Category Archives: The Journal
Where Were The People When They Did The Planning?
There are housing estates designed in such a way that it’s almost to find a route in and out of them without a car. Many people on the edge of urban areas live in such places, cut off from others, in their own constrained ‘comfort’ zones. Whatever were the planners thinking of? And what can be done now to raise horizons and expectations?
I’ve recently been visiting a number of ‘disadvantaged’ communities, walking and driving around housing estates and out-of-town areas which many of us who don’t live in them rarely see.
It’s often quite a pleasant job. Most folk anywhere will make you feel welcome and at home. People in these areas as much as anywhere else will of course do their best to help, advise and engage with those who visit them, and there’s always lots to learn.
But… but… whatever were the planners thinking of when they permitted these estates to be devised? Where are the centres, where are the decent shops, where’s the clinic / surgery, where’s the (secondary) school, where are the meeting places? And, oh so importantly, where on earth are the quick, safe links between the various localities?
For many of these areas, there are in effect only one or at best two roads in and out; plus, the linking footpaths, if they, are grim in every sense – not at all routes that most of us would care to take.
All this means that many more people than we might imagine live in ‘closed’ communities. Public transport is poor, cars few and far between; there is precious little chance of going outside one’s immediate vicinity.
Here, then, is planned ‘comfort zoning’ of the worst sort. The big wide world may be out there, but it’s almost inaccessible; and the small zone of personal experience which is easily navigable becomes far more enclosing than it decently should.
It must also be said, on the basis of my recent experience, that even when planners have included facilities within given areas, these facilities have sometimes been allowed to transmute from ‘community’ facilities to yet more housing – the shop or centre wasn’t doing well; it closed; then it was acquired for private developers…. and now it’s flats. So now there are even fewer ‘facilities’. How do ‘they’ allow this to happen?
If the next generation is to see the world through more open eyes, the current one has to be able to take youngsters out and about. If adults in a community are to raise their expectations and amibitions, they have to be able to meet others and see things beyond their immdeiate experience.
Nowhere (except pubs?) to meet, and no way out of the estate, are not the best encouragements to the necessary wider agenda for progress. There’s a job of work for infrastructure designers – get in there and open up the passages between areas; and there’s an opportunity for entrepreneurs, public and private – start to add value to communities with meeting / leisure and proper retail facilities.
The enterprise is to some small extent beginning to happen, but how can it take off when communities remain isolated and the chances of increasing market size in an area are contrained quite simply by almost no ways in and out?
Where Are Liverpool’s Parks And Open Spaces?
Liverpool has a number of fascinating green spaces, including Calderstones, Croxteth, Dovecot, Everton, Greenbank, Norris Green, Otterspool, Princes, Reynolds, St James’, Sefton, Stanley and Wavertree Parks, as well as other Gardens and Churchyards…. The contribution which follows is a direct invitation to readers to comment on these vital ‘lungs’ in this historic city.
Liverpool has a number of fascinating green spaces, including Calderstones, Croxteth, Dovecot, Everton, Greenbank, Newsham, Norris Green, Otterspool, Princes, Reynolds, St James’, Sefton, Stanley and Wavertree Parks, as well as other Gardens and Churchyards…. and no doubt others can add comment about, and more information immediately to, this list.
The City Council now has a draft strategy for developing some of these spaces, but there’s still a place for people to befriend their favourite parks.
So please do let us know about your Parks and their Friends.* Let’s make a list of the contacts for all these wonderful green spaces in our city.. Our parks and green spaces are important and people’s views and ideas need to be shared. You can add your information and comments below, or, as others have done, in for instance the Sefton Park ‘slot..
Friends’ Groups so far of which I am aware are:
Croxteth Hall & Park
St James’ Cemetery & Park
Newsham Park
Princes Park
Sefton Park
[*Note to contributors: You don’t need to display any more of your details than you wish when you give your name. This website only asks for your email address, privately, so that we can ban spammers, not you!!]
What Now For Liverpool’s Sefton Park? (A Monday Women Debate)
Plans for Sefton Park are taking shape rapidly – as are ideas for several of Liverpool’s other Parks. Monday Women decided to have a debate; points from our discussion follow. Your contributions on how Liverpool’s Parks should be developed are also most welcome.
Meeting up with other Monday Women this evening, one very hotly discussed topic of conversation was the merits or otherwise of plans for Sefton, Otterspool and Newsham Parks. Amongst the issues considered, of course, was the fate of the cherry trees by the middle lake.
