NB Further discussion of  ‘Call The Midwife’ as a really successful BBC1 drama series (and about who wrote and performed the music for the drama) can be found on Hilary’s other website, DreamingRealist ~ Call The Midwife: A BBC1 Triumph For Real People.  The blog on this website considers issues around delivering professional public service. 
You are most welcome to add Comment on either post.

The first reason why Jennifer Worth’s accounts of the grim realities of family life in London’s war-torn East End in the 1950s are critical to our present understanding of public service is that the UK National Health Service was one of the greatest achievements ever for the well-being of the mass of ‘ordinary’ people.  Let no-one imagine it wasn’t a big deal.  It was (and remains) a history-changing collective leap towards a fundamentally different mode of constructing public service.

The second reason is that the experiences of 1950s London which Jennifer Worth relates are still sometimes with us.

Mercifully there have been no wars on British soil since 1945 further to destroy the physical fabric of our communities.  But awful things do still happen to young families and babies, and the circumstances under which some British children grow up remain unforgivable, in one of the wealthiest nations on earth.

‘Need’ or ‘nice to have’?
Perhaps poverty and basic human survival needs are now often less acknowledged than they were in the immediate post-WWII years.  Jennifer Worth tells us that few knew about Poplar in the East End of London of the 1950s; but nonetheless almost everyone understood then that money was tight.  The most basic human requirements were not always available, regardless of one’s bank balance; food rationing – which at least in theory applied to everyone – didn’t go until 1955.  In that sense at a minimum we probably really were All In It Together.

There has been a shift towards conflating ‘need’ and ‘would like to have’.  Whilst we can debate the desirability or otherwise of this shift – materialistic, yes; but maybe also a vehicle for raising valid ambitions? – the clear downside is that most in mainstream society now genuinely don’t perceive the desperation of those who without enough simply to survive.

Basic essentials
That basic lack of the essentials for a decent life is at the core of what Jennifer Worth recounts.  And for some, hidden away from public view except when there is ‘trouble’, this is still their unremitting experience, every day.  There remain enclaves of abject material poverty and almost zero visibility, perhaps most often in the ‘donuts’ of inner cities or in isolated rural locations, where for the women especially empowerment in civil society is beyond comprehension.

Yet these same disenfranchised women turn willingly to the midwife when her services are required.  Anyone who has worked in early years or Sure Start will be aware of clients who without hesitation admit the local midwife but absolutely no-one else into their homes.  This most intimate of public services is accepted trustingly by almost every woman who requires it, regardless of chasms between client and provider of culture, language and whatever else.  And by very definition these clients are all prime carers of tiny British future citizens for whom we as a society have enduring responsibility.

Advocates for the invisible
Interviewing midwives in the course of my work, I have been struck by the clarity with which they see their role as mediators and advocates for the women in their care.  More than once I’ve been told by a midwife that ‘We’re the only people who speak for [some of] these women.’

By defining midwifery as women’s work of no wider relevance, conducted within a silently conspiratorial bubble away from the public eye, we take that same eye way off the ball.

Midwives report that in the absence of integrated support they find themselves delivering many other tasks as well as babies; they tell of being asked for help with housing, benefits, school problems and other issues which confront struggling families.  But it doesn’t have to be like that.

Seamless provision
There is currently a badly overstretched midwifery service with worrying implications for infant well-being, and a nation-wide shortage of midwives. Their core expertise, caring for expectant mothers and delivering and nurturing their infants, is enough to expect of our midwives.  Beyond that, the public service challenge is to find ways to secure seamless client progress from the privacy of maternity care to the wider remit of child and family care; and from there onwards towards responsible civic engagement.

Midwifery demonstrates that virtually everyone will accept public services if these are tailored to need.  It’s time to take heed of those midwives, and to blend their intuition and understandings about so-called ‘hard-to-reach’ clients (is it them; or is it us?) into the canon of generic public service.

Vantage point of the vulnerable
At the very least, Jennifer Worth’s work offers a chance for practitioners in every part of provision, from education and health providers to housing and town planning professionals, to consider afresh what the world looks like from the vantage point of the most vulnerable, whether in the 1950s or now.

What starts in the delivery room must move on through the home, school and community into the place of work.  Any public service which loses the trust of some clients before their children even reach nursery class is one which also fundamentally breaches the trust for long thereafter of its smallest future citizens.

A version of this piece on professional challenges first appeared in the New Start on-line magazine of 18 January 2012.

Further discussion of  ‘Call The Midwife’ as a successful BBC1 drama series can be found on Hilary’s other website, DreamingRealist ~ Call The Midwife: A BBC1 Triumph For Real People. 

[For those (not in the UK) unable to access the replays, the DVD of the series can be ordered from the BBC Shop here.]

What do ‘non-academic’ Sociologists do?
In preparation for my visit I conducted a bit of very informal research myself,  asking contacts in a variety of on-line groups for trained sociologists how they earned a living, as well as thinking about people I know in the non-academic world who have a Sociology degree, and what they now do. Some of the occupations and activities which came up are listed here, though these are by no means all we might have considered - a minute’s thought will bring many other activities also to mind; and further suggestions, from you the reader, of sociologically informed occupations are indeed welcome in the Comments section which follows this piece….

But that’s by no means the end of the story.  ’Sociology in your Career’ is sometimes rather different from ‘Your career in Sociology’…

Portfolio careers?
For the majority of the Sociology graduates these occupations are full-time jobs, but for others they are part-time, temporary, voluntary or only one aspect of a portfolio career.  Sociologists do not only study the changes in society, they often also experience them very sharply at first hand.

For some people with a degree in Sociology particular occupations and careers are perhaps even a vocation, whilst for others the professional situation which they currently occupy is simply a stepping stone or transition towards something different.

It all depends perhaps on what outcomes of one’s sociological training and experience one most values.  During our seminar session the final year undergraduates and I took an initial look at the skills and knowledge, professional and personal, which they were acquiring.  Our first attempt to bring some order to our insights looked like this:

Personal and professional skills and knowledge
Again, this is but a beginning.  Each student has his or her own interests and specialist subject preferences, each of them values some aspects of the sociological learning experience more or less than other aspects.  At least, however, this first attempt at joint, collaborative mapping of skills and knowledge helps us to see the scope for articulation of what sociological learning can offer; and there is much more still to be said, once any Sociology student takes a good look at her or his individual degree programme and elective additional studies.

The important thing, I suggested, is that in taking our career paths forward, we be very clear about the skills and knowledge which our study of Sociology has developed.

Potential employers (and potential investors and private clients, if one takes the more overtly entrepreneurial route) are unlikely to be particularly engaged by the names of modules which we have studied; but they will probably be very interested in what that study has added to our professional portfolio of know-how and competence.  Job applications and / or future business proposals are where we present what we actually have to offer, not ‘just’ what we’ve already done.

Moving forward
As I explained yesterday, I am not a career advisor.  I am straightforwardly a practitioner Sociologist who has also always maintained an involvement in academic Sociology, and it is from these perspectives that I speak and write.

My own ’career’ path has had many fascinating by-ways, as my personal experience criss-crosses my professional persona.  But I have without fail  found my sociological training invaluable, always leading me to ask questions, and giving me a conceptual and research toolkit to interrogate any situation with which I have been confronted.

For some few, a degree - or usually a number of degree/s –  in Sociology will stand alone as a way to make a living, perhaps as an academic or as a researcher in a large organisation or private corporation.  For others - probably the large majority - however, the skills and knowledge acquired will become instead an exceptionally useful foundation for further professional development in other ways.

Sociology offers an overview of society and human life beyond that of many other disciplines.  It provides the tools for analysis and insight into how organisations ‘work’ and even why change occurs.  And it gives right at the start of an individual’s career the opportunity to examine ideas and find out what it is in that vastly complex thing called ‘society’ which most fascinates that person.

A hint or three
Specific advice is best gained from tutors and career advisors who know a student’s particular interests, contexts, strengths and, perhaps, weaknesses. Nonetheless, offering a little general guidance here may be helpful to some.

