Research shows that many citizens feel there has been a decline in what is often referred to as the 'community of place'. Communities of interest meanwhile – whether through social networking, faith, or single-issue politics – are now increasingly important to many people. Feeling connected to a place, or to a community of interest, of course has different levels of affiliation, from the deeply rooted to the casual exchange of information. People are now often passionate about their community of interest, but are seemingly often less passionate about the community of place than in decades gone by.
So how connected are you? Middle-class professionals with relative prosperity invariably feel well connected to communities of interest and can navigate the way decisions are made, but for many this is often more variable if asked how rooted they are in their geographic community.
Housing aspirations, employment changes and schooling considerations all mean that we are often likely to be moving around and 'adopting' local communities and places for fixed periods.
We may like 'the area' or 'the neighbourhood' on a basic level, based on an assessment of its pleasantness, the quality of the local shopping for occasional use between big supermarket shops, and the quality of transport connectivity to our various pursuits. And because our connectedness comes from work, social activities, old student friends, social networks including using new technology, hobbies and academic pursuits, we don't necessarily develop a sense of a tight-knit community of place because we don't need one to bind our connections.
Connectedness
Now take the settled resident of somewhere like Barking & Dagenham, who moved to or was born in the area many decades ago, and where connectedness was often associated with place: from living in the same 'banjo' (cul-de-sac); going to the same school; working in the same local factory; or socialising in the same club or pub. Working in factories like Ford could be very tedious, and so connection to the community of place was important to engender a sense of wellbeing not achieved at work even though conveniently local.
Beyond the deep sentiment of associating place with one's family growing up there, people also felt a sense of stewardship toward the area and its schools, churches, local employers and places to meet people in the street. Children grew up and many stayed, and as their families got bigger the council provided houses with gardens in the same neighbourhood. Residents can even tell you that a sense of place was associated with pride that a line including Alf Ramsay, Bobby Moore, Terry Venables, Trevor Brooking, Tony Adams and John Terry represented their country at football.
Many families moved to the Becontree estate, the largest council estate built in the world at that time, in the 1920s, 30s and 40s from slum clearance in the old East End and 60 years later still lived there with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren nearby. While they saw the old East End change demography in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and then saw cliff edge regeneration and gentrification with developments like Canary Wharf coming later in the 1980s, people saw their area stay the same. And while many children and their families moved out to Essex if they could afford it they retained strong links to the place where they grew up.
'Right to buy' changed the home ownership pattern among the white working-class in Barking & Dagenham; and the decline of Ford and other industry changed the route of apprenticeships, semi-skilled or unskilled roles into work. Now, there are new neighbours 'not from round here' which soon became 'it's not the same around here' and 'there's no sense of community' and by extension 'we've lost the sense of community values as a country'.
Expectation
In many parts of London over the decades people had no expectation that the council would provide houses, but in Barking & Dagenham the system operated for many, many years that families were 'moved up' the housing ladder. There are now 20,000 fewer houses in the public sector and residents feel angry that their children and grandchildren cannot move into houses as they themselves did as their families outgrew their council flats.
At the same time a community with statistically the lowest adult skills base in the country has not been able to always find work, even on the edge of a global economic city that boomed for 20 years, or afford to buy the former right to buy houses being purchased by young Londoners from other parts of the capital and/or buy-to-let landlords.
This sense of frustration cannot be assuaged by better public services alone. It goes deeper than this. And people simply want to trust and use their local school and local hospital, and so the politics of middle England on issues such as choice do not resonate or connect national politics to local issues. While the well-connected find it easy to look outwards, the rooted look inwards in their communities and find examples of unwanted change in an area with the fastest and wide-ranging demographic change in the country.
Traditional, often older, white working-class residents feel the area is not as good as it once was and are not optimistic about the future; and our newer and ethnically diverse communities, often younger, like the area and feel more optimistic about the future and their economic prospects. But both feel that people from different backgrounds do not always get along and so do not easily feel connected to an integrated community of place.
Discussion
Our major learning over recent years in Barking & Dagenham is that there is not a communications or marketing solution to creating a sense of community. Rather, we have found that positive discussion, myth-busting and a new narrative about change must come from within communities through sustained and embedded community development, events to bring people together, and visible examples of the community helping itself, for example young people clearing the gardens of the elderly and young and old together planting bulbs and taking pride in amenity areas. But the lack of housing, jobs and prospects remain material and dangerous to community cohesion until regeneration delivers medium-term benefits. As economic aspirations rise, so will connectivity to things other than place; but recreating and celebrating the community of place so that people look to the future and not the past is a vital stepping-stone along the way.
Rob Whiteman is Chief Executive of the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and Chair of the London Chief Executives' London Committee (CELC). He is also a member of NESTA's public services Innovation Lab.
