Why do we choose to live cities? What are they for?
Well, for many of us they are ‘Where the jobs are’. We don’t choose to live in or near them. We do so because that is how our economy is configured. We are drawn into they city and ‘enslaved’ by it and the economy is exists to serve. But many of us are, on the whole, happy slaves as the city fathers and their investor friends ensure we are regularly supplied with both ‘bread and circuses’, superficial means of appeasement, from which they too can often make a handsome profit.
And, on one level, this is a purpose of the city.
To organise a modern population effectively and efficiently for the benefit of employers and those who bankroll and tax them. They are above all else economic entities, where ‘culture’ and ‘community’ play secondary roles as part of the mechanisms for appeasement while the primary narrative is about the economy, productivity, profitability and gross domestic product.
As Margaret Thatcher put it “Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.”
But, we can look at a city differently.
We could choose to believe that “Head, heart and soul are the method; the object is to change the economy”
We can choose to see the city as a collection of people who have converged on a specific location because it offers them opportunities to do the things that they want to do, to be the person that they want to be and fulfil their potential. In such a city the primary relationship would not be one of ‘enslavement’ to an economy but as a collaboration of powerful citizens in a participative democracy. A city where citizens primary responsibility is to each other and to the future. Where an economy is produced that serves people, both now and into the future.
Such a city would almost certainly not depend primarily on the development of its physical infrastructure, (Supercasino anyone? Or perhaps a high-speed train or station entrance to inspire the business folk?) but on psychological infrastructure. A network of relationships, support and encouragement that valued people, regardless of wealth or education, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or age. A psychological infrastructure in which help could be asked for and offered. A city in which collaboration, association and innovation in the pursuit of progress was everyone’s business.
Now THAT would be a city I would want to live in.
Leeds aspires to be The Best City in the UK.
But to the 23% of Leeds’ children who live in poverty, rising to almost 50% in some communities, this must seem a very distant goal.
What can we do about it?
The Results Factory is about generating ideas and making them happen. In under 3 hours, we will come together, develop ideas and leave with action plans. Whether you need people to help get a project up and running, or whether you have time you want to use, we’ll find practical ways to start disrupting poverty in our city.
Our aim is to leave with clear actions that will make a difference. You don’t need to be a professional in the field or have particular expertise. All we need from you is an open mind and a desire to change things.
So, join us at 1.30pm on Friday 20th January to help us to Disrupt Poverty in Leeds.
Just imagine a world where every business is a social enterprise.
There was nowhere to spend your money that was not taking a portion of it to reinvest in social change, to alleviate hardship and increase social justice.
You eat at a restaurant that uses part of the price of your ham hock to help the homeless find a job. You pay a premium on your office space so that your landlord can re-invest some of your cash into supporting entrepreneurs in the local poor folk. You buy your petrol from an oil company that takes a slice of your cash to improve marine conservation and invest in promoting democracy in the oilfields of the planet.
Every time you buy something someone puts a smile on the face of the world.
The more we consume the better things get!
Growth is genuinely good! Isn’t it?
Well perhaps, because all of these social enterprises are also genuinely sustainable in a one planet economy, all paying a fair wage for a days work, and are well capitalised as investors recognise investing in social change is in their long term ‘self interest’ too. The return they get on their capital is worth much more than just money. It is a planet fit for the grandchildren.
How would the market for ‘social change’ play out in our new socially enterprising economy? I suspect that saving Pandas and Snow Leopards might do disproportionally well while less popular causes like ‘kids in care’ or special needs education may not get a look in.
Life for us shoppers might get a little more complicated as we look to factor in not just cost, quality and decency of the corporate that we buy our goods from – but also whether they are investing effectively in causes that we want to support.
But what a vision!
A post capitalist economy where entrepreneurs and markets set the agenda and provide the fuel for social change. And perhaps just a quango or two checking the veracity of their claims for ‘re-investing profits’. We could call it SEQC – the Social Enterprise Quality Commission.
What could possibly go wrong?
A provocative phrase used by Jeremy Paxman last night to describe the inability of any government to effectively manage an effective path through the current economic crisis.