Firstly, it a usually a good idea in the course of a degree in Sociology to ensure that one gains a good understanding of both qualitative and quantitative research and analysis. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches benefit a lot from augmentation by the other; and obviously both are invaluable if one is employed in any way e.g. to examine organisational processes, or to undertake research, understand statistical data, write reports, evaluate risk, or otherwise to bring rigour to the analysis of a given situation or scenario.

Secondly, it can do no harm to become confident about working online, using spreadsheets, writing a blog, developing presentations and the like. If you know how to do all these things, make sure you say so when you talk to potential employers and clients. Plus make sure, too, if it’s appropriate, that you are well-presented online as yourself – a good LinkedIn profile, membership of suitable online groups (perhaps including e.g. some free LinkedIn ones, or the British Sociological Association‘s ‘Sociology Outside Academia’ group?)  and so forth.

And thirdly, be imaginative.  Ask those questions.  Think of the things you (might) like to do, and match them against the huge variety of occupations you could pursue. (Look at the whiteboard list above, and ask how these occupations, or others which may be of interest, connect to your core sociological skills and knowledge portfolio.) Once you have done this, you may want to meet real practitioners in the roles which catch your eye, and perhaps even observe or shadow them if the opportunity arises – your active enquiries now will help you to choose what really engages you, and your enthusiasm and possible participation may serve you well later on, when further training and / or job applications are the order of the day.

In short
A degree in Sociology is a lift-off to a vast range of future occupations.  What comes next can be decided with due care, whilst that degree is still being completed.  To have a whole world of opportunities opening up, and at the same time be studying such a rewarding subject, is an exciting prospect.

Once you have a grasp of the Sociological Imagination, you won’t, as I know very well, want to let it go.

Green space can be an agent for social cohesion and the sustainable development and inter-connectedness of communities. The shift required to achieve this is to perceive green space, not just as a benign and pleasant passive context, but actually as a potentially pro-active force for community sustainability, cohesion and engagement and wider social inclusion – to move from conventional ideas about green ‘space’ to the more nuanced idea of green ‘hubs’, as one way to enhance communities’ well-being through genuine stakeholder engagement and social inclusion.

How this shift might be achieved is a complex matter, comprising a combination of skilled professional input and the particular insights which only residents and citizens ‘on the ground’ can provide in any given instance.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ways to structure and utilise the public realm are already amongst the prime concerns of many civil engineers.   There is nonetheless a case for exploring ideas around what might be termed the ‘community and cognitive’ aspects of public space – in other words, the real-life locations where culture, knowledge, ‘knowing’ and  communality do, or might, co-incide; and what may transpire when these conjunctions actually occur.  Some work in this general area is now beginning to emerge – not least the development of, for instance, the British Library’s Sustainable Cities initiative ¹ and Natural Capital Initiative partnership  ² programme, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)’s Sustainable Urban Environment initiative ³.   All of these facilities offer much food for thought about what the ‘green’ physical environment agenda really comprises.

This current discussion will however be more specifically focused on the scope of / for accepted and potential social interactions relating to green space and communities. These thoughts are offered in the hope of encouraging more debate about the ways that green space can or might produce positive and beneficial synergies with concerns for the cultural enhancement and social inclusiveness of given locations.

It is increasingly recognised that the physical formulation of public space has real consequences for the overt and visible activities which occur in it; but the parallel recognition of the community, cultural and cognitive or perceptual impact perhaps has been slower to emerge – though in both cases such recognition certainly exists at one level or another in at least some professional and civic dialogues.

There is substantive evidence, for instance, that crime can be designed ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a location such as a housing development (cf the Home Office ‘Design Against Crime’ initiative ⁴), and increasingly this consideration is a part of how the physical shape of a community is brought together.   Less thought however may be given to those aspects of location which are not so easily measured, or which over time shape understandings rather than direct behaviour.  Yet it is these less immediately obvious factors which may have the most communal impact for issues such as social inclusion in the longer term.

One interesting example of how public space can provide a positive stimulus (or not) to the understanding of social engagement and inclusion arises from consideration of green space.

Green space

Amongst the many organisations which have focused specifically on green space are the UK Department for Communities and Local Government  ^4a(Planning Policy Guidance 17: Planning for Open space,  Sport and Recreation, 2002), the  Utah-based not-for-profit Center for Green Space Design  ⁵   and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) ⁶  which is the British Government’s advisor on architecture, urban design and public space.

CABE offers a useful typology of urban green space  as below ^{7, 8}:

§         Parks and gardens

§         Natural and semi-natural urban green spaces

§         Green corridors

§         Outdoor sports facilities

§         Amenity green space

§         Provision for children and teenagers

§         Allotments, community gardens and city farms

§         Cemeteries and churchyards

§         Accessible countryside in urban fringe areas

To this can be added the somewhat wider typology of green space proposed by the Center for Green Space Design, which considers both urban and rural locations.

This is summarised as being the CEDAR approach ⁹  – green space may be seen as having

§         Cultural

§         Ecological

§         Developmental

§         Agricultural  &

§         Recreational value.

To quote:

The CEDAR approach allows a community to understand, locate and evaluate its unique open spaces in terms of cultural, ecological, developmental, agricultural and recreational (CEDAR) characteristics. An inclusive method to land assessment, the CEDAR approach truly addresses all types of open space, because every open space falls within one or more of the CEDAR categories. When a community determines which of its open spaces are important for cultural, ecological, developmental, agricultural and recreational reasons, a community gains valuable insight into the legacy it wants to preserve for future generations.

Dozens of specific types of open spaces fall within the cultural, ecological, developmental, agricultural and recreational (CEDAR) categories of open space mentioned above. For example, ecological open spaces include slopes, water quality, drainages, geological features, wildlife habitat, vegetation, and ecological corridors.

There is, then, substantial consensus about what the core factors in developing understandings of green space should be, all of them critical considerations.  Furthermore, both organisations draw attention to the importance of ‘green corridors’ which, as the Center for Green Space Design notes, can provide recreational trail space, zone buffers, wildlife migration paths, community separators and agricultural spaces, often in areas of land which would otherwise be ‘too small to farm and too big to mow’ [ibid].

Of even more direct significance in the present debate however, is the mission statement of the Center for Green Space Design, which advocates the ‘equitable and affordable preservation of valuable community green space and the implementation of quality patterns of growth’.  The focus of this mission is to identify, for example, viewpoints, culturally and historically significant locations, ‘outdoor classroom’ sites and cultural and scenic corridors.

Here is an emphasis which approaches consideration of the conjunctions of the physical and community / socially held perceptual aspects of green space.

Yet still perhaps something needs to be added.  The appreciation of green space impact on and interaction with people is there;  but does it take us far enough in seeing how this can be employed to enhance and extend the meanings of these impacts and interactions?

Green space is certainly valued and indeed actively nurtured by many with responsibility for the public realm, but is it true in general that green space, however well managed, is still seen largely as a passive backdrop to the activities of the human beings it hosts?

Could it be that in such passive perceptions we lose sight of some of the potential which green space offers for improving cultural and social inclusion and development?

Stakeholding

The functions of green space detailed above demonstrate some of the numerous stakeholding interests which it encompasses.

Amongst the stakeholders of green space are those who formally own it (whether that ownership is public or private), those who use it (whether for work, rest or play), and those (probably, given the now-recognised critical importance of greening, all of us) who have an interest in its provenance and future upkeep.

Nonetheless, there is, as CABE has pointed out ⁷ a challenge for the management of green space, in that interests in it are frequently not well, if at all, co-ordinated.  Despite the exemplars provided by the CEDAR process (above), there is a general dearth of well-documented dialogue between all parties concerned (planners, residents, environmentalists, engineers of several sorts, local councillors and many more) about how the use and development of green locations might be determined. As we have noted, this is not helped by the multiple ownerships and responsibilities involved – public and private landowners, national, regional and local governance and inevitably some designations of use which may not reflect current activity in these changing times.