It’s actually very heartening that so many people wanted to talk about these plans in detail, and to continue the discussion elsewhere. We therefore came up with the idea of making this topic a ‘main’ item on my website…. so here it is!
I’ll kick off with a few thoughts on plans for Sefton Park, in my own locality (years ago, this would have been Newsham Park, so I have something of a ‘compare and contrast’ perspective on developments).
The main issues in contention for Sefton Park currently seem to include:
* Do we want lighting, or bats? (Maybe we want both; how about ground-level lighting of the southern, presently non-lit, paths.. which would also remove any concerns about strollers being well-lit, and supposed potential assailants lurking invisibly in bushes ‘behind’ the lights) How will we ensure that the vibrant wild and bird life of the park is nurtured?
* Why are the only toilets in the Park in the Central Kiosk? (The Palm House has some, of course, but they are not open to the public.)
* Do people realise that the Park is far from ‘natural’? (Conservation is a managed process; many trees, bushes and supplings have just grown as they will, and some of these probably do need to be removed.)
* How will the intended new waterways be designed? And how will they be kept clean and clear?
* Has anyone realised that, if the attached allotments (apparently controlled not by Parks & Gardens, but by Recreation & Leisure…) are drained to remove waterlogging, there is a fear that the water will cascade across the Park?
* What sorts of performance space/s are intended for the Park? Will these be all-weather, and who will manage them?
* Is there any scope for a pleasant meeting place / restaurant at the south end of the Park, and what will become of the Central Kiosk? Will there be any public art?
* Where will young people be able safely to congregate in the evening and at weekends, whilst younger children, families and older people can continue to enjoy the quieter aspects of the facility?
There are lots of questions, some of them quite fundamental, in the issues being raised, so it’s good to be able to report that we can expect a Public Exhibition and Consultation on the Sefton Park proposals, cum December. Watch this space for details!
And, in the meantime, please do carry on the debate right here. (NB You don’t have to publish your details; the only check we make on this website is that you are not a spammer!) We all look forward to hearing your views, below…
See also: Sefton Park’s Grebes And Swans
Liverpool’s Sefton Park, Swans, Herons And Grebes
Sefton Park, Liverpool: Winter Solstice 2006
Cherry Blossom For May Day In Sefton Park, Liverpool
Cherry Picking Liverpool’s Sefton Park Agenda
Liverpool’s Sefton Park Trees Under Threat – Unnecessarily?
Solar Lighting Could Solve The Parks Problem
Friends Of Sefton Park
Fifty Not Out… (Or Learning To Love E-Technology)
This is Hilary’s fiftieth contribution to her website. She discusses here how it came about, and how she would like to develop it, with you the reader, for the future.
No, it’s not my birthday; that doesn’t get mentioned much these days. But I am pleased to claim this contribution as my fiftieth piece for this weblog.
So what has been achieved? Nick Prior, my website designer, has already written something of where he thinks we’re at (see his website, bottom of this page), and now it’s my turn.
The website has been in planning for some months. Nick and I were introduced by a mutual friend, who knew I aspired to setting up a website, and that Nick, an expert in this field, aspired to developing a new mode for these. I felt I needed a virtual space to try out and share ideas, and Nick wanted to work with someone who was interested in his approach, but would engage as a relative newcomer to the medium; which certainly made me eligible for the collaboration, on the basis of knowing little about how to do websites!
After our initial discussions and work at the end of August, I took time out to think about everything, so nothing was put into the website until three weeks ago – which averages at over one piece per day. That has, on the whole, been easier than I’d anticipated; though of course it’s for others to say whether what they read is of interest. Whatever, there are plenty of things which capture my imagination and on which, I have discovered, I have something to say.
The challenge seems to be articulating ideas in a concise and coherent way – and then to write a summary which introduces and enhances that ‘message’. No doubt there’s scope to work on this, but it’s quite an interesting and different discipline for me as a writer.
What is also clear is that there’s a lot of ideas out there to sort into something more coherent, presentationally. My instruction from Nick was just to write what came to me; we’d think about more consolidated Categories later. So that’s what I’ve done, and to an extent the outcome has surprised me. (Try it for yourself sometime, it’s quite an eye-opener in terms of what you think you’re observing and considering! )…. And do please tell us if you have any particular views on how the Categories should be constructed.