But we could extend it to many other areas of our lives. The impotence of governments to:
- build the affordable houses that we need
- provide the stable macro-economic climate in which trade can thrive
- keep significant numbers of our citizens, young and old, out of poverty
- equip people with the skills and attitudes required to thrive in the 21st century
- reduce carbon emissions to a level that mitigates the risk of significant environmental trauma
- provide affordable, sustainable and efficient mass transit systems
Here in Leeds we have got to the point where all political parties see the construction of a new station at Kirkstall as some kind of triumph. Building one station that will serve a few thousand people in a city of 8000 000. A new station that will provide the key infrastructure link to enable further private sector development in that area of the city. I just hope that any future planning application gets the balance of affordable housing right, otherwise I suspect we will see the poor once again displaced in the failing policy of economic cleansing that provides the blue print for so much of what passes for ‘urban renewal and regeneration’. The ‘partnership’ between the local authority and the developers will no doubt be tested as one side pushes for more affordable housing and community amenities while the other pushes for a more profitable plan, while holding their twin political jokers of ‘job creation’ and ‘development’.
I suspect the only people that should really be rubbing their hands are the directors and shareholders of the construction companies and to a much lesser extent, perhaps mopping their brows with relief, will be those get to pick up their shovels on yet another construction hurrah.
So if government is pretty impotent then what are the alternatives? What might work to help us tackle some of these long standing and seemingly intractable problems?
Well, for me the future is ‘Bottom Up’. It is about the engagement of large numbers of people in figuring out what really matters most to them and then forming associations around common cause.
The challenge will be to form associations rather than factions, but this is the process of ‘civic enterprise’ and done well strengthens democracy while building a much more powerful citizenry. The role of elected officers and other public servants in working with these civic associations, enabling them and supporting their work wherever possible and helping them to add value to the democratic process may be crucial. Representative democracy is creaking. Perhaps a more participative democracy where different associations learn to creatively negotiate their collective futures provides a way forward.
It is about governments, national and local, no longer pledging to lead us to the promised land through judicious policy development, 15 year Visions and glossy manifestos tied to the electoral cycle and recognising that now their job is to help all of us to build the kind of communities that we want to live in. The job of community development is our job and not theirs.
Bottom Up Is The New Black!
Think this is all hopelessly naive?
Then pop along to a Friday Picnic, A Cultural Conversation, Latch, Canopy, Progress School, Elsie, TEDxLeeds, LDF2011, Simon on the Streets, Ideas That Change Lives, PACES, Innovation Lab to name just a few where bottom up is becoming the new black.
So, share with us in the comments below:
- Who you love to shop with/buy from and why….
- Who you hate to shop with/buy from/boycott and why…
Anonymous postings are fine….
…has been a theme that has taken up a lot of my thought and practice for the last few years. Seeding conversations on ‘things that matter’ seems to be quite a straightforward and affordable task. But helping to get from words to actions proves to be a much more challenging. And, when all is said and done, perhaps it is what is done that really counts.