There are now many exemplars of good practice; current instances might include the serious efforts by government and local authorities in recent years to renovate historic public parks across the UK, incorporating both traditional features and more recent eco-environmental requirements.  Nonetheless some random (but contemporary and very real) examples perhaps illustrate that there remains work on cross-disciplinary green space collaboration  – not only by planners and engineers, but liaising between all of us – still to be done.   It is difficult in the light of these contemporary examples to find evidence of consensus about the functions of public and open space, let alone to argue that the potential for community life and sustainability of such space has been generally recognised or harnessed:

* A small downtown city centre patch of wasteland is mysteriously cultivated to produce vegetables;  the authorities destroy it.

* Dogs are permitted unleashed in a large urban green space;  mothers with prams and small children are reported to be too nervous to go there.

* A group of local volunteers want to put on a community celebration using an open area at the end of their street;  the licensing costs imposed by the city council are huge and the event has to be cancelled.

* Heritage funding is acquired to renovate the public realm of a city park; in returning to the exact intentions of the original designer, and to the horror of local environmental activists, significant numbers of healthy and non-hazardous trees and shrubs are felled – thereby reducing the park’s ‘city lung’ effect and preventing birds from nesting.

* A inner-city road-widening scheme involves the destruction of many homes, yet still fails to provide any crossings for pedestrians to move between two previously separated communities and their local playing field.

* Some farmers neglect to keep their premises tidy and actively resent holiday-makers; some visiting city dwellers fail to understand that farming is an earthy business.

* Fishing is permitted in the lake of a city park, even though water birds are reported to meet distressing ends because of this.

* Gates to public footpaths which significantly cut the distance between one suburban location and another are padlocked to prevent cyclists using the route – at the same time as the local health authority is promoting a ‘walk to work / school / the shops’ programme.

* Although there is dense woodland nearly, some wildlife conservationists oppose lighting for another short-cut pedestrian route between inner-city communities because it might disturb the bats.

* A complex system of traffic lights is introduced at a major urban tourist venue route which might otherwise have provided both traffic calming and a natural amphitheatre for open-air performances.

* A small ‘green’ area developed on the inner-city site of a demolished house is fenced, gated and proclaimed a ‘community garden’ – and then left for years to become a place of desolation.

* The location of facilities for travellers and skateboarders becomes a major local media issue.

* A suburban green gym falls into such disrepair that it is removed for health and safety reasons.

* Rural walkers’ rights of way are regularly contested by landowners or ignored by farmers.

* An enclosed private housing development has only one pedestrian path to the few neighbouring amenities – but the barely used route involves walking though a tunnel behind the estate and under a disused railway.

* The sale to a supermarket of a nondescript piece of land owned by a university is opposed vigorously, even though the university wants to use the sale proceeds to enhance the general sports provision it offers students.

* One person’s privacy hedge is another’s daylight blocker.

* One small children’s playground is provided for an enormous inner-city park;  and it is located a long way from the part of the park which links with an area of severe social deprivation – whilst the adjacent few open-access tennis courts (an attraction for local young people from that area are left in broken disarray)

* Waiting lists for allotments in some areas of the UK can be many times longer than the list of those who actually hold this facility; yet most towns and cities have large areas of unused or even derelict land owned by educational, health and other civic authorities.

The list could go on, but perhaps the point is made.  Typologies of land use may well exist, but there seems to be little consensus about what green space is ‘for’, when it comes to the practical determination of its functions.

Further, as previously noted, in the UK at least this lack of focus is not helped by the fact that most public space is overseen by planning policy (parks, recreation, etc) whilst green infrastructure (including water, brown field, grey field) is controlled by other agencies ¹⁰.

Indeed, by no means all visible and ‘usable’ green space is available for determination in the wider public interest, sometimes because the land ownership is strictly private and sometimes because, whilst there is a legitimate public interest, use is formally determined in a way which does not facilitate wider considerations of engagement and green space development.

Nonetheless, we can identify from the above random observations a range of (‘types’ of) people for whom green space is significant, and for whom in this regard aspects of culture or diversity / inclusion or understanding / knowledge of the contexts might be pertinent issues.  This list includes for example ‘people-as-private-citizens’ who are

* young / older

* carers of others

* active / less personally mobile

* without private transport

* socially / economically disadvantaged

* heritage / culturally conscious

* environmentally / eco- conscious

* keen on horticulture (food and / or recreational gardening).

And, in a different way, the list also implicates ‘people-as-those-in-authority’ whose duties include making decisions about how green space issues in the public domain and in private business are determined.

CABE’s good practice guide on Green Space Strategies ⁷, like others, notes that it is difficult to find the commonalities which facilitate action in this complex and busily contested field.  As in the rest of real-time life, when it comes to green space, stakeholding is difficult terrain.

Green and common ground for the future

It is easy, from some conventional professional perspectives, to forget that health and wellbeing, recreation and environmental issues are equally important whoever and wherever people are.  People have different – and more, or less, mainstream – ways of expressing it, but these are pressing themes common to all faiths and cultures, and to all ages and both genders of the human race.

This observation alone should put green concerns towards the top of any agenda which addresses sustainability, whether environmental, social or economic;  and it surely follows from this that green space is an equally critical matter for those concerned with physical space and the public realm.

It is opportunities to develop praxis, that interconnectivities of general principles and practical applications, which are probably of most interest to civil engineers and their colleagues.

The opportunities around green space and inclusion now beginning to be identified are both challenging and potentially very rewarding in these respects.  Green space offers scope, for instance, for:

* social hubs;

* commonality of interest;

* celebration of cultures and communities;  and

* opportunities for knowledge and knowing.

Social hubs: To start then with the idea of green space as ‘social hubs’.  These are the physical places where, at least hypothetically, everyone can meet on an equal basis; or, put another way, the great outdoors is a great leveller – and a great host.

As an example, the scope for using green space inclusively in this way is enormous not only in the suburbs, where informal meeting points may be sparse, but also in areas of disadvantage such as parts of the inner city, or some of the more desolate areas of run-down terraced streets or housing estates where housing density may be greater, but facilities are often not.

In all these instances, the fundamental requirements are the same – safe, mobility accessible, interesting and pleasant.  But beyond the basics, the big question is, can everyone whom the green space serves, whoever they are, actually get to it easily; and will everyone want to?

Arguably, these questions are even more important in areas of social and / or economic deprivation than in the leafier parts of town.  This is where the notion of green space social hubs might come into its own – not least because one important aspect of green space is that it is usually free (in the financial sense) to access, and it is informal – so no-one need feel intimidated by being there.  These factors can be critical when it comes to social inclusion and diversity, yet they are not much considered by either environmentalists or civic planners in the context of the uses of physical, and especially green, space ¹¹.

Only time will tell whether it works, but there is a strong case for actively developing ‘green hubs’ in areas where people have difficulties finding places to meet informally as neighbours.  Examples of where this already occurs might be the civic spaces of Mediterranean cities such as Toulouse or Barcelona, with their city centre park seats and the Spanish summer tradition of el paseo, or indeed the recently introduced idea in the UK of the mid-summer ‘Big Lunch’ ¹², which is being promoted as a means of getting residents of a street or area to meet each other and share, amongst other things, vegetable seedlings.

There is a good case for experimenting with development of green hubs at the interface of different neighbourhoods, in the hope that, properly managed, they will encourage wider connections and perhaps the breaking down of sometimes dysfunctional ‘comfort zones’ which may be inhibiting socio-economic advancement and connection.

Commonality of interest: As the Tottenham MP, David Lammy, has noted in his 2008 article for SERA Magazine ¹³, there is sometimes an unspoken general assumption that ‘green issues’ are of most concern to scientifically well-informed westerners.  This belief is difficult to sustain, once it is recognised that, amongst many other examples, a basic tenet over the ages of Islam – a faith the philosophies of which were incepted millennia ago in the desert – has been conservation of resources, especially the fundamentals of life such as water.

Understanding the necessity to conserve and care for our planet has been a part of many belief systems for all recorded history;  to cite another steadfastly time-tested example, we may note the complex systems of crop and other produce rotation adopted over back in the mists of time in many parts of the world.