I’ve also been attempting to bring some balance to these contributions. Some of them are about big, difficult or woolly issues, others are about my personal experiences and where I live. We all have a ‘home’ for our observations and ideas, and I’ve tried to reflect this in what I’m sharing.
How am I doing? People are quite frequently telling me that they enjoy ‘popping in’ to have a little read on the website, but not many of them so far have responded directly to my ideas.
Is your quietness because you agree, because you don’t agree, because the technology seems more trouble than it’s worth, or because you’re shy? I’d be really interested to know, because Nick and I are hoping to make this a space where everyone who feels so inclined, can join in. This is perhaps the ‘new e-age’ mode for discussion, when people and communities are so far apart geographically and in other ways.
Thank you for your patience and interest thus far. Please keep visiting, and please do contribute if you’d like to. I look forward very much to hearing from you.
Hilary
Facilitation & Leadership
Leaders offer direction; Facilitors generally should not. But how fluid is this distinction, and to what effect?
Do Leaders emerge or are they made? Are some Facilitators also Leaders? Or is the role of a Faciltator to bring about change through the agency of others – perhaps those who already have the mantle of Leadership, or perhaps others who will come to the fore via the process being facilitated?
The answer is probably that both these models apply in different circumstances.
A professional Facilitator (whether paid or not) is someone whose task is to bring forward responses from a group which has already asked for this to happen, maybe via an already established Leader.
On the other hand an informal Facilitator (usually a volunteer) may be someone who wants to get a group or interest established as an entity in itself. Such a person may well emerge from that group as a Leader.
And why are these distinctions important?
Again, the answers vary. Sometimes for instance informal facilitation is a route to significant developments which can be harnessed by, say, regeneration or other ‘official’ bodies to bring forward spokespeople for given interests. Conversely, on occasion it has been known for formal Facilitators to take upon themselves a leadership role acceptable by those who engaged them, but perhaps not by those whom they are facilitating.
The more the variables are considered, the more likely it is that the role claimed, Facilitator or Leader?, is that which is in fact being enacted.
Why Change Management can’t be perfect (as if you didn’t know)
Different communities and groups frequently have different understandings of why ‘change’ occurs and how ‘progress’ is achieved. Leadership and initiatives in such circumstances can be very challenging. Nobody’s interested in Policy Pilots. They want Results.
It’s always puzzled me, and the more I think about it, the more so…..
We all know that
(a) we live in times of rapid change,
(b) the variables in the changes are uncountable, and
(c) to whatever extent, change has to be eternally managed.
In other words, we are solidly aware that the whole process is unpredictable and subject to serendipity at every stage of the game. Plus, there’s never an end. Change is a dialectic as compelling as Time itself.
Why is ‘change’ a worry?
So why do so many people spend so much time criticising ‘Change’, and apparently so little time in general public discourse considering ‘Since Something Is Going To Happen Anyway, What Shall We All Do To Make It A Bit Better?’
Clearly, the myriad of forces which impel change as such also apply to the motivators and causal factors behind any individual’s reaction to that change. There are psychological ones, socio-political ones, geo-economic ones… The list could go on.
There is also however a general cultural factor which probably applies diffierently at different times and in different places, whether we are thinking about huge historical eras or micro-contexts like single workplaces.
Here are some possible scenarios to which one might be able to apply specific examples.. just fill in with your own!
The cultural backdrop
In some cultural understandings – and again these may be micro as well as macro – there is a sense simply that Things Happen. This probably includes amongst other ‘Things’ people who are outside the group, who are perceived with whatever degree of acceptance or resistance to be the agents of the change…. No good communicating with them, because ‘We’ won’t make any impact, so just wait and see, and then judge the outcome.
Then there are other cultural understandings which may suggest that, whilst ‘We’ are aware of what’s going on, the option of complaint later is preferable to taking early responsibility for what arises. The Comfort Zone is visible, but is safer than expending the time and energy which a pro-active response would require.
And finally there are cultural understandings which just fail to appreciate the fluid nature of the process of developing ideas. In this case, people do know how to interrogate proposals and they may well have strong views, but they see every decision and outcome as cast in stone.
This last is a particularly difficult position to address, but one familiar to many of us who attempt to initiate Managed Change.
Vague ideas which leave things hanging…
You perhaps go into a situation with a remit to support constructive developments, and you ask those concerned what they think. Their response is, ‘Well, what do you want?’……
But you know that, come the time when plans crystallise into actions, there will be plenty of advice on What You Should Have Done.