More conversations leading to more actions… In part it is just a numbers game. If 1 in a 100 conversations spawns some planned action than perhaps we just need to have more conversations. But so often when we try to have more conversations we just repeat the same old conversations. Groundhog day. Different conversations leading to more actions… So it is not just more conversations that we need. But different conversations too. Conversations that will help us to play with new ideas and new possibilities. And we can learn how to have such conversations and get better at them. But we can also encourage them just by talking with different people with different perspectives. And the challenge of finding different people welcoming them into a convivial conversation, helping them to find their voice and really hearing them should not be under-estimated! But still this is not enough. Building teams to get from words to actions… You perhaps have had the most inspirational conversations exploring the art of the possible in whatever field matters most to you. How things could be different. Better. Changed. Before you go back to your current reality and the coping mechanisms that you use to pretend that really things are not so bad. Because as well as seeing the possibilities for ourselves, many of us need the support of others who have also glimpsed the possibility and are prepared to act in its pursuit. Finding ‘common cause’ matters not just for the reassurance of not being alone but for very practical reasons of sharing workloads, accessing skills and other resources, maintaining conversations and so on. But the chemistry and physics of the team is vital. Too often we find a bunch of idealistic dreamers with not real change management disciplines struggling to turn words into actions. And building a team that constructively manages the tensions between idealists and pragmatists, artists and project managers is not easy. Feeling the force…. But what we are really talking about here is building power. The power to act. Individually and collectively. The power to develop ideas, choose from options, plan, resource, implement, observe, evaluate and adjust. Building enough power to overcome those who would really rather things stay as they are. And I suspect that very few of us do power well. Helping… And then there is the question of making sure that the powerful team of activists with dreams, visions, plans and resources has a community around them that knows how it can help. That can smooth the way, make introductions, encourage, advocate and assist. I think as a community that we sometimes struggle to find the good people, the great projects, and when we find them we are not that clear on how we can help, what difference we can make. And this is in part their problem (most of us are not very good at being helpable) and part ours (we don’t really understand the practicalities and dynamics of helping). There is much that we can do to become a much more helpable and helpful community. Because trying hard is not enough… This one is a toughy. Lets face it, many of us have been trying hard for decades in some cases to ‘make a difference’. And to say the least the results are often disappointing. Few of the indicators that we really care about move very far in the direction that we might like. And in order to carry on we shirk our accountability for resultsand instead just point to the fact that we are trying our hardest. But perhaps if we held ourselves and others to account more for results than for effort we might just find ourselves some more effective ways of working.
I will be running a workshop on ideas for helping to get From Words to Actions as part of Leeds Summat on November 26th from 12-1pm in The Shop Space in the Lower Foyer of Leeds University Union. It would be great to see you!
When we base ‘regeneration’ on realising rent values in areas where the poor currently live, but the rich want to, we push poor people out. We don’t solve any problems we just re-locate them to areas where escape from those problems is likely to be made even more difficult.
My best efforts to ‘make a business of improving people through enterprise and effort’ have resulted in endeavours like Progress School, Elsie, Innovation Lab, Community Conversations, Enterprise Coaching and so on. All of these are designed to be accessible to anyone who is looking to make progress for themselves.
The sad truth is that we have wasted millions on telling people that their future lies in self employment and entrepreneurship without ever taking the time to listen respectfully to who they are and what they want.
I have yet to see a regeneration programme that is centred on a respectful engagement of, and response to, individuals who are seeking to make progress without making prior assumptions about means.
I have yet to see a programme that takes seriously the need to help individuals build networks to make lasting changes in how they operate (these networks provide the bedrock for that holy grail we call community).
I have yet to see a programme that recognises that the poor are in every neighbourhood.
I have yet to see a programme that accepts this is long term work. I do remember an RDA director saying that we should not expect too much from an £80m public investment in a Leeds regen project because we are only 15 years into the project….but this is not a defence that is generally accepted!
Our communities are full of ‘outsiders intervening’ and I see this as a major problem. Professional ‘experts’ shipped in to sort out the locals. If people don’t want to be helped we should leave them alone. And we should only work where we are invited; where individuals really want us to help, because they have seen the value of our work. And how many of the mainstream providers offer services that are valued by those they are purporting to help? Very few in my experience.
We do know how to make progress on this stuff and the approaches are affordable and replicable. The key barrier to their development is that the beneficiaries of these approaches have little power, financially or politically, to compete effectively with the mainstream regeneration lobby. Those that influence investment in regeneration are those that control landbanks and their professional service firm partners. Just look at the sponsors of any regeneration conference or local enterprise partnership ‘summit’ and you will see who can afford to invest now to profit later. And they wont be talking about person centred approaches to change. They will be talking about building infrastructure and moulding people to meet the needs of employers (they call this ‘the skills agenda’).
And they wonder why our communities are not more enterprising!
Is it possible to reap a dividend from the success of others? I have much sympathy for the idea. However the journey to ‘break-even’ is often a long one, certainly months if not years. More likely decades before any consistent ‘dividend’ is generated. Few of us doing this work can afford to defer our payments for that long! If you want a quick return on your investment you work with those that already have money and have the shortest journey to break even. Peter Jones and Doug Richards and their ilk are not daft in who they pitch their enterprise products to.
In the current system it is almost impossible to realise any value from working on the enterprise agenda with those that most need our support.
Community Development 