Here surely is an example of common interest between peoples of almost all cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, both genders and all ages.  But how often do we see active gearing of this critically important interest into the fabric of debate about the use of green space in, for instance, areas of multiple deprivation?  Where is the intelligence on matters such as the traditions of horticulture of various non-western cultures?  How can these be brought inclusively to bear on the use of non-productive land (perhaps not even initially ‘green’ space), especially in inner city communities where income to buy food is often modest?  How is the official ‘environmental’ dialogue of nations such as Britain being challenged to respect and value the beliefs of people not yet always in the mainstream of decision-making?

Some evidence of developments along these lines is beginning to emerge.   There are projects such as the Black Environmental Network (BEN) ¹⁴ and the developing interest of the UK Environment Agency in faith-based understandings (e.g. Muslim, Christian and Jewish) of green issues in depressed areas such as parts of the Midlands and NorthWest of England ¹⁵.

And on another tack, we can also consider the commonalities of interest in health and well-being which are shared by people in all communities.  The evidence is as yet perhaps provisional, but Terry Hartig ¹⁶ suggests, on the basis of their work in examining correlations between income-related deprivation and both all-cause and circulatory disease mortality, that Richard Mitchell and Frank Popham ¹⁷ offer ‘valuable evidence that green space does more than pretty up the neighbourhood; it seems to have real effects on health inequality, of a kind that politicians and health authorities should take seriously.’

Similar concerns for health and well-being are also demonstrated in respect of young people by initiatives such as the National Children’s Bureau programme:  One Step, One World ^16a, which has been developed in a very embedded way the actual views and hopes of young people themselves.

There remains nonetheless a way to go before we can truly say that the many commonalities of ‘green interest’ between people of historically different backgrounds and cultures have been fully harnessed not only for individual well-being but also to benefit wider social cohesion.

Celebration of cultures and communities:  Green space is never less, at least potentially, than common ground;  and it can also be so much more.   This does not mean, however, that such space cannot also offer the possibilities for the celebration of specific cultures and communities.

Simple examples of this potential can be seen in the roles which parkland constructions such as pagodas or bandstands may fulfil.   Similarly, but more generically, natural amphitheatres provide the opportunity for multiple use and interpretation, whilst gardens, naturalised green areas, waterways and boulevards are amongst the locations both for the development of themed natural environment and green space, and for the hosting of devised artefacts such as sculpture and woodcarvings.

Once the imagination is set to work, there can be few communities or cultural heritages which cannot use green space to celebrate and share these important aspects of people’s lives.   The challenge for those whose responsibility it is to shape and maintain this space, is to ensure the wherever possible default position in regard to its design and stewardship both enables and facilitates this multiple interpretation and use, rather than constraining it.

Opportunities for knowledge and knowing:   Communities and cultures are not static, at least in modern-day societies.  They depend on knowledge and knowing of many sorts, both formal and informal understandings and shared perceptions.  Given the contemporary significance of knowledge and understandings, and the power these confer (or otherwise, in their absence) when it comes to sustainable communities ^{18, 19}, civic opportunities to enhance shared knowledge and understandings in our communities are important.

Sometimes this knowledge and these commonly held perceptions are already well-informed and offer constructive ways to cope with a rapidly changing world.  At other times, especially in closed or limited-access communities, the default understandings of how things work are not especially helpful to adaptation and positive sustainability for everyone;  ‘comfort zones’ can be reassuring and supportive for individuals and groups in the short term, but they can also be constraining when societies are in a state of flux.

Green hubs developed as natural meeting points might be one way to address this sort of issue.  These hubs can be designed so that people from any or all communities, men and women, young and older alike, feel comfortable and even enthusiastic about using them as points of civic information and knowledge exchange, as well as for more conventionally social functions.

But more than this, green hubs could become knowledge points in the sense that, say, school gardens already are – as places where people learn more about ‘how things happen’.   Whether these ‘things’ are related to obvious matters such as environmental issues, recycling and local history, or, more opportunistically, to less obvious aspects of modern day life in whatever way fits the circumstances, the process might be much the same.  Green hubs have the potential to be living community notice boards, points where knowledge and information can flow easily between different groups and individuals.   The scope for this development has hardly as yet been acknowledged, let alone properly explored.

Cultural, social and civic engagement

And so we move from formal stakeholding to real, meaningful engagement of the sort required for sustainable communities ²⁰,  from passive ‘passing through’ to genuine involvement in the action and development of sense of place with all the cultural and personal connection which this brings.

The conventional view is perhaps that green space has ‘stakeholders’ whose primary interest is formal ownership and / or stewardship, and ‘users’ who are permitted to access this space and perhaps to determine at the margins how it is used.

Beyond that, there is seldom much formal debate.  But at the level of everyday human interaction, as we have seen above, disputes and multiple interpretations of green space and how it should be used remain commonplace.

The conflicting opinions which we have already noted about green space suggest that present ideas about what constitutes legitimate stakeholding can be unnecessarily constraining.  In a world where socio-economic and eco-environmental interests are so fatefully intertwined, we can ill afford to put aside the ‘green’ aspects of social and communal life.

Of course there are many other possibilities we might also consider, but perhaps the issues above will suffice to demonstrate how green space can

* enhance community-based stakeholding,

* engage people of all sorts, and

* build (socio-economic) community capacity.

Green hubs as a key tool in regeneration, resilience  and sustainability (in all their forms) takes us from a passive view of green space, to a much more pro-active position.   They can become places to nurture and develop our social and cultural lives, as well as locations to enhance our own physical health and life on earth as we know it.

At a time when, as never before, there is an urgent and pressing need to bring together the natural and social environments, green hubs offer one way forward.   Managers of public space already have extended professional competence in handling the green environment, and some of their work now does connect the natural and social worlds through what John Hannigan sees as co-constructionist theories of socionature ²¹.

It requires only a more general adoption of what in another era C. Wright Mills ²² called the ‘sociological imagination’  – that ability to see the world as others see it, and to learn from that how better to sustain community life –  now to perceive that green areas can serve many civic functions beyond those which are self-evidently critical to our physical environment.   We need to build on cross-disciplinary good practice, to move from dealing in green ‘space’, to an active community-directed engagement, and development of the potential of green ‘hubs’.

References

1.  BRITISH LIBRARIES Sustainable Cities Initiative.  See http://www.bl.uk/science

2.  NATURAL CAPITAL INITIATIVE PARTNERSHIP.  See  www.naturalcapitalinitiative.org.uk

3.  ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL (EPSRC) Sustainable Urban Environment initiative .  See http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchFunding/Programmes/PES/SUE/

4.  U.K. HOME OFFICE ‘Design Against Crime’ initiative.  See  http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/securedesign1.htm

4a.  UK Department for Communities and Local Government  (Planning Policy Guidance 17: Planning for Open space,  Sport and Recreation, 2002)

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/planningpolicyguidance17

5.  CENTRE FOR GREEN SPACE DESIGN.  See  www.greenspacedesign.org

6.  COMMISSION FOR ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT (CABE).  See www.cabe.org.uk

7.  CABE. Green Space Strategies ~ a good practice guide  London, 2004

[http://www.cabe.org.uk/files/green-space-strategies-a-good-practice-guide.pdf]

8.  CABE: Skills to grow ~ Seven priorities to improve green skills space   London, 2009

[http://www.cabe.org.uk/publications/skills-to-grow]

9.  CENTER FOR GREEN SPACE DESIGN.  See www.greenspacedesign.org/home.html

10. I am grateful to my colleague Colin Dyas for a discussion of this point.

11. BURRAGE, H. Regeneration Rethink.  Public Service Review: Transport, Local Government and the Regions, Spring 2008, Issue 12, 86-87

[Regeneration re-think, Public Service Review: Transport, Local Government and the Regions, issue 12.]

