Does the Focus on Livability Provide a Coherent Agenda for Neighborhood Renewal - Essay Example

 Does The Focus On Liveability Provide A Coherent Agenda for Neighbourhood Renewal? Introduction In contemporary British society, the emergence of various programmes designed to increase the quality of life for UK citizens has become the foundation for policies and initiatives designed to improve cities, landscapes and, in many respects, the social order. The Liveability agenda seeks to “strengthen the social resources and processes in a community by developing various networks, relationships, and activities to make localities a better place to live and work” (Ritchie & Adair, 2004: 14). Liveability generally describes a series of improvement initiatives which can theoretically transform a rather dilapidated or troubled region into a community of environmental improvements and economic opportunities. Neighbourhood Renewal efforts are committed to the provision of new and innovative methods to revive the economic condition of the most affected local communities and to improve public services in a variety of forms (Evers & Laville, 2004). These objectives tend to illustrate that Neighbourhood Renewal is mostly targeted at communities which have been affected by poor urban development and planning or have become over-run with criminal behaviour or other morally antisocial problems as a transformational or reformational agenda. Liveability is directly tied to the Neighbourhood Renewal and Sustainable Communities (SC) agendas, which is generally controlled by a somewhat centralised hierarchical leadership structure to ensure that local communities receive improvements to make them more inviting locations in which to thrive as a contributor to the social environment. These programmes are usually funded through a variety of external sources and managed by both local and regional bodies. This project will describe the initiatives of Neighbourhood Renewal (NR) and discuss the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of this programme and its inter-connected programmes: Liveability, Sustainable Communities, and the Cleaner Safer Greener programmes. The paper will conclude with an assessment of whether Liveability has run its course and whether NR is a new agenda that has superceded elements of Liveability programmes. What is Liveability? The Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission (2007) argues that there is no singular or universal definition regarding the initiatives laid out by Liveability agendas. However the panel of experts suggests that Liveability represents the tangible, external characteristics of a community, in relation to cleanliness, quality of living, and the sustainability of social networks which provide a particular region with a more enhanced system of economic, social and environmental stability. Liveability further suggests a series of civic values which provide a sense of belonging for a region’s diverse citizenry, making any particular location suitable for personal growth in terms of career and the promotion of social cohesion and order. An additional community expert describes Liveability in a different fashion, suggesting that it entails the tangible “things that people see when they walk out the door” (Brook Lyndhurst, 2004: 1). This would suggest that aspects of the Liveability agenda entails the physical characteristics of a particular region, such as the development of parks, improvements in the commercial and residential districts and environmentally-related initiatives such as planting trees and developing quality and stunning landscaping projects. There does not appear to be any specific historical motivations for the development of Liveability initiatives, however with the modern social perspective of creating more environmentally-friendly aspects of living it would appear that Liveability was a natural outcome of the contemporary desire for social environmentalism and the appreciation for beauty in the regional environment. Living Streets, an association developed to provide cleaner, safer public spaces and pedestrian areas, was founded in 1929 as the Pedestrians Association and has developed into one of the foremost advocates for creating revitalised neighbourhoods (Livingstreets.org.uk, 2007). Organisations such as Living streets typically work to improve the tangible external characteristics of various city locations including enhancing social outcomes of cleaner streets, welcoming and friendly neighbours and buildings which are well-maintained to provide a sense of safety and modernisation (Lush & Ryman, 2005). Liveability initiatives also include the policies which tangibly develop these positive community environments by providing local authorities with best practice guidelines and the tools required to improve the total quality of life for every citizen in a particular region (Idea.gov.uk, 2008). This would tend to imply that Liveability agendas are more than just the actual processes of cleaning up the city, it is a systematic series of policies and governmental know-how necessary to achieve the goals of better communities. It is a fair assessment to suggest that Liveability agendas intend to coordinate the activities of local governments, citizen volunteers, and various contractors to ensure that locations are redeveloped and become suitable for sustaining quality family lives and