Designing for Civil Society

City makes the case for skyscrapers, sociably

Years ago I made a living writing about planning and property development in London, and an easy way to get headlines was to chastise the City Corporation - responsible for the financial square mile - for caring more about business than historic buildings and historic skylines. I now live in the City, and the Corporation is my local council, so it was doubly interesting tonight to hear a talk from chief planning officer Peter Wynne Rees about development in the past, and the way he sees things going in future.

Maybe the gentler art of blogging has blunted my journalistic senses, but I found him pretty convincing on the need to create buildings and spaces that will keep major corporations in town, and to build high to achieve that. He had a fine model to show us, with The Gherkin holding its own amidst the wider cluster of high risers. Apparently one of the next big ones has been dubbed the Cheese Grater, and searching for the reference led me to more examples in the fascinating Skyscrapernews.
There are only about 8000 residents in the City, and although we get excellent public services we aren't really a political priority ... mainly getting the benefits of an environment created for City companies and their workers. I don't mind that, particularly since there seems to be another spin-off coming our way.
One of the downsides of City living has been the lack of shops open at weekends, but that may soon be changing. Marks and Spencer and a few other stores have found that it is paying them to stay open six or seven days, because at the weekend people from surrounding boroughs are finding the City, devoid of its weekday workers, a lot quieter and better for parking that their local centres. There's now a move to promote the City as a weekend speciality shopping area. If that includes the continuing revival of Leadenhall Market, and a few more pubs and restaurants available beyond eight on Friday evening I'm all for it.
The talk was part of a networking event organised by Common Purpose for graduates of their London programmes, and I must say I enjoyed it a lot more than an earlier speed networking session. We were given a few props to encourage us to meet people we didn't know - three names and questions to ask - but the drinks and excellent hosting were enough to get everyone talking.

The City's Marketing Suite was a great venue for tonight's event. Where else could you turn from the model of the City of the future, and walk through a door to the remains a Roman amphitheatre.

I tried to re-interest the Common Purpose people in blogging as an aid to networking, but didn't find any takers. I guess they felt they were doing pretty well with good old face-to-face. On the other hand I think that the City can expect blogging to become an increasingly large part of the conversational mix that centuries back first created  banks from pubs, and insurance companies from coffee shops. We'll soon be getting blanket wifi throughout the City. If that comes in at £11.99 a month we could be seeing a lot more out-of-office networking in the square mile, with laptops and sandwiches in the parks. Bloggers for the City, anyone? I think we need another nice reception to kick it off...

Common knowledge

Kevin Harris, whose Neighbourhoods blog connects people and policy at street level, has written a terrific essay about everyday life and conditions on the Havelock estate in Southall, London. Kevin has been working there with Giles Lane of Proboscis, and Bev Carter from Partners in change, over the last 10 months.
Government these days is putting a lot of emphasis on devolving control of public services to local level, and has high hopes that citizens will play a more active part in their improvement. However, Kevin's essay brings home just how difficult it is in reality  for people on the estate to make a difference to conditions.
Here's the abstract of Common knowledge: community development and communication on a housing estate

Residents striving to improve conditions on a low-income estate face a range of problems, some of which severely constrain their ability to act collectively. This essay offers an impressionistic view of conditions on the Havelock estate in Southall, west London, based on an assessment of the communication and information ecology, with the aim of clarifying the role that Social Tapestries might play in stimulating information flow and the sharing of ideas and knowledge.
The essay offers a snapshot of the physical conditions, low levels of social interaction, and "civic absence" that characterises the neighbourhood. It notes the sense of weakening community presence in the face of unresponsive environmental services and a looming drugs threat. It attempts to explain why participation in community initiatives is sometimes very difficult to establish or sustain, and it contrasts this reactive, fragmentary style of urban life with the contemporary image of lively urban consumption.

The essay itself is a lively read, and is published by Proboscis in their Cultural snapshots series. You can find it directly here.