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Tools and
indicators to improve urban life and to promote sustainable
consumption in the city of Padova*
Dario Padovan**
1. Introduction
The continuous social, economic and
environmental transformations that are a feature of European
cities force us to reflect upon the meaning of the Quality of Life
and on the challenges that will be faced in the future. The aim of
this paper is to analyse the strategies that could be adopted to
improve the quality of life of city and town dwellers in terms of
ecological sustainability and, at the same time, could improve the
physical and natural environment. This report illustrates a study
carried out, in the city of Padova, in which the existing
relationships between the quality of the urban environment, the
nature of relations and the consumption patterns in two different
areas of the city where there are public housing estates have been
analysed. The data gathered by means of focus groups that were set
up in the two areas could help in developing a model of
sustainable urban living that is aware of the natural capital
inherent in energy resources. This study has highlighted citizens’
widespread knowledge, on the basis of which the quality of the
natural capital present in the urban environment deeply influences
their own quality of life. Furthermore, the study has been able to
identify the nature of social relations which are a crucial
element not only in ‘living better’ but also in putting strategies
that seek to deal with environmental risks into practise. The
concept of social capital, which has become increasingly important
in sociology, becomes a means of explaining a considerable part of
the social actions and transactions of individuals’ daily lives,
which are to a grater or lesser degree oriented towards
ecologically sustainable lifestyles. This study seeks to evaluate
the potential of the social factor, as vector of short term
change, in the behaviour and attitudes of householders seeking a
better quality of life and to do this the study first sought to
understand the role of existing relationships between local
residents.
Our research was developed in five stages:
Ø
The first stage checked the
social conditions and the quality of life of residents and their
own definitions and perceptions.
Ø
The second stage analysed and
reconstructed the networks working inside the neighbourhood,
identifying the nature of bonds, the nature of the social
capital there and the level of trust in the neighbourhood.
Ø
The third stage analysed the
environmental risks that people deal with them.
Ø
The fourth stage checked the
consumption patterns they have in common related to
- Energy saving
-
Means
of transport in relation to purchasing activities
- Organic products
- Rubbish recycling
Ø
The fifth stage tried to find
some strategies of improving the quality of consumption,
orienting these actors towards sustainable consumption and
transforming them into a means of diffusing the new consumption
patterns.
The results offered important food for thought
and, in particular, made it possible to define some key indicators
such that in tomorrow’s city the idea of sustainability will no
longer be an ideological question but rather will become the
criterion and the method used to develop it. Lastly, a film was
made during this research, a sort of list of grievances, which
will be presented to the press and to local institutions in order
to highlight the needs and desires of the residents of the areas
analysed in this study.
Methodology
The research used the
“focus group” methodology. In both of the areas studied, the
people who were invited to become part of the focus group were
those who had previously been identified as “nodes” in the local
relationship network. In Via Maroncelli we identified the subjects
who played the role of nodes in the network of local
relationships, simply by asking people who we should speak to in
order to talk about problems in the neighbourhood and turning up
at the customary meeting point for people in the public housing
complex. The people who make these communal spaces work are those
who are most active in local social life, in whom others have
trust and who actively seek solutions for others’ problems. In Via
Pinelli we met “key” figures by going to a group of
householders/occupiers who habitually play cards in the lobby of
one of the public housing blocks. It is they who play cards, for
pleasure and not for money, who reflect at least in part the
sociality of the area. Thanks to these people who helped to
organize the first meeting in which we presented this research
project, we got to know the representatives for each stairway.
Later on we got in touch with another group of householders, who
live in two of the other blocks and who, as we shall see, organise
the life of their blocks in a very intelligent manner.
It was not difficult, in both areas, to
identify the people who played the role of nodes, of hubs, within
the network of resident’s relationships. However, although it was
relatively simple to identify the “key” figures it was much harder
to discern and decipher the relationships between these figures,
the “configurations” they were a part of. (Elias N. and Scotson
J.L., 1965, pp. 167-171). Indeed, during the course of the
meetings held in the two areas, the network of relationships that
emerged was far more complex and conflictual than it had seemed at
the outset. This question will be taken up below, in the section
dealing with social relationships in these neighbourhoods.
As regards the method
used for the focus group, we tried to use the backcasting approach
as described by Karl Dreborg (1996). However, we have, to some
extent, simplified the approach. Firstly, participants described
their situation by focusing on the most unpleasant aspects of
their neighbourhood. This constituted the largest part of the
focus group work. Subsequently, we developed scenarios which were
suggested by the participants. Often these were not very probable
scenarios but they did show how important social problems could be
copied with and solved. Starting with desirable futures, which in
our case did not often reach a very high level of imagination or
complexity, we tried to outline ways of achieving these goals,
usually through political and institutional measures, but also by
means of a shift, a change, in the quality of social networks and
connections.