12. THE BIG LUNCH.  See www.thebiglunch.com

13. LAMMY, D. Changing the Green Debate. New Ground SERA Magazine, Autumn  2008, 7-8.

[http://www.sera.org.uk/fileadmin/downloads/New_Ground_Autumn_2008.pdf  / http://www.davidlammy.co.uk/da/87952 ]

14. BLACK ENVIRONMENT NETWORK.  See http://www.ben-network.org.uk/

15. ENVIRONMENT AGENCY.  Conference on Environmental issues under scrutiny, 6 November 2008, Lincoln

[http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/94832.aspx?page=3&month=10&year=2008]

16. HARTIG, T.  (8 November 2008) Green space, psychological restoration, and health inequality. The Lancet, 8 November 2008, 372, Issue 9650, 1614 – 1615

[http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61669-4/fulltext]

16a.  National Children’s Bureau  One Step One World: Young People’s Vision of a Sustainable Future  (2002 ongoing)

http://www.ncb.org.uk/osow/home.aspx

17. MITCHELL, R. and POPHAM, F. (8 November 2008) Effect of exposure to natural environment on health inequalities: an observational population study. The Lancet, 8 November 2008, 372, Issue 9650,1655 – 1660

[http://www.lancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(08)61689-X/abstract]

18. BURRAGE, H. From Regeneration To Sustainability: A Northern Take On Knowledge.  Keynote Lecture, NUREC 2008 conference, 28 July 2008, Liverpool.  See  http://www.hilaryburrage.com/2008/07/from_regeneration_to_sustainab.php

19. BURRAGE, H. Knowledge, the new currency in regeneration.  Journal of Urban Regeneration and renewal,  October-December 2009, 3, No.2, 120-127

[http://henrystewart.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=searcharticlesresults,1,1]

20. BURRAGE, H. Communities And The Public Realm: Places For People, 21 April 2008.  See http://www.hilaryburrage.com/2008/04/communities_and_the_public_rea.php

21. HANNIGAN, J.   Environmental Sociology, Routledge, London, 2006 (2^nd edition)

22. WRIGHT MILLS, C. The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press, London, 1959

A version of this paper (accepted for publication on 22 February 2010) was first published in Municipal Engineer Vol.164 Issue ME3 in September 2011.

Three apparently separate observations have struck a deep chord in my mind in the last three months [Autumn 1981].

Firstly the HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspectorate) report at the beginning of the year referred not only to the devastation being wrought in education by the present financial stringency, but also to the problem of ‘morale’ in the profession.

Secondly, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has come to the conclusion – so both The Times and The Guardian inform us - that teaching is now among the most stressful occupations in the western industrial world, resulting in ill-health and/or a condition referred to as ‘burn-out’ in up to 25% of the profession. (The report attributes stress to violence, over-sized classes, time-table pressure, low salaries, worry about career prospects and job insecurity) .

Thirdly, we are repeatedly told that the urban riots of this summer have very largely involved young people and even relatively small children.

Teacher burn-out and burning riots
Perhaps it is over dramatic to make a direct link between the HMI and the ILO reports and the riots in Toxteth and elsewhere. Personally however as a teacher of 16-18 year olds in Liverpool I think not . What now follows is thus an attempt to articulate the connexion between the evident unrest amongst the young in the wider social context, and what I feel to be the crisis in the educational system intended to serve them. Specifically I am concerned with the crisis in confidence amongst those who operate at the chalk-face:

On the financial front, the entire educational world is reeling from the onslaught. The ravages of quasi-monetarism, the supposedly laissez-faire economy, and the deep dislike of those now in government of public spending in general have produced a situation which is almost beyond belief:

Despite gross unemployment amongst teachers schools are understaffed, capital equipment is left unrepaired and useless, text-books are battered and out-of-date (or simply non-existent), and schools are threatened with closure, or actually close. Concurrently, those teachers in employment receive frequent reminders that some of their number may not be so much longer.

Dwindling resources, increasing demands
Even official sources at the highest level admit that the ‘quality’ of education (including such ‘luxuries’ as music and swimming lessons) is diminishing, although they attempt to deny that ‘standards’ (the Three R’s) have dropped. Such semantic distinctions fail to convince many teachers, who know for themselves the difficulties of motivating learners who are offered nothing to whet their appetites for what school has to give.

At the same time however as the State system, which serves well over 90% of our schoolchildren, suffers such critical cut-backs, the government has announced its eagerness to provide significant sums of public money for schemes involving assisted places in the Private sector (thereby inevitably inferring that the latter is in some way preferable to the former); another revision of the school leaving examinations (with the unavoidable tensions of uncertainty for the teachers involved); and the provision of ‘prospectuses’ for all State schools (so fostering both the illusion that most parents really do have a ‘choice’, and the anxiety of teachers in schools where apparently ‘decent’ results must remain pipe dreams at present.

Little wonder that, as teachers see the devastation, and hear the criticism, around them, many despair.

An examination of the nursery and further sectors of education, even more than of the schools perhaps, brings home the point. Here then can be no pallid excuses that demand is dropping with falling rolls. The need is simply not being met.

Pre-school (nursery) education needs
The situation in the nursery sector is well-known. The enormous quantities of time (and money) expended by numerous parents to ensure that, despite the lack of State provision, their under-fives have some structured group or learning activity, speaks only too volubly of the unmet need. Inevitably, however, it is those children whose parents lack the energy, skills, imagination or confidence to devise their own alternative schemes who pay the highest price for the lack of State provision.

Unsurprisingly, those children least likely to have received any structured pre-school experience are also the most likely to lack the basis skills (social, manual, etc.) without which school success is elusive. Nonetheless, some of the same conglomerate of professional skills which were insufficiently valued by the authorities to be provided for under-fives are suddenly expected to work wonders, despite increasingly poor facilities and non-existent ancillary support when the HI-prepared five year olds go to school. Anything less than success is regarded generally as a matter of self-recrimination and personal failure for those teachers concerned.

Further education
Similarly, demand for FE outstrips supply. For many adolescents it offers a chance to gain crucial qualifications, continued peer-group/contact, and the maintenance of self-respect via a greater degree of autonomy than at school, whilst avoiding the stigma, and future liability, of present unemployment. Increasingly, too, adults are seeking FE, as they find themselves unemployed, or as they recognise the need for paper qualifications in order to find a job. Many potential students must then, as demand rises, be turned away from the colleges because of already over-full classes, lack of teaching staff and equipment, and over-stretched premises.

As with the nursery sector, so in the future sector we see the official double-think. In brutal truth, those who control the purse-strings place insufficient value on FE to meet demand and pay up; yet those teaching at sixteen-plus are expected to produce ‘results’, especially in public examinations such as the GCE.

Consider, however, the problems: Textbooks are even more scarce than in schools, ‘O’, and even ‘A’, levels are frequently taught over a mere nine months, often to precisely those students who are least prepared for study and most likely to have had previous learning difficulties; and these students simultaneously suffer considerable personal insecurity whilst local authorities defer decisions, sometimes well into the academic year, on whether or not to award meagre discretionary grants.

Conscripts to training?
Two other problems are also particularly pressing for the teacher in FE. Firstly, a good deal of what limited time there is must be spent on basic skills teaching, and student reassurance, rather than on specifically subject-orientated work. Secondly, some students attend college on an effectively involuntary basis. Either they themselves reluctantly opt for college as a lesser evil than the dole-queue; or they are sent by employers or youth scheme organizers; or their parents have decreed that, no questions asked, they must ‘get on’ by obtaining further qualifications.

Such conscripts are likely to be passive and apathetic, and much energy and effort is required of their teachers if there is to be any hope of motivation and success. Even then, however, the end result is often heavily disheartening for all concerned.

That, despite everything, some students achieve excellent results in their examinations is more than justification in itself for FE, and the second (or more truthfully often first) chance that it offers; but let it not be imagined that those who teach in FE are immune from the examination failures of their less fortunate students. Nor, within reason, should they be.

FE teaching is tricky
Yet a lack of student success is regarded by many as a purely personal failure on the part of the teacher. And the problems of the young or unemployed in neglected cities, the large classes, and the lack of technical and library resources, for instance, are seldom freely accepted as adequate defence of the failure. In other ways, too, the college teacher may find himself beset by problems peculiar, in some degree, to FE.