in creating regions where citizens can be proud of their city rather than worrying about issues of safety or environmental dilapidation. Liveability is about creating areas where citizens want to live and work (Grewal, 2005). What is Neighbourhood Renewal? Social demand for improved neighbourhoods laid the foundation for the modern Neighbourhood Renewal (NR) initiative. Quite similar to the Liveability agenda, NR policies seek to “close the gap between the most disadvantaged areas so that within a 10-20 year period, no individual will experienced disadvantage based on their geographic location” (Goem.gov.uk, 2007). Neighbourhood Renewal seeks to redevelop dilapidated or disadvantaged regions to provide better job opportunities, enhance total citizen and social cohesion and make locations safer for all citizens. Some notable developments which were outcomes of the NR agenda include strengthening local economies to provide better commercial and consumer services, the reduction of individual neighbourhood crime ratios, and provide a system of mental health and other human services to ensure that all local citizens are provided with the tools necessary to live a better quality of life. The NR agenda would appear to be closely linked to Liveability initiatives, however it would appear that Neighbourhood Renewal efforts are more closely targeted at improving the elements of location which motivate individuals to desire to make themselves more efficient and productive contributors to the local community. NR programmes are usually funded by a wide variety of external sources, including the National Lottery, the centralised government, and independent grants which are allocated toward the communities most largely in need of improvement. The Office of the Third Sector and Treasury Review (2007) offers that over £176.5 million was allocated for funding toward improving neighbourhoods all over the United Kingdom in 2006. This would suggest that NR initiatives are wide-reaching and such programmes’ availability for funding create monumental opportunities for growth and community enhancement all across the nation. Linking NR and Liveability with National Programmes The Sustainable Community (SC) agenda is built on the foundation of inclusion rather than exclusion (idea.gov.uk), in which communities are given focus so that the social and economic aspects of a community can be sustained long-term. The foundation of SC initiatives are quite similar to Liveability and NR, including providing safer and cleaner communities and offering equal opportunities for all walks of life. The most notable difference, however, is that SC initiatives are generally not coordinated at the local level but from the central government. Centralised divisions such as the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (amongst many other central government agencies) provide the funding and the necessary best practice frameworks to ensure that communities can operate independently from an economic perspective (such as commercial development) to ensure autonomy and a positive social environment for all citizens (idea.gov.uk). Some notable initiatives of the Sustainable Communities agenda involve the provision of adequate homes, providing access to employment, protecting the environment and creating a regenerated community spirit built on diversity and equality (idea.gov.uk). In addition, SC provides knowledge-sharing practices and the extension of education regarding new tools, techniques and technologies to aid in providing employment opportunities for the disadvantaged. All of the aforementioned SC initiatives would appear to take the focus of coordination away from local authorities (though through process local authorities become the centre of carrying out procedure), which would suggest that local communities largely rely on the allocation of funding from the centralised government level. For instance, the Environment Agency (another centralised governmental entity) suggested that a major problem with creating sustainable communities was the lack of a quality infrastructure necessary to secure the development of adequate housing. Issues such as creating better sewage systems and residential zones which are not prone to flooding continue to plague SC agendas and drain the funding which could be provided to other SC objectives, such as education and training (Morris, 2007). Because it would appear that Sustainable Communities objectives are hindered by the method in which funds are allocated across the United Kingdom, SC programmes rely heavily on volunteerism and local community involvement. Morris (2007) further suggests that nine out of 12 professions directly linked with building sustainable communities are facing labour crises in regards to shortfalls in SC planning and landscaping architecture. The economic push for urbanism with building sustainable communities is affected at the local level as well in terms of coordinating all of the efforts needed to provide better regional opportunities based largely on government spending and funding allocation. The largest weakness of the SC agenda would appear to be a lack of training and skills development in relation to providing citizens with transferable skills needed to contribute to planning, developing and coordinating efforts to rebuild impoverished or under-developed communities (Morris). Where Liveability and Neighbourhood