The Social Value of Public Spaces
August 11th, 2008Came across this research report on regeneration from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation - it primarily focuses on the role of public spaces in communities, but in doing so touches upon most of the unfortunate by-products (or objectives) of regeneration which further helps to lift the veil on the view that everyone benefits from this kind of activity
I’ve categorised a number of quotes from the report into three main themes - each of which raises credible doubts as to the supposed benefits of regeneration to the existing & wider communities that are subject to it. These three areas are, Impact on Existing Community, Impact on Crime and Social & Economic Exclusion - but first the couple of quotes below sum up the overall thrust of the research
Summary
Public spaces (including high streets, street markets, shopping precincts, community centres, parks, playgrounds, and neighbourhood spaces in residential areas) play a vital role in the social life of communities. They act as a ‘self-organising public service’, a shared resource in which experiences and value are created. These social advantages may not be obvious to outsiders or public policy-makers.
The success of a particular public space is not solely in the hands of the architect, urban designer or town planner; it relies also on people adopting, using and managing the space – people make places, more than places make people.
I think experience of regeneration to date shows it’s clear that the social advantages of public spaces are set aside by those behind most regeneration projects - at best it could be argued that these advantages are just not seen by outsiders/public policyholders who are too busy living in their own world and not the one they are designing for others, or at worst, they are recognised by these groups but are intentionally avoided in accordance with the very specific agenda that is in play. The JRF report seem to give those people the benefit of the doubt and credit (!) them with the former, I’d tend to be more sensationalist and go more with the later but in reality it’s obviously a mix of the two – a simple head in the sand/out of touch approach by some very clever stupid people mixed in with a more sinister single minded intent, a type of accumulation by dispossession
The key thing is ‘people make places, more than places make people’ – most regeneration projects invert that process, and focus on creating a ready made place devoid of the input of the existing community (who let’s face it, most of which will no longer be welcome in the new ‘community’) and often accompanied with a false history of the locality which gets superimposed over the real autonomous history of a place - the accumulated lived experiences that locates & situates us is replaced by instant mass produced history, designed not to appeal to, or resonate with, the sentimentalities of the existing members of the community, but those to which it aims to attract in the future. This environment no longer reflects the people who use(d) the space, who they were and what they used the space for, but instead the environment only tells us who now is supposed to use the space, and so the environment asserts its authority over people and dictates who can inhabit or make use of it.
Impact on Existing Community
The research challenges several current government policy assumptions concerning public space. The ‘urban renaissance’ agenda appears too concerned with matters of urban design, as well as being distinctly metropolitan in character. The majority of public spaces that people use are local spaces they visit regularly, often quite banal in design, or untidy in their activities or functions (such as street markets and car boot sales), but which nevertheless retain important social functions
Regeneration strategies that override or fail to take into account local attachments to existing spaces and places may undermine local communities in the longer term
In several areas studied, regeneration schemes affecting the public realm were subject to considerable local controversy. A scheme involving the demolition of a much-loved, if somewhat ugly, covered street market in Newham brought to the fore some major issues as to whose interests regeneration programmes are meant to serve. For some people in Newham, regeneration seemed to be principally about beautification, with an element of social engineering intended to attract more affluent, mobile home-buyers, rather than consolidating existing community facilities, networks and local economies. There were concerns that the social value of the market space had not been recognised in regeneration plans.
The research questions whether the government’s emphasis on crime and safety in public spaces is depriving them of their historic role as a place where differences of lifestyles and behaviour are tolerated and co-exist. What is considered ‘antisocial behaviour’ may vary from street to street, from one public situation to the next, or from one person to the next.
I think all of these points effectively show the gap between what outsiders & policymakers want or think that the members of the community want and what people who live in the community really need. An infatuation with shiny, new, superficial, contentless, and environments devoid of lived experiences seem to be seen as the holy grail and the answer to all societal ills. The existing community, its lived experiences & history and its accompanying public spaces are mercilessly torn up and cast aside in order for this alien & false fabric to be woven on top of the threadbare remnants of the community that once was.
As the report points out, strategies which override local attachments to existing spaces and places (and the lived experiences & history embedded within them) lead to an undermining of local communities in the longer term. Sure they can always claim success as they have established an isolated area of utopia - maybe even one that’s physically gated but almost certainly socially & economically gated - where those fortunate enough to have the economic means to embed themselves into that new fabric are pointed to as a sign of success of the project overall. No mention is made of the loss of society within those places and those who previously inhabited them – out of side, out of mind.
Just like elections are won and lost these days by orientating policy to a slither of middle class middle england marginal electorate and the capture of that vote is counted as an overwhelming success and a mandate for the whole country – regeneration processes are judged on the experiences & judgements of those with the economic means and social power to avail themselves of the fruits of the newly created and artificial community - the experiences of a slither of a wider community are used to judge the success of the whole. But, look there’s no crime here anymore they shout, it must therefore be a success - oblivious to the fact that crime is not reduced or ‘designed out’, but merely dispersed (offshored?), designed away or contained to some other less fortunate place.