Younger students may find difficulty in adjusting to the liberal atmosphere of most colleges, thus requiring considerable teacher guidance and help with regard to work and behaviour, whilst mature students in the same class, naturally anxious about their eventual performance, may feel that, in comparison with their own scho|days, discipline is very lax and that younger students waste class time. In such a situation, the class teacher may experience considerable stress in attempting to meet the needs of these different interests and perceptions.

Likewise, pressure of time to complete a course, and out-dated, if any, textbooks, can result in the necessity to spend hours of staff time preparing handouts, with the ensuing danger that complaints about lack of ‘proper classroom teaching’ will be made.

Blame the teacher
Students in FE, whatever their motivation in attending, are unremarkable in that they need defences against eventual failure; and their immediate and obvious targets, far more visible to the consumer than financial cut-backs, are their teachers. When this is combined with the new-found personal autonomy, and the easy access to senior personnel, which college students usually enjoy, the result can on occasion produce discomfort for even the most conscientious and professionally well-equipped of teachers, as many tales from the staffroom will testify.

In such a climate confidence in one’s teaching abilities is, for all but the most sturdy, difficult to sustain; but students (or schoolchildren) are quick to sense that a teacher has moments of doubt about his own worth, and thereby can begin a potentially vicious circle of student-reinforced self-questioning, with all its consequences in the classroom and examination hall.

Managing FE in a challenging economic climate
So far we have discussed the position of the teacher who spends most of his/her time in activities directly connected with the learner. But what of those who have executive authority within the schools and colleges? Quite possibly, most senior staff find their loyalties divided. They have (usually) themselves had some experience of the classroom, but, on taking an executive role, and especially in the present financial climate, their attention and efforts inevitably tum to securing whatever they are able from the funds and other resources still available.

Much time has to be spent, particularly in the tertiary sector, in the pursuit of ‘high income’ and politically implemented courses such as those associated with the Manpower Services Commission (MSC). Similarly, staff in positions of authority at all levels of education are at present quite frequently obliged to expend considerable energy in the simple defence of the actual continuing existence of their own school or college.

In such a situation, whilst those in charge may have a genuine and humane understanding of the problems of their colleagues at the chalk-face, it cannot but be that any suggestion of failure on the part of classroom teachers is seen as a potential threat to the entire institution.

At a time when Heads and Principals feel a particular need to appear above criticism if they are to receive essential funds, it is unlikely that they will find it in themselves to receive bad news from the classroom with equanimity. Thus may the classroom teacher find that, as the circumstances in which (s)he is asked to perform become more difficult, so is (s)he less likely to receive a totally sympathetic reception if things begin to go wrong: hardly a situation which engenders mutual, or self, confidence at any level.

In other respects, too, it must be said that teachers may experience a crisis of confidence. For example: Many teachers are women, repeatedly noted for their relatively low estimation of their own worth; and authority in any form is now suspect, especially amongst the young.

Teaching as a ‘semi-profession’
Teaching is still regarded by many as simply a ‘semi-profession’, with little autonomy in the management of its own affairs, and a salary which reflects this. There again, many members of the general public, including large numbers of those being taught, believe teaching to be an easy option (the preparation, marking, administration and high risk of nervous illness are, after all, invisible) .

Finally, it is widely recognised that education has a crucial part to play in our technological, quasi-meritocratic society. One inevitable aspect of the teacher’s role is therefore that (s)he is significantly involved in the identification both of the bright and able, and of the less talented, of our future citizens.

Caring or categorizing?
Not only may this go against the grain for those teachers who regard themselves as members of a caring profession, and who hesitate to put on record their own judgements, sometimes to the detriment of particular pupils’ prospects, but it is also hardly likely to endear the profession to those who fall into this latter category.

Thus, as with money, so with education. Most people want what they believe it can offer, but rather fewer are especially keen on those who make their living dealing it out. Any of the factors mentioned above could be enough to make the conscientious teacher question his or her professional role and its execution; in combination they can produce a situation where self-examination results in a painful lack of self- confidence.

Further, teachers may find themselves in a Catch-22 position: The less their skills are valued, the more difficult it becomes to deliver the goods to the satisfaction of all concerned. At the same time, teaching jobs are under threat. Combine this with serious motivational problems, and with the acute anxiety of some parents, older pupils and students about employment prospects, and it becomes apparent that the position of many teachers is quite markedly unenviable.

Role strain and anxiety
In short, then, teachers are suffering from a severe case of role strain, and, with it, high levels of anxiety. They are expected to provide the means whereby their pupils and students will achieve employment; but the possibility of student success also involves the possibility of student failure. In this situation it is inevitable that there be a certain stress in the pupil- (or parent-) teacher relationship, especially as the world of work begins to be the virtual evaporation of educational resources and by an appalling employment situation, threatening to both teacher and learner, it is little wonder that teachers begin to internalise doubts about what they can actually achieve.

It is ironic that criticism of those professionally involved in education should be especially severe at a time when they have never been more highly qualified, or more carefully selected for whatever posts do become available. Such criticism diverts attention from the political and socio-economic problems which lie at the root of the whole contemporary crisis.

It is quite certain that teachers who feel themselves to be in a state of siege are not in the best position to work effectively towards the amelioration of that crisis. The majority of teachers do all they reasonably can, and some do more, to enable their charges to achieve whatever they may be capable of in the way of success.

The cards, however, are simply too frequently stacked against all concerned. in such a situation self-doubt and despondency within the teaching profession are perhaps the natural outcomes. For education the future looks bleak.

With thanks to the anonymous cartoon artist.

Complex issues
That said, the sheer richness of the seams Bytheway explores does not always make it easy for us to see where we’re being taken. To get my caveats over before we go to the plaudits, I am bemused by the ‘Questions’ at the end of each chapter – a practice often used in distance learning (Bytheway is a visiting Open University Research Fellow); for me these Questions somehow detract from the directness of the preceding text. I would rather each chapter had concluded, as some begin to do, with a few formal notes about what we have learnt, perhaps even with standard headings such as factors considered, implications and future directions for research on ageing, implications for policy about and provision for older people, and understanding the lived experience of ageing?

For it is the emphasis on real people’s ever-evolving, lived experience of ageing which marks this book out as in some ways quite remarkable. It is not always that an author tries to get into the skin of his or her subject by relating quite openly that writer’s own professional journey of discovery, whilst also using the outcomes of their research to make this a story about real people in all their fascinating detail and diversity.

Diversity, not homogeneity
And, perhaps to be picky, it’s on the subject of diversity that my other reservation hinges. Bytheway of course, as a professional statistician, points up very persuasively the evidence that older people, like those of great age, are not a homogenous group. They may (or may not) find with the advancing years that their networks are more constrained than before, but whilst the reality of ageing is universal, we all come from different places socially speaking. I’m therefore a little surprised that there is not more focus on the difficult question of what a person’s ‘community’ might be, not only (as is discussed) in socio-economic and urban-rural terms, but also in cultural respects.

The material in this book is taken from real research in parts of the UK, but for the future there will I’d think need to be more acknowledgement of the nuanced differences between, for instance, the extended family of a white British-through-the-ages working class family, and that, to give just one of very many possibilities, a UK family of Pakistani or Indian heritage.

Mutuality across age
Perhaps this is for Bytheway’s next book. The reality of exclusion, minority ethnicity and cultural influence in communities matters not only for elders now, but also for generations to come – as I discovered when examining Infant Mortality Rates, which in some small patches of our towns and cities are many times that of the birth-to-age-one population at large. Acknowledging the specific needs of ethnic minority seniors, and seeking ways more actively to include older people in these communities in our public life, could go a long way both to enhancing their lived experience and also, though these elders’ influence within their families, to reducing the tragedy of babies so needlessly lost.

None of these caveats however excuse anyone from reading and seeking to learn from what Bill Bytheway offers us. He starts half a century ago, in the tradition of Peter Townsend’s The Family Life of Old People (1957/63), and he leads us, totally engaged, towards the expectations of the Millennial decades to come.