Renewal efforts are able to coordinate these activities at the local level, Sustainable Communities appear to be mandated by a rather bureaucratic centralised hierarchy that is causing problems at the local level due to improper contingency planning for labour shortages and the proper allocation of funds to secure all of the aforementioned community development projects. Another notable programme for enhancing local communities is the Cleaner Safer Greener agenda, which directly involves the external characteristics of a community in terms of how the quality of life is affected by streets, parks and public spaces. The goal of Cleaner Safer Greener is one of environmentalism in which issues such as tackling better methods at waste disposal and clean-up, the removal of graffiti or other eyesores, the establishment of quality footpaths and building quality public parks are the focus (Prescott, 2003). Much like Sustainable Communities, Cleaner Safer Greener is largely funded at the centralised government level, but the practice of providing tangible solutions stem largely at the local level (Prescott). Cleaner Safer Greener also works toward taking urban areas which have been historically devoid of visual, environmental enhancements and transforming them into areas where families can play in outdoor parks and create a connection with the natural environment. Hence, in most instances, this programme is targeted at the urban regions of the country and also serve to promote environmental advocacy and even developing a social desire for art and culture (Hunt, 2006). The efforts of Cleaner Safer Greener can be illustrated by a project undertaken in Greater Manchester in which the central government entity referred to as the North-West Regional Development Agency allocated £10 million to creating a community woodland for public use on derelict land so as to provide an economic and social resource for the community in terms of commercial development, cycling, walking and other healthy living initiatives (Hunt). All of the aforementioned elements of Cleaner Safer Greener tend to illustrate that, much like Sustainable Communities, local contractors and local authorities rely heavily on central government funding so as to allow the allocation of environmental development regions before any tangible reconstruction or development can begin in a proportion which is required for these agendas. There is a strong over-lapping element of Cleaner Safer Greener with other more local efforts such as NR and Liveability projects, as the development of environmentally-pleasing community projects fit within the broader agendas of the local community initiatives for creating a more suitable urban environment where individuals can thrive and enjoy at the social level. The Sustainable Communities projects are also largely inter-connected to Liveability and Neighbourhood Renewal objectives as the funding provided by SC at the central level can be allocated to local grants and volunteer efforts to take what may have been small-scale improvements and make them more large-scale and environmentally awe-inspiring. Hence, the logical assessment of SC and Cleaner Safer Greener, in comparison to more local projects, is that efforts to make urban improvements in the social and economic condition of local communities can often be hindered or widely-enhanced based on how the central government chooses to allocate adequate funding for each local region. It would seem that funding failures or mismanagement at the central level will seriously jeopardise whether local efforts will succeed in creating a more cohesive and economically-stable community. Highlighting Additional Strengths and Weaknesses The Neighbourhood Renewal programmes have several specific theoretical outcomes regarding their contribution to improving the human condition: Enhancement of physical and mental health, reduction of crime and the social worry of criminal activities and providing better, more positive recreational outlets for children and adolescent youths (communities.gov.uk, 2007). One of the strengths of the aforementioned NR objectives is the ability of local communities to coordinate local activities and ensure that timelines and guidelines are met. For instance, in Southey Owlerton, Sheffield, local planning committees performed extensive consultation with local residents of six different neighbourhoods to determine what specific elements of their community required change. People indicated they were dissatisfied with the poor condition of public streets, lack of open parks and were requesting the construction of local ordinances in relation to the maintenance regulations of public places (Barnes, 2007). In addition, residents felt that all of the neighbourhoods maintained a similar exterior design which created dissatisfaction in developing unique neighbourhood identities (Barnes). By consulting with local residents, the city was able to determine their budget capabilities and create a Neighbourhood Renewal programme (at the local level) which would best befit the needs of its diverse citizenry, rather than taking direction from the central government. The largest strength in this type of community involvement objective is to create a workable NR programme that is in-line with local demands and does not entail a strong reliance on the intervention of various centralised policy-makers. This gives