Crime & Anti Social Behaviour
Regeneration schemes that ‘solve’ antisocial problems by displacing them to other areas may in the long term do more harm than good. The long-term stability of communities requires regeneration processes that seek to create mixed neighbourhoods of different age and social groups, and with a basic social infrastructure of schools, medical services, shops, transport connections and community facilities. Public spaces play an important role here both as sites of connection and as places in their own right that serve an important role in the community.
Regeneration strategies or policing approaches intended to ‘design out crime’ can end up ‘designing out’ people. Approaches that strip public spaces of all features vulnerable to vandalism or misuse actively discourage local distinctiveness and public amenity
The JRF are bang on in pointing out the displacement effect (rather than an actual reduction effect) that regeneration can have and the fact that by designing out people and establishing barriers to entry, physical or socio-economic, then of course crime will be less prevailant in that specific area - the out of sight out of mind approach does seem to be key in the assessment of the ‘successes’ of regeneration.
These contentless and experience free spaces that are created which snuff out local distinctiveness feed into a wider trend of creating identical communities up and down the country with a surface attempt by their new inhabitants to express how individual they are by buying lock stock and barrel into the world of commodified individuality, parcelled up and offered to them, at a price, through a relentless market that seeks to commodify all aspects of human activity & existence. Like the environment that the new comers live in, their lives themselves are filled up in bulk with shopping baskets full of mass produced ‘individuality’ procured in the marketplace – these are busy people they don’t have the time to cultivate individuality directly within themselves so instead through their ability to wield effective demand, through the cash in their pocket, enter the market place and buy it in bulk - ready made individuality, ready made places, ready made community. For some.
Social & Economic Exclusion
The commercial function of many public spaces can have negative consequences; places of exchange often favour those with spending power, with the result that some people are excluded. In shopping malls, which might be better termed ‘quasi-public space’, it was suggested that ‘commercial operators employ a policy of target marketing and seeking out premium users, thus excluding people who are deemed lower-value users’. Thus some shopping malls restrict the amount of public seating provided (often used by elderly people), or move groups of youngpeople on or out of the mall, as both groups lack spending power and the presence of groups of young people in particular is seen as a deterrent to other users.
Elderly people are frequently marginalised in public space, either for economic reasons or because they fear becoming the victim of crime. The Aylesbury study noted that, Older people are actively discouraged from fully using public spaces, especially after dark, by inadequate facilities and transport, security concerns, and a general lack of interesting activities or venues around public places geared for their preferences
It is also important for policy-makers and practitioners to recognise that so-called marginal or problem groups, such as young people, or street sex workers, are also a part of the community. Definitions of ‘community’ that exclude particular groups are of questionable legitimacy in the long term
Retailing and commercial leisure activities dominate town centres, and though public space can act as a ‘social glue’ the research found that in some places ‘the society that is being held together is a stratified one, in which some groups are routinely privileged over others’. So, for instance, young and older people are discouraged from frequenting shopping areas by lack of seating or (for groups of younger people) by being ‘moved on’.
At the root of all the problems that market led regeneration brings is the exclusion effect that is necessary for regeneration to be a ‘success’. Market led regeneration isn’t a charitable act - it demands a return on its money, and anyone who isn’t able to play a part in generating that return isn’t welcome at this particular inn. The JRF report highlight both the economic exclusion and the social group exclusion that is part and parcel of regeneration, however it’s illogical to lump all old people and all young people into one big homogenous lump – those within these groups with adequate economic means will feel a lot less marginalised than those without, making the economic element the key factor in the exclusion process. Likewise it’s not only elderly people who through a fear of crime, inadequate facilities & transport are marginalised in public spaces, it’s far wider than just that particular group.
The JRF report also seems to miss the point somewhat as to which groups are impacted most through their status as ‘low value users’ and seems to contain their criticism of the impact of this to the effect it has on young people and the elderly. Although it correctly identifies the cause of this exclusion, i.e. their existence as ‘low value users’, it fails to articulate who is most effected by this cause – that is the working class of all stripes - be they young, old, middle aged, black, white, asian, muslim, atheist, male, female, etc… each of these categories is not one big homogenous lump in itself (contrary to what we get told by advocates of ‘official’ multiculturalism) with the same desires, dreams, insecurities, experiences and problems – but like society in general are stratified by their economic position within that particular category and therefore elements of all these groups will both gain and lose, will be both included & excluded, from the regeneration process.
A pertinent point is made about the redefined meaning of the word ‘community’ as a result of regeneration, what was the community is redefined - everything and everyone that is problematic, difficult, unproductive, incapable of transferring sufficient economic value, are defined out and a new slimmed down and sanitised ‘community’ emerges, all of a sudden all the community problems have been solved, not through tackling tough underlying problems that are deeply rooted in the way society is organised, but through simple redefinition of who the community now are.
The myth of regeneration success can be seen in the London borough of Islington, probably the most well known example of regeneration and gentrification is currently the 6th most deprived place in the whole of the UK, indicating just how much inequality is generated as a result of the regeneration process. If that’s what success tastes like, god help us from a regeneration failure.
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