The Power of Plans

Our aim here is to explore plans which worked, plans which led to positive achievements and plans which were judged to be successful. It is a theme too often neglected, in favour of the critique of error and the exposure of failure. Yet we can surely learn the lessons of success as readily as the lessons of failur

9DF: A nine-dimensional framework for community engagement

Participatory planning literature has yet to fully engage with the situatedness of community engagement and diverse experiences of involvement. In this paper, nine dimensions based in core concepts of engagement in decision-making are explored using data co-produced with community researchers. Empowerment, influence and inclusion are distinguished as: connection and legitimacy of voice; enacting change in development or plans; and the representation of minorities or disadvantaged groups. When articulated in terms of process and outcome, and planning context, they offer a nine-dimensional framework (or 9DF) for a more community-oriented evaluation of community engagement

Place Profiles: Localizing Understandings of Disadvantage

The everyday economy team at UCL have been investigating the perspective of civil society actors in England, and the longer-term project of economic resilience where the goal is to engage with local knowledge of places for co-produced policies. This working paper on place-profiles is an important iteration. It is a response to contested framings of some places as ‘left-behind,’ in light of the tendency towards ‘othering’ in inequality metrics. It seeks to review the construction of ideas of disadvantage and means to broaden approaches to economic strategy through co-production. The study presented here adds to a wider debate about how places are understood, and the value of co-produced approaches to profiles. It demonstrates the politics of knowledge of inequalities in economic development, and the complexity of establishing more place-sensitive policy responses. It explores the possibility of using local data on economic factors, as an opportunity for developing place-based understandings. The study focuses on ‘small area’ sets of data and means of interrogation. Using three localities in England that have contested narratives of changes in development, it demonstrates existing public data and stakeholder interpretations of prototype ‘place profiles.’ This ‘localization’ provides a point of deliberation about constructing policy narratives with local stakeholders. The analysis focuses on the challenges associated with localized quantitative metrics, and how data can co-shape understandings of potential socio-economic problems and solutions. Findings suggest that local concerns are not observable through the data, but that contestations of metrics can bring to light alternative stories of ‘change’ in development through discussion with local stakeholders. On the one hand, reducing the scale of quantitative data is not sufficient and co-production is needed to draw out local interpretations. On the other, the very act of localizing data is highly contentious, and may further alienate local stakeholders foreclosing co-production of knowledge for strategy-making. This reinforces the value of qualitative, embedded work by stakeholders and flexibility in strategy making processes

9DF: a nine-dimensional framework for community engagement

Participatory planning literature has yet to fully engage with the situatedness of community engagement and diverse experiences of involvement. In this article, nine dimensions based in core concepts of engagement in decision-making are explored using data co-produced with community researchers. Empowerment, influence and inclusion are distinguished as: connection and legitimacy of voice; enacting change in development or plans; and the representation of minorities or disadvantaged groups. When articulated in terms of process and outcome, and planning context, they offer a nine-dimensional framework (or 9DF) for a more community-oriented evaluation of community engagement

9DF: A nine-dimensional framework for community engagement

Participatory planning literature has yet to fully engage with the situatedness of community engagement and diverse experiences of involvement. In this paper, nine dimensions based in core concepts of engagement in decision-making are explored using data co-produced with community researchers. Empowerment, influence and inclusion are distinguished as: connection and legitimacy of voice; enacting change in development or plans; and the representation of minorities or disadvantaged groups. When articulated in terms of process and outcome, and planning context, they offer a nine-dimensional framework (or 9DF) for a more community-oriented evaluation of community engagement

Social and community infrastructure: Lessons from Co Durham

The example of Sacriston, a former mining village, shows the power of community organisation, but also its limits. Some problems can only be solved by political interventions, but this must work in collaboration with the community, and in harmony with the social infrastructure people have built for themselves. The Labour Party emerged from a labour movement that was active on many fronts: fighting for workers’ rights and decent pay, but also providing support for the elderly, housing, cooperative food shops, and many other social and community benefits. As John Tomaney notes elsewhere in this issue, it was well over 100 years ago that the Durham Miners’ Association established the Durham Aged Mineworkers’ Homes Association, for miners and their families who were denied colliery housing when their employment ended. By the mid-twentieth century, 29 per cent of the total population of the Northern Counties was in a cooperative society. Despite the swing to Morrisonian centralisation in the post-war period, a rich array of community organisations and community infrastructure still exists across Britain. Central and local government should work in collaboration with these organisations, initiatives and communities, drawing on their situated knowledge. In this article we report on a pilot research project undertaken by researchers at UCL in conjunction with the Durham Miners’ Association, exploring social infrastructure in the former mining village of Sacriston, four miles north west of Durham City, with a population of c. 6,000. It shows that despite rapid social and economic changes following colliery closure, experienced as decline and loss by many in the village, the community has displayed resilience and, despite lasting austerity and many obstacles, impressive efforts to maintain and build social infrastructure

The Blended Landscapes of Outer London

In March 2020, a Suburban Taskforce was established by Members of Parliament (MPs) in the UK. This Taskforce argued that the experiences of suburbs in England were poorly understood by policy-makers and developers, practitioners, and the general public. Over the two years of research and engagement that followed, a key consideration to emerge was the management of change and particularly in the context of growth pressures evident in Outer London. This has synergies with recent trends in suburban research that turn away from negative framings of places in extended metropolitan areas, such as 'edgeness' (not in the city) and 'in-between-ness' (neither urban nor rural activity). Instead, there is increasing focus on suburban cultural dynamics and political ecology. Drawing on these ideas, this paper looks at suburbs as landscapes with natural and built elements, as well as diverse activities, and focuses on the processes of blending. The evidence and views presented to the Taskforce are used to investigate the blended landscapes of Outer London. The paper explores the elements and development rationalities in two London Boroughs, Sutton and Waltham Forest, and the context that shapes choices. The findings suggest that, while not discounting the significance of growth pressures and limits to local control, suburban landscapes are heavily influenced by responses to local socio-economic concerns, historic urban form, and the politics of local development. The paper concludes by reflecting on the directions of change in the study areas, and the significance of dynamics of ongoing blending of the landscapes across outer parts of major cities

Food Security & Civil Society

Findings from an in-depth qualitative investigation of Food Security with people from civil society organisations. A ‘boots on the ground’ perspective, which reveals the concerns about food security, and stakeholder evaluations of what they think needs to be done

Social infrastructure and ‘left-behind places’

We explore the making, unmaking and remaking of social infrastructure (SI) in ‘left-behind places’ (LBPs) through a case study a former mining village in northern England. We address the understudied affective dimensions of ‘left-behindness’. Seeking to move beyond a narrowly economistic of reading LBPs, our framework: strongly emphasises the importance of place attachments and the consequences of their disruption; considers LBPs as ‘moral communities’, seeing the making of SI as an expression of this; views the unmaking of SI through the lens of ‘root shock’; and explains efforts at remaking SI in terms of the articulation of ‘radical hope’