local cities more autonomy in creating what regional authorities (and citizens) deem to be the most negative aspects of their city and transforming them into unique civic projects which can define a local or regional identity separate from the goals and ambitions of the central government. In relation to travel and tourism, such locally-inspired identities would likely make each region stand out from the rest of the nation as a unique location with its own commercial and environmental appeal. However subjective this assessment may be, it is clear that Neighbourhood Renewal programmes and its ability to be coordinated at the local level is its most monumental strength as compared to Sustainable Communities and the Cleaner Safer Greener campaign. Interestingly, NR objectives can also benefit the local community in terms of crime reduction, again without necessarily involving centralised funding. Some communities look for methods to enhance the quality of life for its citizens by establishing, for instance, no-frills prisons in which prisoners must work productively to contribute back to the community, perhaps in the form of work-programmes designed to improve waste clean-up. No-frills prisons create a significant deterrent to crime and ensure that inmates do not receive government entitlements or similar tax-payer expenditures (Polsby & Wildavsky, 2000). Creating a no-frills prison system, though potentially inter-connected to centralised government funding, ensures that public health and safety entitlements are granted to those contributory citizens who deserve them rather than being allocated to individuals with criminal histories; as an objective of improving the short-term quality of life for those local citizens in need of assistance. The Minister for Social Exclusion and Equality supports the strengths of Neighbourhood Renewal over that of centralised efforts such as SC and Cleaner Safer Greener by citing that: “Local people know what the priorities of their neighbourhood are. There is no one size fits all solution. The partnership approach is key to neighbourhood renewal, by reflecting what the community wants and transforming the way services are delivered to the people who need them most” (Bidwell, 2003: 122). The Minister’s commentary suggests that Neighbourhood Renewal efforts are only successful if they are outlined based on citizen demand and should not be determined at the centralised level. This would suggest a radical difference between programmes like Sustainable Communities which are coordinated at the higher levels of governmental hierarchy and distributed through mandated best practice and procedures to the local government; indicating lack of autonomous decision-making and planning for local officials. Centralised governmental department intervention could, theoretically, create NR projects which do not delight the citizen, hence the objective of building a better local quality of life could be radically undermined. From a different perspective, Liveability programmes appear to be directly inter-twined with centralised government funding and intervention, as many of these programmes involve complicated urban renewal efforts and the construction of large-scale environmental and commercial projects. Though many of the social programmes can be managed at the local level, the largest weakness of Liveability appears to be a high reliance on centralised funding. Though many of the objectives of Liveability appear to overlap those of SC, NR and Cleaner Safer Greener, coordination and funds allocation at the local level appears to start at the top of the central government authority which provides less project autonomy for satisfying local citizen expectations; quite unlike NR. A Discussion of Funding and Function However potentially autonomous Neighbourhood Renewal efforts may be for local communities, it does not appear that NR projects and initiatives can be 100 percent segregated from the central government; of course this is dependent on the severity of renewal required and the ability to coordinate volunteerism. The Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (a central funding programme) allocated £2.9 billion into England’s largest areas of deprivation; a somewhat staggering number (Carpenter, 2007). In 2008, the NRF fund will be replaced by the Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF) which is yet to be determined how these payouts will be allocated between 2008 and 2011 (Carpenter). With the new agreements laid out in the WNF system, many communities were deemed ineligible for funding, many of which had received historical payments from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (Carpenter). The rationale for the different WNF funding appears to be a centralised governmental mindset that its predecessor (NRF) had accomplished its intended goals of building the initial infrastructure necessary to begin a jobs-development and training programme so as to ensure adequate career development for many of England’s citizens. However, the new parameters which drove the decision to cut several councils from receiving funding has created an uproar as those who were dismissed from the allocation of future funding had not yet completed their objectives for neighbourhood renewal, prompting controversial backlash at the centralised government authority (Carpenter). This would tend to suggest that local