A question has been swirling around in my head for weeks now. I can’t seem to answer it or even utter it to those who might listen. It would be like swearing in church or wearing shorts to a formal wedding; you sometimes want to, but you know the response from the crowd will be instant rejection.
What is this question(s)?
Why do we spend so much money, time, and resources on asking what communities want in their neighbourhoods? And why do we only do this in disadvantaged areas? And finally, does all of this consultation add up to anything constructive?
It is an interesting question, because I often find that the people assigned to ask the community questions come to the task with assumptions like these;
1. They need access to good health care.
2. They don’t want anything too nice/posh.
3. They do want a community centre.
4. The 40 people or 100 people consulted at a free workshop are representative of the 3000 in the area.
Amazingly, I have heard number 2 uttered more than once in the last 90 days by “regen professionals”. I was dismayed.
What would happen if we stopped trying to plan so much in a disadvantaged neighbourhood and starting simply setting people loose to start things (biz, groups, etc.), set up investment zones; proper planning/zoning boards; and provided some small funding to support a residents group to balance the developers? What would happen if we didn’t focus on community centres? (This sounds allot like what happens in non-disadvantaged areas.)
The regeneration game has been playing for 40 years and the list of disadvantaged areas hasn’t really changed substantially. The areas that did drop off the list; it is likely they were of two types (1) a large track of mostly unused land that was completely redeveloped as part of a single massive scheme or (2) it was regenerated without help from the government.
We need to put more efforts into replicating the actions of the second type.
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Mike Chitty Says:
I don’t think it is about regenerating without the help of Govt, but rather Govt playing a part in facilitating development and regen rather than imposing their own ideas and opinions about opportunities onto communities.
It is also about developing people on their agenda rather than trying to reskill them to meet the needs of employers.
Key principle here ia about starting where people are at, rather than trying to shoehorn them into some consultants’ idea of what the future economy needs.
This government is the first to claim explicitly that community particpation in governance builds social capital.
The sheer number of community participation arrangemenmts , right across the public services represent a considerable invest, not just of the governments capital, but also of the communities scarce resources, time, energy and hope.
Has this benefitted residents not normally involved in decision making.
Because of the relatively few people involved those who are already involved get better connected
Some reports suggests that the way governance works makes the problem this problem worse.
In particular a number of forces create barriers to entry for those not already involved and increase the likelihood that those already involved will become more so.