The Features of the Neighbourhoods
The urban areas where we set up the focus group
are very different one from another. The urban area, which
includes the housing complex in Via Maroncelli and its
neighbourhood called Pio X, also contains a large settlement,
mainly occupied by foreign immigrants, that is usually referred to
as “the ghetto of Padova”. Urban planning models for Italian
cities have always tried to avoid creating “urban ghettos” in
order to stop social groups concentrating in specific areas and to
reduce stereotyping and stigmatisation. Only quite recently, with
the growing influx of migrants has there been a sort of
“Americanisation” of urban spaces, with specific areas being
‘taken over’ by diverse ethnic groups. But to return to the
description of the area around Via Maroncelli, it is a
semi-suburban area, near an area of large commercial structures,
shopping centres and offices, which have little to do with the
everyday life of the zone, it is daily subjected to heavy traffic,
many different social classes mingle and there are few essential
services.
The urban area around Via Pinelli is very
different. This is on the southern outskirts of the city but it is
a long way both from major roads and from shopping centres and
other facilities. About 250 families live in the area distributed
among a group of buildings constructed in diverse periods. The
oldest buildings date from the 1970s, the others were built in the
early nineties, while the most recent were put up a few years ago
and were designed and built to meet environment friendly criteria.
The zone is largely cut off from the city itself, and from other
urban settlements, thus, until about one year ago there was
neither much pollution not noise. However, such isolation also
means that there will be a lack of accessible urban services near
at hand. Indeed, there are no shops, nor are there services such
as a Post Office, a Chemist’s or efficient Public Transport in the
neighbourhood. But, as we shall see, people prefer to breathe
better quality air than to have shops. However, today, the most
pressing problem for the area is that this relatively privileged
environmental well-being is rapidly changing, and changing for the
worse.
2. Sustainable urban life and social capital
What is Social Capital?
In recent years, increasing interest has been
shown in the concept of “social capital”. The term captures the
idea that social bonds and social norms play an important part in
sustainable livelihoods. The value of this concept was identified
by Jane Jacobs (1961) when examining social life in urban
neighbourhoods; by Glen Loury (1987) when studying the labour
market; by Pierre Bourdieu (1979) and later given a clear
theoretical framework by James Coleman. As Pierre Bourdieu
suggests, social capital is a network of relationships, which is
the product, intentional or unintentional, of social investment
strategies aimed at the building and reproduction of durable and
useful social relationships able to offer material and symbolic
benefits. These relationships enlarge the individual or collective
actors’ action capabilities and, if extended enough, the social
system’s action capabilities too. Because of this, social capital
is a public good. Persons who actively support and strengthen the
structures of reciprocity produce benefits not only for themselves
but also for all individuals who are bound to these structures.
From the point of view of Coleman, “social capital inheres in the
structure of relations between actors and among actors. It is not
lodged either in the actors themselves or in physical implements
of production” (Coleman J, 1988). In short, social capital is
different from physical capital and human capital, it is a public
good shared by a number of individuals. Robert Putnam (1993) and
Francis Fukuyama (1995) have also stressed the role of civic
participation in implementing democracy and social cohesion, and
applied the concept at both the national and the regional level.
Social capital is
characterised by a plurality of forms, because it can emerge both
at the individual and the collective levels. It is a contingent
result of interactions among actors with different aims, which are
shaped by the institutional context in terms of opportunities and
constraints. Social capital is featured by those social
relationships which persist for a certain long term period, which
individuals have, partly an ascribed way (kinship and cetual
relationships), and partly actively built during their lifespan
(friend or professional relationships). However, social capital is
not the amount of properties a certain individual possesses,
neither is it found in tools or other goods nor in individuals
themselves. Rather it is inherent to structural relationships
between people. These relationships are a form of capital because
they produce material and symbolic values. For the social actor
they are both resources and strengths. Trusting relationships
(strong or weak, variably extended and interlocked), which act to
improve the social understanding, information exchanging,
reciprocity and co-operation for common goals, that characterize
social capital. In short, social capital is formed by informal or
formal reciprocal relationships, ruled by norms and which define
the forms, contents and boundaries of social exchanges in a
flexible manner.
Social capital is
formed by a special category of social relations, in which durable
mutual identification of participants, reiteration, and some form
of reciprocity and trust is possible. Exchange relationships do
not generate social capital except when the quality of commodities
is not immediately ascertainable, when, for instance there is
hostility, conflict, exploitation or a simple meeting. Many people
benefit from the contribution made, by an individual or by a
group, to the social capital. Nevertheless, it runs the risk of
being exploited by those that do not gain adequate benefits from
it (Coleman, 1990).
Social capital is the raw material of civil
society. It is created from the myriad of everyday interactions
between people. It is not located within the individual person or
within the social structure, but in the spaces between people. It
is not the property of the organization, the market or the state,
though everyone can work to produce it. Social capital is a
“bottom-up” phenomenon. It originates with people forming social
connections and networks based on principle of trust, mutual
reciprocity and norms of action. Social capital refers to the
processes between people, which establish networks, norms, and
social trust and facilitate co-ordination and co-operation for
mutual benefit. We increase social capital by working voluntarily
in egalitarian organizations. Learning some of the rough and
tumble of group processes also has the advantage of connecting us
with others. We gossip and relate and, in so doing, create the
closeness that comes from trusting. Accumulated social trust
allows groups and organizations, and even nations, to develop that
tolerance that is sometime needed to cope with conflicts and
differing interests.