communities, in some fashion, are forced to rely on central payments toward NR objectives in order to initially launch local efforts and coordination. However, despite this, the councils which were denied funding will likely be forced to utilise the funding at their disposal (collected through consumer revenues or other traditional business activities) in order to make NR work for their community. Garlick (2007) suggests that the new structure of funding under the NRF is “radically different than what went before”, which implies that those local communities who might have experienced a certain autonomy in neighbourhood renewal objectives will no longer have this luxury as the central government is creating much stronger restrictions than ever before. Hence, the likely assessment is that NR initiatives, up until only this year (2008), could have been completely autonomous from the central government. However, today, all of the construction engineers, architects, and city planners will be impacted by their own receipt of governmental payouts (or denied funding), thus the inter-connected reliance on the process-oriented groups at the local level will likely be hindered by new government contracts. Thus, it can be said that contemporary NR objectives cannot, in reality, be accomplished without external funding and managed completely from the local economic level. A New Agenda or Just Rebranding? Neighbourhood Renewal agendas have created very positive outcomes for local communities in need of assistance. In one local community which had previously been plagued with high criminal activity and prostitution, NR outcomes were reported which highlighted a 40 percent drop in criminal behaviour over a 10 year period and street robbery decline of 80 percent. Prostitution levels dropped during the same period, as those women who engaged in sexually-lude behaviours were granted new opportunities to transform themselves from prostitute to career women through NR social programmes (Rooker & Hope, 2006). In addition, this same community developed a local programme called Residents for Regeneration which consisted of a voluntary body of citizens and had seen its number of willing participants increase dramatically due to NR efforts and citizen involvement (Rooker & Hope). The aforementioned scenario tends to illustrate that Neighbourhood Renewal is, indeed, a new agenda from previous efforts at reducing criminal activities and revitalising neighbourhoods using only traditional policing and urban renewal agendas stemming from the local level. Whether perceived as positive or detrimental, the influence of the centralised government (in terms of funding and process controls) appears to play a significant role in whether NR efforts meet with success or failure. The ability to reduce prostitution and street crime by such a significant number in a community historically plagued with negative urban problems would tend to illustrate that the partnerships created between local authorities and the central government are instrumental to NR success. As such, the contemporary NR approach to strengthening communities and providing moral and educational guidance appears to be making significant strides over any pre-existing programmes. Hence, it can be said that the new Neighbourhood Renewal agenda is not only rebranding to make efforts appear to be innovative, it is a radical shift in mentality and coordination completely outside of traditional renewal and regeneration programmes. Conclusion Referring back to the Liveability agenda, designed to offer suitable communities for the production of social, environmental and economic opportunities, it would appear that this particular agenda is quite congruent with modern Neighbourhood Renewal efforts. Liveability appears to be a long-term social philosophy based on modern ideals for connecting with nature, ensuring diversity (which is a common theme regarding promoting international equality in most cultures), and sustaining economic and career opportunities. Many of the objectives of Liveability are completely in-line with NR agenda, suggesting from a local level that both maintain a quality place in the planning and coordinating of urban renewal projects. This can be supported by highlighting that Neighbourhood Renewal seeks to transform impoverished or troubled urban regions to create a better quality of life through the efforts of central government and local authorities. NR agendas focus toward creating an infrastructure of commercialism and economic opportunity whilst Liveability works off of these efforts to create additional environmental and social enhancements to provide a better community environment. Hence, Liveability and Neighbourhood Renewal are so closely inter-connected that it would be somewhat irresponsible to suggest that Liveability has run its course and has been replaced entirely by NR. Consider for a moment that a particular Liveability project focuses on adding parks and other environmentally-stimulating landscaping to any particular region. Associations for Liveability, such as Living Streets, would coordinate these efforts outside of the NR agenda and its associated funding. However, upon completion of Liveability projects, neighbourhood renewal has occurred as an unintended outcome of the project, thus satisfying some of the NR agenda for improvement. 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