniqueness and cultural landscapes. These are things like old signs and clocks, original shop fronts and architectural features, patches of grass or “spaces in between”, local characters and fonts, mosaics and stonework etc etc.
By recording, identifying and valuing these things we can help to keep them as key features in our neighbourhood that contribute to what we mean when we say “I love Hackney” in the face of rapid change and regeneration – they are pieces of Hackney and we should value them!
Mend is working with Premises Studios and taking up this campaign; using the positive local support and momentum developed from saving the Hackney Rabbit as a resource to develop a more relevant and responsive policy for our public realm. We will convene a public meeting (with reps invited from the council) to identity the things we value, define why they are important and develop key aspects of a new policy to take back to the Council.
This means taking a fresh look and reappraising what we consider to be assets and the cultural and creative value inherent in them. Some of the things people choose to value will surprise us and challenge our preconceived notions of what should and should not be in public space. Is this because we have grown accustomed to public space being full of instructions, information and guidance instead of a rich mix of experience, emotion and questions – things that prompt us to experience urban space and not just move through it like sheep?
In the 90’s Light & Smith likened post-modern urban space as sterilised sanctioned spaces that were comforting and predictable but altogether bland and unexciting – a comfy designer sofa; as opposed to modern urban space that was unpredictable and full of the messy richness and drama of everyday life – an awkward metal folding chair. But everyday life is messy and unpredictable and isn’t that what makes it so good?!The informal stuff gets hidden and obscured by the layer of formality, sanctioned safety net of over-planned public space – a wonderland of the bits you live your everyday life in but aren’t supposed to see. The opposite of the emperor’s fictional new clothes; instead the emperor is wearing some pretty out there garb but we all pretend to just see the dissapointingly coy underwear?!
Countless councils across the UK, Europe and the US are re-examining their attitudes to formal and informal uses of space; embracing uses and activities that open our eyes to new ways of experiencing and appreciating urban space. In the US there is a wave of urban exploration or "recreational tresspassing" http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/nov/14/exploring-with-recreational-trespassers that sees people climbing huge bridges to get a glimpse of a new wof the city, exploring the hidden rivers under London through Victorian sewers, and seeing the beauty in urban decay; parkour/freerunning and its opportunities for people to touch, feel and bounce of different planes and surfaces, street-art and its movement away from the indecipherable tags and slogans of the 80’s and 90’s that told the public “this is for us, not you”........
To the Hackney Rabbit that says “I am yours, and for all of you”.
The first step in the campaign is a campaign slogan so please send through some suggestions and don’t hold back – be catchy and cheeky! Post them on here or if you would rather you can email me at: liane.hartley@mendlondon.org.uk
We will be in touch again about the campaign and details of the meeting, all are welcome!
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
all hail the hackney rabbit!
we were really chuffed to hear to Hackney Council have withdrawn their threats to paint over the rabbit on the side of The Premises Studio. Julia and Viv got over 2000 signatures to their online petition to save the rabbit and over their 2 week campaign got national and international press with support offered from local schools and businesses. Read more on their blog - http://www.premisesstudios.com/blog/next step a new street art policy for Hackney?
Monday, 8 November 2010
mending in bethnal green
Today we are going to meet with the team at Oxford House in Bethnal Green. Oxford House is a community and art centre with a great history in the area as it was the first 'settlement from Oxford University established in 1884. Back then Oxford House was built to be a home to graduates, tutors and those intending to enter the church so that they would experience first hand the problems of the city poor. Today it is a hub of activity, dance classes, art exhibitions and the Tower Hamlets futureversity (a poster from one of the films produced is on the right).
Bit of a hidden gem in the east!
Bit of a hidden gem in the east!
Thursday, 28 October 2010
when will we move beyond the pilot?
Nesta has announced its 18 month Neighbourhood Challenge programme which is intended to provide practical advice, support and resources to enable organisations to trial innovative approaches to community-led regeneration. It is a great opportunity for organised local groups to get their project ideas off the ground and to shape the big society debate - here's hoping they are inundated with projects.
Something is nagging at me from the press release however. The dreaded spectre of the word 'trial' is lurking in the announcement with only 10 organisations set to benefit from the pot of £3M. It makes sense that they will only be able to fund about 10 projects from the fund but to call them trials only reinforces the view that community-led regeneration isn't the norm nor should it be unless we have tested it and made sure it is safe for consumption.
At the RIBA lecture last week, Nabeel Hamdi asked the panelists when they thought we would be able to go beyond calling things pilots and just show them as projects that are achieving what they set out to do. If the sustainability debate has given us anything, it is that the obsession with pilot projects and trials has the ability to quickly lead to bling responses when a practical solution is needed.
