Abstract
The notion of community has been central to the political project of renewal of New Labour in the UK. The paper explores how the discourses of community are framed within New Labour and discusses these in the light of the results from research which focuses on how people within urban deprived areas construct their community. It draws upon the results of one part of a larger research project (the ‘Well London’ programme) which aimed to capture the views of residents from 20 disadvantaged neighbourhoods throughout London using an innovative qualitative method known as the ‘World Café’. Our results show the centrality of young people to the development of cohesive communities, the importance of building informal relationships between residents alongside encouraging greater participation to policy making, and the need to see these places as fragile and temporary locations but with considerable social strengths. Government policies are only partially addressing these issues. They pay greater attention to formally encouraging citizens to become more involved in policy making, largely ignore the contribution young people could make to the community cohesion agenda, and weakly define the shared norms and values that are crucial in building cohesive communities. Thus, the conclusion is that whilst an emphasis of the government on ‘community’ is to be welcome, more needs to be done in terms of considering the ‘voices’ of the community as well as enabling communities to determine and act upon their priorities.
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Notes
Best Value is public sector performance management mechanism that provides the statutory basis upon which councils plan, review and manage their performance in order to deliver continuous improvement in all services and to meet the needs and expectations of service users.
Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) are a national geography created by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for collecting, aggregating and reporting statistics. There are 32,482 LSOAs in England, each with an average population of 1,500 people. Well London interventions include the following areas (LSOAs in brackets): Barking and Dagenham (Heath); Brent (Kensal Green); Camden (Haverstock); Croydon (Broad Green); Ealing (South Acton); Enfield (Upper Edmonton); Greenwich (Woolwich Common); Hackney (Brownswood); Hammersmith and Fulham (White City); Haringey (Noel Park); Hounslow (Cranford); Kensington and Chelsea (Notting Barns); Islington (Canonbury); Lambeth (Larkhall); Lewisham (Bellingham); Newham (Canning Town North); Southwark (Nunhead);Tower Hamlets (Limehouse); Waltham Forest (Hoe Street); Westminster (Queen’s Park).
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the National Lottery for funding this extensive research project and the myriad of people from London who have spoken to us as well as Professor Angela Harden for valuable comments on earlier drafts.
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Bertotti, M., Adams-Eaton, F., Sheridan, K. et al. Key barriers to community cohesion: views from residents of 20 London deprived neighbourhoods. GeoJournal 77, 223–234 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-009-9326-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-009-9326-1