Developing the research and policy agenda
We learn in Unmasking age about how research into ageing has developed and changed; we are introduced to a wide range of perspectives; we are persuaded that ‘old age research’ based simply on demography or morbidity and clinical needs can never be the whole story, as neither can be a simple focus on social care requirements; and, true to the title of this book, we end up realising that old age has a great deal more significance for research than we may have thought when we began to read.

But most of all Bytheway delivers, accessibly and cogently, a very important message which none of us can afford to ignore. We are asked to think what identity in later life actually is. The question of how we grow older and what happens to us all as we face the process of ageing is going to be something none of us, as practitioners, personally or politically, will be able to ignore.

Unmasking age: The significance of age for social research, Bill Bytheway (Policy Press, 2011) £24.99 / £65

A version of this review was first published in New Start, July/August 2011.

Rationally, most of us would probably say No. With their hearts however perhaps many would even now want to say Yes, there are still good reasons for acquiring and maintaining expensive capital items. But why? What does ownership offer which functional access does not?

Buy or rent?
A simple cost analysis would probably show, for instance, that taxis and the odd hire of a peoplecarrier-(or-whatever)-with-driver is far less expensive than owning a minibus.

The difference is likely to be that ownership permits a sense of control and identity which e.g. simply hiring transport as required never can; and owning a means of ‘community transport’ also permits greater flexibility at the point of use.

Both these elements of ownership are important, but they are not in themselves compelling. How many of these plus-points really outweigh the effort and financial costs of capital item maintenance and upkeep?

Badge and standard-bearer
There is we might conclude another matter also at play here: the ‘community bus’ so beloved of some social enterprises is also the organisation’s ‘community badge’. The people who drive it have a visible role and status in the locality in which they operate; and the bus becomes a badge or standard-bearer for the organisation itself.

Even when cost-analysis is actually feasible, the urge to acquire material things is a pressing part of contemporary living and is rarely fully mediated by the counter-requirement to conserve both funds and energy.

People like to mark out their territory and their status; they like to be able to change their minds about when and how to do conduct their business; and almost all of us think ours is a special case when it comes to doing things which may not seem entirely rational.

Economy is not psychology
The current, relentless political drive towards ‘saving money’, Big Society or not, is always likely to backfire. Because the psychological, logistical / management and presentational aspects of avoiding capital and other large investments are not being addressed by the politicians who power this drive, few viable alternative strategies may be considered at the grassroots.

Cross-organisational collaborations, advice on and skills-support with changes in resource management, and positive social recognition of the roles of community and third sector activists, could go quite a way to resolving some of the capital and large-scale expenditure constraints currently in place.

But people under threat are rarely very rational. Those who feel cast aside and under-appreciated – as many in the third sector now do – may quite understandably want to hang on to as many of their ‘community badges’ as possible. And this is sometimes going to include items like their minibus, whatever the actual costs and future outcomes.

A version of this post is also located in the LinkedIn Social Enterprise and the Third Sector Group.

FACTASS: A New Joint Forum For The Social Sciences (1986)
The Association of Teachers of the Social Sciences (ATSS) has recently been integrally involved in a new venture, the Joint Forum of Academic and Teaching Associations in the Social Sciences, which has the aim of promoting and developing social science and social education at all levels. Amongst the other organisations at present represented in this Forum are the British Sociological Association, the Economics Association, the Politics Association and the Social Administration Association.

One of the first decisions of the Joint Forum was to contact the Directors of Education of every Authority in the U.K, to offer the expertise of member associations in the development of social science in-service training following the current round of examination and curriculum changes. This was felt to be especially important as it is know that many Authorities do not have Advisers in the social sciences, and these subjects may thus be particularly vulnerable to marginalisation because such training is to be LEA-based.

In the same letter Directors were also informed of FACTASS plans for a ‘rolling conference’ (probably to three different venues) in 1987, intended particularly to enable  students to have a brief taste of campus life and study, whilst their teachers have a chance to catch up on academic areas and, very importantly, on course and career opportunities for their students available in or through higher education.

Amongst the next tasks which the Joint Forum will probably undertake will be forming closer links with the
Examination Boards, and a more thorough look at the links between the social science disciplines as they are taught in non-advanced education, as well as at the ways in which curriculum integration can be achieved between advanced and non-advanced social science courses. It is hope the practical steps, such as the ‘rolling conference’ and offers of help with Inset (in-service teacher training), will be the beginning of a concerted effort to stress the importance of social science and social education in the curriculum at all levels.
Hilary Burrage
[Founding Hon.] Convenor, FACTASS

These vexed realities are hidden behind the closed doors of private homes, care establishments and hospitals, undisclosed to all except stressed family carers and health and social care workers.

In other words, there’s not much political capital as things stand to be had in policies for old age. We don’t want to admit it will very probably one day be us, and we don’t want to pay.

Ignoring the problem is not however an option for serious politicians, however much they might like to shift the whole thing on to policy makers. Perhaps they would prefer to join the rest of us in denial, but ultimately there are economic and human costs and consequences to ignoring the issues, as much as to addressing them.

So, for politicians, what to do?

The first thing may be to acknowledge we’re all in this together, but the second is to understand that old age hits different people differently. Folk are no more uniform in their old age than they were in their middle years.

Likewise, whilst some matters (such as state pensions) must be dealt with at a national strategic level, the specifics of others (such as local support, care and transport logistics) are best resolved much closer to home.

And there are also matters which, although different approaches may be appropriate in different places, there is surely a requirement on all local authorities to address.
Most obvious is the planning function. Demographies of areas can vary dramatically, but in almost every instance this variation can be captured well in advance of its impact.
Just as local authorities calculate how many school places are likely to be required, so can be estimated the level of need which older people in a community will have in a few years’ time.

But this assumes several things: that there is a shared determination to plan properly and long-term between different aspects of local well-being, health and social care provision; that the influencing factors are understood; and that the political will is there.

So whilst the determination of likely levels of provision for old age needs to be done locally, the parameters of this exercise require a wider view, shared expertise and a degree of uniformity.

These requirements lead unescapably to the conclusion that there is a fundamental duty on national government, at the very least to facilitate and insist upon adequate and transparent data collection and projections at every level from national right down to locality. This is essential, as are equally transparent and data referenced plans at every level for how to ‘cope’ with the challenges for us all behind the good fortune that people now live longer.

Only national government can effectively shape public understanding; only national government can ensure that dialogue between all stakeholders about the precise nature of strategically required information actually comes up with the goods; and only national government can ensure that the data, planning and provision are there across the land at each tier of delivery.
Likewise, however, only local providers have the capacity to co-ordinate provision on the ground. But to do this effectively there must be much more flexibility, and much more insight, than arrangements suggest elderly people sometimes currently experience.

Let’s be clear: not all older people live near able-bodied and willing family helpers. And (whilst some can) not all older people are able to speak for themselves.

* The bland assumption by health authorities that ‘the family’ will take care of laundry for hospitalised seniors is crass (otherwise, these patients may end up perpetually in hospital gowns).
* The lack of supported housing provision, and restrictions on transfer between local authorities of elders requiring nursing home care are cruel (a significant percentage of older people are sometimes or even always lonely).
* The casual, unthinking acceptance by agencies of often treatable conditions – hearing loss, depression, mobility, nutritional deficiencies – because a person is ‘old’ must be challenged vigorously, especially in the absence of family members to keep the issues to the fore.
* The idea that everyone over the age of 65 (even 55!?) is economically burdensome is straightforwardly wrong; and the value in other ways of older people, who often know their localities so much better than the policy makers, must start to be formally appreciated.

The list could go on, but the underlying theme is painfully obvious.

Synergy between local and national policy development for properly designed, strategically managed support and care in old age is massively overdue. To a degree it matters not whether the support and care is delivered by the state or another agency, formal or informal.

But it matters desperately that co-ordination is achieved.