The dialectic of such development is challenging. Not everyone sees any difference between Change and ‘Consensual Progress’; nor does everyone want to. If you as an initiator emphasise the plasticity of outcomes, you are accused of not knowing your stuff; but if you offer directional leadership (is there any other sort?) you are of course autocratic.
It’s all a matter of perspective, as any politician or organisational head attempting to pilot his or her favourite policy will tell you.
Empowerment
Empowering people and communities to believe that things can usually change consensually for the better – that only very rarely is there no space for adjustment – is one of the most difficult aspects of community leadership, whatever the ‘community’.
Perhaps one of the first steps in this direction is the acknowledgement that we all, You, Me, Them, make mistakes; and that it IS possible to learn from and act on these, positively.
Angry Young Men in Bradford, Toxteth, Oldham, Salford, Lozells…
In every era of history young men have demonstrated hotheaded and sometimes unacceptable behaviour. Recent violence in our inner cities is nonetheless hugely worrying, especially in contemporary contexts of instant communications and global politics. Intervention to change this behaviour must come from many different angles. One way is collaboration between youth service and school professionals to help alientated and challenged young people develop skills to help themselves.
Groups of young men (and just occasionally now young women) who rove the streets perhaps not averse to a fight, or perhaps even a riot, are nothing new. In Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare wrote about the mediaeval tragedy of the Montagues and Capulets; and Mods and Rockers in the nineteen fifties were the basis of Graham Green’s novel Brighton Rock.
But that this happened in the past doesn’t in any way mean that it’s not of deep concern now. Indeed, with global communication many might argue that, when hotheaded youth meets fundamental conviction, the problem for us all is if anything more serious than before.
The issue in a generally tolerant society is obviously very testing. How can we tell young people meaningfully that we value them, and everyone else, as individuals, whilst also making it crystal clear that we do not, and cannot in any circumstance, tolerate the belief of a minority that violence is sometimes justifiable?
Starting early
The answer lies in part with how we provide for young people and children, in schools, youth groups, in their communities (howsoever defined – which can be a big question…). And we have to start early.
Quite recently I was the evaluator in a project which involved close collaboration between the youth service and two schools in a hugely disadvantaged part of a northern city.
Multiple challenges
The object of this pilot collaboration was to see how intervention by the youth service could support children in secondary education who faced multiple challenges. Some of them were
very low achievers, some had personal problems, some were asylum seekers (who often didn’t speak much English). The majority were boys.
What became very clear to us all, teachers, youth workers and others, was that these children needed to develop confidence and communication skills, and that was best done in very small groups using youth work techniques rather than the conventional classroom approach. However kind and caring the teachers, in their usual classes the children felt swamped and unable to contribute – with the inevitable consequences.
Managing anger in testing circumstances
What was also very clear was that for some children from ethnic minority communities racism was a daily experience; and one they often couldn’t cope with. Anger management for all the children, whatever their community background or colour of skin, was also therefore an essential element in their skills development.
The aim was to help all the children walk away from trouble, full stop.
Continuity is the key
On the whole, this approach was actually beginning to work by the time the pilot project came to an end. The lessons we as professionals learned from this pilot collaborative project were many, but one of the most striking was, you can’t start too early – and you can’t just cut off because a young person has a birthday.
Schools may be structured to impose enormous transitions at eleven and sixteen; but children sometimes remain children in their perspectives and behaviours in ways which may relate little to their chronological age – especially if they have had a pretty rough time of it to date.
A multi-disciplinary approach
Another lesson we learned was that multiply challenged children do indeed need multiple approaches to their problems – teachers, youth workers, health and social care professionals, all have a part to play; and they have to do this together, understanding what each professional approach has to offer the children.
Nobody is suggesting that youth service-school collaboration will bring an immediate end to very serious current concerns around the behaviours of some young people; but it does seem that investing in more of this work is also investing very positively in our futures.
Peer support
The more extreme and unacceptable beliefs of the small minority of angry young men are best challenged by their peers, as well as just by ‘outsiders’.
If we can somehow give some of these peers the support and skills they need to be able to stand up for good sense and our common humanity, we will have achieved something really worthwhile which offers hope for everyone.
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Where Do You Live When You’re Older?
Increasing life expectancy offers many new opportunities to us all, but it brings problems too. Amongst these is how working families can also care for elderly parent/s, who often live many miles away. One possible solution which could also help others living alone might be to re-think the mix of housing required when building homes, whether in rural areas, in terraced streets or in the suburbs.
