Social Spaces View of Big Society at Community Level

Social Spaces view of Big Society

Big Society is an opportunity to change the relationship between government and citizens

Population Explosion

Financial Systems Collapse

Peak Oil & Resource Depletion

Damage to the Environment

{

Responses Co mpe titio n

Co llabo ratio n

GLOBAL NATIONAL

LOCAL

C o m p e t i t i o n

Re inf o rce s traditio nal sy ste ms • • •

Fight harder through democratic processes Increase in lobbying for interests Community organising the Alinsky way

I n this p aradigm • • • •

A d v o c a c y i s t he vi sio n A l l C o m mu nit i es a r e n ee dy Government holds control over resources P e o p l e a r e d ivi de d

Favou rs • • •

Conflict A s s e rt i v e a nd co n fi den t i ndi vi du a l s P r e s s u r e pol it i cs

C o m p e t i t i o n

C o l l a b o r a t i o n

Re inf o rce s traditio nal sy ste ms • • •

Fight harder through democratic processes Increase in lobbying for interests Community organising the Alinsky way

Re inve nts sy ste ms • • •

I n this p aradigm • • • •

A d v o c a c y i s t he vi sio n A l l C o m mu nit i es a r e n ee dy Government holds control over resources P e o p l e a r e d ivi de d

Conflict A s s e rt i v e a nd co n fi den t i ndi vi du a l s P r e s s u r e pol it i cs

Reconsider what ‘resources’ mean and what we value Imagination, ideas, energies, talents, existing m ate ri al r eso ur ce s

I n this p aradigm • • • •

Community is the vision E ver yo ne ca n co n tri b ute Government is an ally, an enabler P eo pl e a r e b ro ug h t tog e the r

Favou rs

Favou rs • • •

Revolution in creative & design thinking

• • •

Creative & design thinking E xpe r t fa ci li tati on Whole communities

C o m p e t i t i o n

Government “We want you to do more”

Represent Needs

“We want you to do more”

Citizens

C o m p e t i t i o n

Government “We want you to do more”

C o l l a b o r a t i o n

Government “How can we help you?”

Local Authority Facilitation Represent Needs

Collaborate Assets

Citizen-led Participation “We want you to do more”

Citizens

“How can we help you?”

Citizens

C o m p e t i t i o n Government

Bottom Up

Big Society

Top Down

Citizens

[Over] SIMPLE VIEW

C o m p e t i t i o n

C o l l a b o r a t i o n

Government

Government 10

1

9

2

8

Bottom Up

Big Society

Top Down

Citizen-led Participation

[Over] SIMPLE VIEW

3

7

4

6

5

5 4

Citizens

Facilation

Facilitation Facilitation

6 7

3

8

2

9

1

10

Citizens

COMPLEX VIEW

Local Authority Facilitation

Big Society is an about people taking ownership of their communities, literally building them t o g e t h e r.

It requires facilitation to reveal and unlock existing capacity What does facilitation look like?

Facilitation is about understanding your resources, connecting them in new ways. This includes people’s ideas, aspirations, skills and talents.

With an asset-based approach lightweight ‘connecting’ projects can be designed magically from little or no financial resource.

LEARNING DREAMS Minnesota Jerry Stein knocked on doors asking what people would like to learn. This could be baking, learning to drive a car, read or write.

He then knocked on doors until he found someone that could enable that learning, by babysitting perhaps or by direct teaching.

The result is a community networked through generosity around learning, effectively unlocking hidden capacity. Attendance has gone from 60% - 100% at local schools.

Communities need to be connected first before they can build What does connection look like?

LEARN SHARE MAKE

Connection is created through engaging people in new and old ways through understanding and creatively using common denominators

MENS SHEDS Australia

There are over 500 community managed Mens Shed in Australia. Research into the overall effects of the sheds have discovered the benefits of this type of productive connection show that the men have higher levels of wellbeing that has rippled out in the communities, creating widespread cohesion and intergenerational activity.

PEOPLE’S SUPERMARKET London The People’s Supermarket is based on a community model where customers can also become members and qualify for discounts on their shopping. Members fulfil a number of hours working in the shop giving them the opportunity to meet a wide range of local community members and become more integral to the community.

FALLEN FRUIT LA The Fallen Fruit project in LA is a community harvesting project collects fruit overhanging pavements. The project captured people’s imagination when they began their night walks, gathering 100s of people along the way. The project has huge Public Jam making sessions and tree planting projets - allowing people to engage in community in a light and enjoyable way creating new productive ways for the community to interact.

(Also see Grow Sheffield and Incredible Edibles in the UK)

PIELAB Allabama PieLab shows us what new types of community centre might look like. Starting as a pop-up pie shop, the project now occupies a large full-time high street shop where they continue to sell pies, but act predominantly as a new type of community space where people are invited to hold creative and social events.

POP UP TEA ROOM Birmingham

A range of meanwhile projects sponsored by Birmingham City Council. This has included pop up tea rooms where the community have come to meet. Another example of new style community spaces, stimulated by the idea of using underused spaces.

HOTEL TRANSVAAL The Hague Text

Hotel Treansvaal utilises the social structure of the neighbourhood Transvaal in the Hague, a neighbourhood undergoing urban renewal. Due to the urban restructuring, a lot of the social apartment blocks have been schedule to disappear. Hotel Transvaal (2006) could be seen as an inverted hotel, the neighbourhood as a whole functions as a hotel. In a centrally placed building, a restaurant, internet cafĂŠ, gallery and a number of hotel rooms was realised. They act as a meeting place, where hotel guests from the other hotel rooms come into contact with each other and people from the neighbourhood.

“The next generation of true innovation is going to be achieved by the collective, not by the lone genius.�

Larry Brilliant

“We have been presented, with the opportunity to re-centre ourselves, to narrow our focus to our local environment and to project our dreams of our changed future.�

Lidewij Edelkoort