Grey panthers – who see ageing as a positive development – and other age-positive protagonists there may now be, but they remain in the minority. Perhaps most much older people still require, and will always require, people who can speak with and for them and promote their well-being when that needs to be done. This advocacy and care is ultimately a responsibility, in our complex contemporary society, of the state.

Remember: It’s not just ‘Them’. One day, with good fortune, it will be ‘You’.

This article was first published in May 2011 in a New Start report, ‘In Focus: Ageing Population: Older and wiser?’

Bearing in mind that Liverpool and Birkenhead are separated by a mere half-mile of water, it looks as though Merseyside is in for a pretty rough ride: Birkenhead is predicted to suffer the highest level of welfare cuts (£197 per capita) anywhere in the country, and Liverpool, at £192 cut per capita – £17 per head more than Glasgow – will be the overall hardest hit major city.

Which leads to the big question of what to do?

Civic challenge
Given the government’s emphasis on localism, there’s not much hope of significant help for Merseyside from national sources. So local, the response will indeed have to be. But the challenges in this for city leaders are great.

Does Liverpool for instance take the ‘chin up’ approach so often espoused by the PR people? (We’re the best, because…) Or will we return to the whinge-a-lot positioning of the 1980s? (Nobody loves us, we’re so hard done by..)

Perhaps there’s a lesson here from across the Atlantic.

Learning from Detroit?
Degeneration in the US city of Detroit has recently become the subject of a major publication The Ruins of Detroit by the young French photographers Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre. Their images have resonance for any once-great and cultured city. They could easily be replicated, albeit on a much more modest scale, in any northern British city (if you don’t believe me, please enquire about the guided tours which any regeneration officer in Liverpool and most UK other cities could provide).

We can, and must, distinguish Detroit and similar States-side locations from cities in the UK, not least because even now nowhere in Britain has the horrific experience of guns that US citizens must endure, and, unlike the USA, we have not as yet seen all state support withdrawn from some parts of our own cities which are thought to be irredeemably collapsing.

But in another way there is a parallel: the people who still live in these cities do not enjoy being reminded of how negatively their city is seen, fairly or unfairly, by ‘outsiders’.

Ruin Porn
It is via reviews of Marchand and Meffre’s work that I came across the notion of Ruin Porn – images of desolation which some now claim dryly are Detroit’s most successful export. These photographs may broadcast very effectively the desolation of some citizens’ experience, but they also rub salt in very sore places.

As Sean O’Hagan of The Guardian says in his review:
Cumulatively, the photographs are a powerful and disturbing testament to the glory and the destructive cost of American capitalism: the centre of a once-thriving metropolis in the most powerful nation on earth has become a ghost town of decaying buildings and streets.

We can however be fairly sure that the dramatic approach alone won’t work. This side of the pond, where ‘localism’ is now officially the answer to everything, ways to secure regeneration in austerity need some fundamental re-thinking.

Northern cities in the UK
Positively, Liverpool for instance has now inaugurated an ‘embassy’ in central London with the task of promoting the reasons why investment and business development in Liverpool is a good proposition. But on the negative side, we are doubtless about to see a resurgence of major trade union action, as the ‘coalition cuts’ bite and jobs are lost, and prospects for (especially northern) cities recede.

For local politicians the pressure from disadvantaged electors, the temptation perhaps to over-egg disadvantage via some form of ruin porn, will be great. But these leaders will also need to cheer on potential investors. There is a balance somehow to be achieved between the ‘it’s OK for locals to say things are bad, but it’s not OK for others to agree’ when seeking investment and support elsewhere.

In the words of reviewer John Patrick Leary, ‘ruin porn’ and its like ‘… dramatizes spaces but never seeks out the people that inhabit and transform them, and romanticizes isolated acts of resistance without acknowledging the massive political and social forces aligned against the real transformation, and not just stubborn survival, of the city’.

Analysis not just angst
Or, to put things more bluntly, feeling the pain is not enough. We need also a thorough analysis of the economic and socio-political forces which cause it.

There are good reasons for using all the armoury available when making the case for a city to survive and flourish, but you have to segment your market very judiciously as you select and compartmentalise the most effective approach for each audience. To take different perspectives:

Those who live in such cities demand both that the best case be presented for them elsewhere, and that their dignity and identity be respected by others; whilst also locals themselves often feel free to talk their home town ‘up’ and ‘down’ at the same time.

Different perspectives, different prospects
Those elsewhere who don’t understand the seriousness of some cities’ (partial / site-specific) degeneration may need to see the evidence vividly. Images of ruin can help here; but so does a genuine grasp of the fundamental dynamics of de- / re-generation and the national contexts which underlie this.

And those who endeavour to procure external business for their cities must be unrelentingly (as well as truthfully) upbeat in their dealings with potential investors.

In the context of a bleak national economy and of a government which is avowedly hands-off, it will take all the skill and inventiveness city leaders can muster to navigate a positive path through this delicate territory. That, however, is exactly what must be done.

A version of this commentary was posted on the CLES / New Start ‘Your Blogs’ website on 31 March 31; a related article by Claire Goff, drawing in part on further comments by Hilary Burrage, can be found on the CLES website.

It really does appear, in the current political climate, as if the Coalition Government’s intention is to raze the ground first, and then permit selected and new projects to (re-)emerge into the community as part of the Government’s Big Society plan. Few of us can see how extensive public and third sector blood-letting (income stream reduction), even if there’s a bit of a reverse transfusion later, is an intelligent, constructive or honest way forward.

Liberal Democrats on the ground need to be pressed very hard on this. Do they really believe that David Cameron’s Big Society as currently presented will deliver?

State dependent or affluence dependent?
It’s probably true that in some communities there are people who depend on the state and don’t understand that they have (some small degree of) freedom to do things differently; but it is equally true that people who have known only affluence often don’t begin to understand the massive weight of worry and inertia – some of it fundamentally because of lack of opportunity to be otherwise – which burdens people who have almost nothing.

People of privilege might believe from their rarefied experience that in social enterprise they have discovered something new, but many of those who live and (if they still can) work at ground level know the unreality of what David Cameron is saying.

Contemporary Britain is complex place
And there is another really critical issue as well: Contemporary Britain (UK) is a technically very complex (‘advanced’) and densely populated country. There’s no point at all in harking back to romanticised stories of how folk helped each other out in some mythical past.

The era of do-gooding with no co-ordinated guidance and support is very largely past. Nor is it likely to return, however much those of a conservative inclination might wish it to.

Densely populated and complex societies absolutely must have mechanisms from the centre to keep things on an even keel.

Fairness is essential for sustainable futures
What’s needed is an even(ish) playing field, so that people can coexist even though there is fierce competition for increasingly scarce resources, environmentally and in other ways.

Avoiding further population growth would help. Even now only about half of conceptions are intended, so people obviously still don’t always know how to limit their families to just the number of children they want – surely an education and informational role for the state here somewhere, given the future costs in many ways of the thousands of extra people who are currently born sadly univited?

But we also need to understand that the state has a fundamental responsibility to ensure a degree of equity and sustainability in society generally, and between its various communities. Why should anyone enter politics if they don’t want to accept that responsibility?

The ‘small state’ can’t resolve these massive problems
The ‘Big Society’ certainly won’t – and by definition of it being ‘small state’, couldn’t – resolve things now.

We are not all in this together as matters stand. Perhaps the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats inside government don’t even agree about what the state must as a minimum deliver.

Densely populated technological societies require complex and responsible governance, not de-governance as the Coalition seems to be intent on establishing (largely without a mandate) before anyone can stop them.

Halting destruction is in the gift of Liberal Democrats
Will the juggernaut of cuts and closures grind to a halt before it’s too late?

Liberal Democrat politicians are the only people who can actually stop the destruction now. They, as Vince Cable has acknowledged, hold the ultimate levers in the corridors of power. They could very honorably cross the floor, or they could simply refuse point blank to support the speed of the cuts.

Whether they choose to do any of this may depend on whether the electorate grasps the situation in time to make such brave moves by LibDem MPs the option of preference. But they will have to do it soon, or it will be too late.