It’s an issue we almost all have to face at some point: what do you do when old age or dependency catches up, and entirely independent living begins to be a worry?
For some of us, this occurs when our elderly parent/s or other ralatives begin to need support; for others it may perhaps only arise when we ourselves find that getting around is not as easy as it was. Sadly for a smaller number the issue arises because they have dependent adult children who will always require care. But there are few people for whom it’s never at any stage a worry.
It’s even more difficult of course if the increasingly fragile person lives at a significant distance from anyone who could ‘keep an eye’ and offer support. Many of us find ourselves at some point dashing off at any available opportunity to visit elderly parent/s or other lonely or dependent relatives. The problem is, there’s no room, or it wouldn’t work, for them to live with you; but on the other hand they live too far away for easy access.
And this issue isn’t going to go away. We should all be delighted to acknowledge that people live longer now. For probably the first time in history most of us can now expect to get into our eighties in relative good health.
In other words, the ‘dependency ratio’ – the ratio of people in work to those not working – is shifting towards fewer working people and more elderly, retired folk. So here is a matter requiring social adjustment and new policies for a whole range of services and facilities.
Would it be sensible to suggest that a policy of accommodating older people within reach of their nearest and dearest is essential wherever possible? The classic response is the personal arrangement of building or altering accommodation as a ‘Granex’, somewhere in or by the family home where a single older person can live independently but alongside their adult offspring.
But perhaps now is the time also to recognise there is a new commercial construction opportunity here, a development which would facilitate family contact but at the same time help older people to maintain their personal autonomy within the wider community.
We already have groups of small housing units which, although all separate and private, have shared wardens and services. These tend however to be in short supply; as indeed do privately owned bungalows suitable for less mobile seniors.
When housing estates (either private or for rent) are built, or when streets are renovated in the inner city or wherever, perhaps there could be a requirement that a given percentage of the development is very small clusters of accommodation suitable for elderly single people?
There could, for instance, be a recommendation that every fifteenth – or other appropriate number – plot be not, say, two conjoined semis, but rather five smaller flats, each with easy ‘disabled access’ and with a common lift, garden space etc. These small unit blocks, scattered around local communities, would provide homes to be sold or rented in exactly the same way as any other accommodation. The only difference would be that they might offer special ease of access and, through some shared amentity, an opportunity for the residents if they wish to maintain or develop a community of personal contacts and to keep an eye on each other.
If there were enough of these small unit blocks scattered around our communities, a real need could be met. Many adult children who wish to have their elderly and dependent members nearby but not for whatever reason actually in the family home could do so, using the normal mechanisms of the market. And this could also offer mutual support for others who are alone but don’t choose to live in larger blocks of flats.
Not everyone who lives alone can afford, say, suburban accommodation intended for two or more people, but there is no logical reason why smaller single living units can’t be developed in areas usually associated with the semi, as well as in the city centre. Similar arrangements could also apply, to use the other extreme, in rural villages, where affordable housing is becoming a major headache for people on lower incomes.
The evidence seems to be that mixed housing is a step in the right direction for stable and comfortable communities. General incorporation of single / small units of accommodation into ‘semi-land’ and terraced streets could increase choice for single people and help families to keep in touch with elderly members in a more routine and relaxed way.
Given the acknowledged inevitability in the UK of increased single living and also of elderly dependency, there really is a need to think about housing in new ways.
Threat to Liverpool Arts Press Coverage?
Liverpool’s leading morning newspaper is reported as intending to cut back significantly on its Arts coverage, which will it is claimed no longer only be ‘ghettoised’ on one page. How does this fit with Liverpool’s forthcoming status as European Capital of Culture 2008? And will the same rationale now be made for rescuing Sport from ‘ghettoisation’?
It seems that Liverpool is about to reduce its newspaper Arts coverage substantially. A report in the UK Press Gazette on Thursday (13 October) suggests that daily coverage in the city’s leading ‘serious’ paper is to be reduced from five to two days a week, the Friday art supplement is to be eight, not sixteen pages, and three paid columnists will be axed. The rationale is apparently that the Arts will no longer be ‘ghettoised on a specific page each day’.
There also seems to be a suggestion that this change is somehow linked with increased sales and prices.
Confusion exists about exactly how this reduction in specific coverage will be aligned alongside the claim of all concerned to be supporting Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture Year in 2008. If reporting and reviews of cultural events are cut, this must inevitably have an effect on readers’ awareness of cultural activities in and around the city – which includes a readership area reaching out to Chester, North Wales and parts of Lancashire.