The trial of 10 also raises the issue of how small but effective community ideas will get heard over the racket of projects pitched at £300K...
Something is nagging at me from the press release however. The dreaded spectre of the word 'trial' is lurking in the announcement with only 10 organisations set to benefit from the pot of £3M. It makes sense that they will only be able to fund about 10 projects from the fund but to call them trials only reinforces the view that community-led regeneration isn't the norm nor should it be unless we have tested it and made sure it is safe for consumption.
At the RIBA lecture last week, Nabeel Hamdi asked the panelists when they thought we would be able to go beyond calling things pilots and just show them as projects that are achieving what they set out to do. If the sustainability debate has given us anything, it is that the obsession with pilot projects and trials has the ability to quickly lead to bling responses when a practical solution is needed.
The trial of 10 also raises the issue of how small but effective community ideas will get heard over the racket of projects pitched at £300K...
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Creating Change RIBA Public Lecture
On Tuesday night Mend participated in the Creating Change Public Lecture at RIBA which was the culmination of the Women in Architecture "Creating Change" 2010programme of events. Liane and Kate are members of the Creating Change panel and had a small part in helping to develop the programme.
The lecture kicked off with the current RIBA President, Ruth Reed succinctly clarifying the case for diversity within architecture: "architecture and architects work best if they reflect the client or community they are working for....this is why empathy is so important in design and why diversity is vital to this." Angela Brady, RIBA president elect reminded us that it is not just about women architects but women as users of architecture and spaces and how it is important that they work for them.
The three speakers treated us to insights, case studies and experiences of creating change through their work with communities and the challenges of designing for different lifestyles and circumstances.
Nabeel Hamdi gave an eloquent digest of the leading mantras that have shaped his outlook on design and working with communities over the course of his career - which have been brought together in his book "The Placemakers Guide to Building Community." We lost count of the "hallelujah" moments mainly revolving around celebrating the ordinary, design being about people and that everybody is an "expert" on their place not just professionals. Very Mendy!
Anna Heringer told of her work with communities in Bagladesh in which buildings are designed to respect local traditions and settings but allow opportunities for innovation and skills development for local people. The result is beautiful and happy spaces to be in that are low impact, sustainable and replicable in the face of floods and shortage of materials.
Finally, Anshu Sharma, Director of SEEDS, an Indian charity established to promote social justice, gave a great talk about unengineered buildings - not the fault of uneducated and illiterate construction workers failing to follow the plans given to them by architects, but actually the insenstivity and inappropriateness of the architect's designs in the first place. Anshu reminded us that some of the oldest buildings in India were constructed by the poorest and least educated but they stand to this day and furthermore are more responsive, well used and efficient than their modern counterparts.
In short we have forgotten much of the wisdom inherent in these great places but they are simple to re-learn. Most important - look around you at the communities you are building for and take your cue from them. People's notion of home can extend far beyond the front door but to the street, the green spaces, their neighbour's house. Recognise buildings don't use buildings - people do!
The lecture kicked off with the current RIBA President, Ruth Reed succinctly clarifying the case for diversity within architecture: "architecture and architects work best if they reflect the client or community they are working for....this is why empathy is so important in design and why diversity is vital to this." Angela Brady, RIBA president elect reminded us that it is not just about women architects but women as users of architecture and spaces and how it is important that they work for them.
The three speakers treated us to insights, case studies and experiences of creating change through their work with communities and the challenges of designing for different lifestyles and circumstances.
Nabeel Hamdi gave an eloquent digest of the leading mantras that have shaped his outlook on design and working with communities over the course of his career - which have been brought together in his book "The Placemakers Guide to Building Community." We lost count of the "hallelujah" moments mainly revolving around celebrating the ordinary, design being about people and that everybody is an "expert" on their place not just professionals. Very Mendy!
Anna Heringer told of her work with communities in Bagladesh in which buildings are designed to respect local traditions and settings but allow opportunities for innovation and skills development for local people. The result is beautiful and happy spaces to be in that are low impact, sustainable and replicable in the face of floods and shortage of materials.
Finally, Anshu Sharma, Director of SEEDS, an Indian charity established to promote social justice, gave a great talk about unengineered buildings - not the fault of uneducated and illiterate construction workers failing to follow the plans given to them by architects, but actually the insenstivity and inappropriateness of the architect's designs in the first place. Anshu reminded us that some of the oldest buildings in India were constructed by the poorest and least educated but they stand to this day and furthermore are more responsive, well used and efficient than their modern counterparts.
In short we have forgotten much of the wisdom inherent in these great places but they are simple to re-learn. Most important - look around you at the communities you are building for and take your cue from them. People's notion of home can extend far beyond the front door but to the street, the green spaces, their neighbour's house. Recognise buildings don't use buildings - people do!
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