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July 02, 2005

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» Why aren't events about engagement more engaging? from David Wilcox

Think tanks and politicans are producing a welter of pamphlets celebrating community engagement and voluntary action. Can't complain ... but good work at local level is hardly new, and it can all sound a bit patronising.

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» Why aren't events about engagement more engaging? from David Wilcox

Think tanks and politicans are producing a welter of pamphlets celebrating community engagement and voluntary action. Can't complain ... but good work at local level is hardly new, and it can all sound a bit patronising.

[Read More]

Comments

Kevin Harris

Nicely put. Is there a study of the Giuliani effect that looks at diversity/homogenisation, I wonder?

I've often thought that the problem I have with new labour is that it tries to make us believe that elitism and socialism can go together.

Phil Edwards

This is interesting, but I think you need to push a bit harder on 'active communities'. The example you give of a 'law and order'/A.C. combination is suggestively tenuous (The communities may not be all that 'active', given that there is little at stake in how the networks operate). In the first and last parts of the post, in fact, you're tending towards a definition of the A.C. which is actually incompatible with 'law and order' (another term that urgently needs unpacking - "diffuse social control"?).

In practice, I don't think there's much ambiguity. New Labour are all about the Giuliani (or Bluewater) option, commerce-friendly 'urban revival' underpinned by 'law and order'. The question is whether anything recognisable as an 'active community' policy can sit alongside (and moderate) those two imperatives - or whether the A.C. vision is actually antithetical to one (or both) of them, in which case it can't rise above the level of window-dressing.

Hana Loftus

I think you're absolutely correct - a sanitised version of what an active community might be is really a contradiction in terms - especially as (I feel) communities are confident enough about what it considers to be its own moral/ethical boundaries for action and will ignore the 'legality' or otherwise (flash mobs, warehouse parties, informal market trading being classic examples.)

The question is of course whether there is a method of policing that is also more participatory and can deal with these fringe activities without condoning crimes that are truly unacceptable. The self-policing of internet communities is perhaps interesting in this regard. And I think your point about 'what parks are "for"' is one of the most crucial aspects of how we view, and design, our public spaces - for inclusivity and provocation pace Jane Jacobs/Richard Sennett, or for exclusivity and blandness pace (I would argue) New Urbanism.

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