It is likely that, in the possible absence of expert opinion on arts topics, only a small part of Liverpool’s cultural offering could be covered; and almost certainly those organisations which stand to lose out the most (alongside their patrons) are the smaller, specialist arts organisations.
When we also read that Sport is not to be ‘ghettoised’ on particular pages, perhaps the case for rescuing the Arts from such a fate will be more convincing.
Iconic Buildings, Local Communities And Cultural Capacity Building
People ‘in the community’ often seem to have a problem with proposals for iconic cultural buildings. Could this be because they only become involved (‘consulted’) after, rather than before, ideas of this sort have been floated? Would things be different if Artists in Residence were truly just that? And would this help ‘capacity building’ for the arts, as well as physical regeneration?
What impact and ‘meaning’ should iconic cultural buildings seek to achieve in terms of cultural excellence and relevance to their local communities? And could permanently established Artists in Residences have a role in working with local people to produce iconic developments which everyone values?
Issues such as this have been much discussed in cities like Liverpool in the past few years; and if anything the debate (e.g. about Liverpool’s proposed ‘Fourth Grace’, a notion initially imposed ‘top down’ and now abandoned, which did not derive from locals and cost much in terms of time, energy and other resources) seems to be becoming more rather than less heated. Local people often do not, at least initially, like change, or ‘iconic’ buildings which may appear to be strange, or which do not appear to have a clear purpose. Yet the wider future-facing view is that regeneration and cultural development must move forward and that special / cultural buildings must be ‘different’, excellent in modern terms, if they are to be effective in their own terms.
This hiatus of understanding will not be resolved just by ‘locals’ taking a few trips to see examples of innovative iconic development elsewhere. Perhaps only a serious willingness (and ability) on the part of decision-makers, to examine what local people understand their contexts and requirements to be, will enable genuine and constructive dialogue about the future to develop.
Such a willingness and ability would require a re-emphasis even before the initial stages of proposals, away from technical considerations to a long-term commitment to the community on the part of the professionals seeking to develop landmark buildings; and it would probably therefore also require a new approach to staff training and professional skills, or possibly a new type of role, as yet undefined, for some regeneration and cultural professionals… perhaps the ideal opportunity for Artists in Residence with a broad knowledge of the issues and excellent communication skills?
Local people may find change and cultural re-emphasis more acceptable, and better understood, when there is genuine embedded involvement by regeneration leaders in community development over time. The need, for instance, to build a new concert hall or gallery will be more easily appreciated – if re / new build is genuinely a better option that the less glamorous choice of refurbishment – where there have been efforts to establish to most local people’s satisfaction that such innovation is actually necessary or practically desirable for discernable reasons. And there is always the possibility that locals might in fact have views and opinions which could actually improve what is finally proposed for development.
Cultural and regeneration professionals need to to identify and value, on an equal basis, locally-based people who are already in a position to act as ‘translators’ or go-betweens in the necessary dialogue. To have significant impact, this would require that the roles and training of those engaged to lead development be revisited, so that (a) they are more easily able to identify appropriate local people, and (b) they become comfortable in valuing what locally-based opinion leaders offer, without any feeling on the part of the developers that they are thereby under threat from others, locals in the informal setting, who also have communication and developmental skills.
Iconic choices are not just a matter of local dignitaries’ civic pride, but mean that community dialogue must actually precede proposals, not simply emerge from them. At present this rarely happens, not least because regeneration officials are frequently only brought in as the proposals begin to take shape, and much of their initial briefing will be by those who already desire the changes proposed. There are obviously cost implications, but if a more genuine engagement is to be achieved these may be inevitable.
There is a strong case for capacity / audience building for artistic and other cultural activities, which is both a necessary pre-requisite and a desired (though unfortunately not an inevitable) outcome of landmark and iconic cultural building. It would be interesting to interrogate the extent to which capacity building is influenced by physical development, and how much this is true the other way around, as well as evaluating the synergistic impact each has on the other.
In cultural contexts, the desirability of long-term on-going dialogue with local communities is yet another reason for cultural organisations in any given location to develop genuine, deep-rooted (and preferably conjoined) community programmes. As with regeneration professionals, this would require considerable training and re-emphasis of role within cultural institutions if it were to have substantial and sustainable impact. The nature of the work which needs to be done is probably at present not fully appreciated.
Dreaming Realist 