Forms of Social Capital and Networks
The idea of social
capital is associated with that of “network of relations”. Each of
us holds social capital because each of us is embedded in
networks. In all this activity we make choices, every day we
decide whether to see people or to avoid them, to help or not, to
ask or not. But these are hardly free choices; rather, we are
forced to make them. Living inside networks, we are constrained by
the pool of people available to us. We are also constrained by the
available information, by our own personalities, by society’s
rules and by social pressure (Fischer, 1982). Once we have
initiated a relationship in a social context, we face the task of
maintaining it. People feel that bonds require time, expense and
attention, as well as being required by social capital.
There may be high
social capital within a group (“bonding” social capital) which
helps members, but they may be excluded from other groups because
they lack “bridging” social capital. Cross-cutting ties between
groups open up different opportunities to all members. They also
build social cohesion, which requires not only high social capital
within groups but abundant “weak” cross-cutting ties among groups.
Several writes have pointed out the importance of ties outside the
primary network as a means of getting access to resources and
power outside the group. Mark Granovetter (1973) emphasised the
“strength of weak ties”, highlighting the importance of those ties
which run beyond the immediate circle of small family or
neighbourhood dwellers, giving actors richer resources to achieve
a better quality of life. For certain individuals or groups, these
kinds of networks can create a competitive advantage in pursuing
their ends. Ronald Burt has drawn attention to the fact that
actors who bridge between subgroups have access to unique
resources and information that makes them powerful brokers in a
system (Burt, 1992).
Three basic forms of
social capital have been identified: social bonds, bridges and
linkages (Woolcock, 1999).
Ø
Bonding social capital refers to
the relations between family members and members of ethnic groups.
Ø
Bridging social capital refers to
relations with distant friends, associates and colleagues.
Ø
Linking social capital refers to
relations between different social strata in a hierarchy where
power, social status and wealth, are accessed by different groups.
Woolcock relates linking social capital to the capacity of
individuals and communities to control resources, ideas and
information from formal institutions beyond the immediate
community radius (Woolcock, 2001).
Although strong bonding ties give particular
communities or groups a sense of identity and common purpose,
without “bridging” ties that transcend various social divides
(i.e. religion, socio-economic status…), bonding ties can became a
basis for the pursuit of narrow interests and can actively exclude
outsiders. Relatively homogeneous groups may be characterised by
strong trust and co-operative norms within the group and by low
trust and co-operation with the rest of society. Thus some forms
of exclusive bonding can constitute a barrier to social cohesion
and personal development. These are examples of weak bridging but
strong bonding. A restricted radius of trust within a tightly knit
group, such as family members or closed circles of friends, can
promote forms of social interaction that are inward-seeking and
less orientated to trust and co-operation at the wider community
level (Portes and Landolt, 1996). An exclusive focus on group
interests, to the neglect of wider public interests, can promote
socially destructive “rent-seeking” activities. Thus, particular
forms of social capital have the potential to impede social
cohesion in certain circumstances. In this respect, social capital
is no different from other forms of capital: it may be used to
serve different ends, not all necessarily desirable for the
community at large.
Sources of social capital
The social
capital is characterised by different kinds of social conditions.
We have identified the following:
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Participation in networks and groups
Key to all uses of
the concept of “social capital” is the notion of more or less
interlocking networks of relationships between individuals and
groups. People engage with others through a variety of lateral
associations. These associations must be both voluntary and equal.
Individuals acting on their own cannot generate social capital. It
depends on a propensity for sociability, a capacity to form new
associations and networks. Connectedness, networks, and groups and
the nature of relationships are a vital aspect of social capital.
There may be many different types of connection between groups
(trading goods, exchange of information, mutual help, provision of
loans, common celebrations). Connectedness manifests itself in
different types of groups at the local level – from guilds and
mutual aid societies, to sports clubs and credit groups, to
foster, fishery or pest management groups, and to literary
societies and mother and toddler groups. It also implies
connections to other groups in society, at both micro and macro
levels.
b.
Reciprocity and exchanges
Social capital does
not imply the immediate and formally accounted exchange of the
legal or business contract, but a combination of short-term
altruism and long-term self-interest. The individual provides a
service to others, or acts for the benefit of others at a personal
cost, but in the general expectation that this kindness will be
returned at some undefined time in the future when he/she a
service. In a community where reciprocity is strong, people look
after each other’s interests. Reciprocity and exchanges increase
trust. Usually, there are two types of reciprocity. “Specific
reciprocity” refers to simultaneous exchanges of items of roughly
equal value; and “diffuse reciprocity” refers to a continuing
relationship of exchange that at any given time may be unrequited,
but over time is repaid and balanced. Reciprocity contributes to
the development of long-term obligations between people, which can
be an important aspect of achieving positive environmental
outcomes.
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Relations of trust and safety
Trust entails a willingness to take risks in a
social context based on a sense of confidence that others will
respond as expected and will act in mutually supportive ways, or
at least that others do not intend harm. Trust lubricates
co-operation. It reduces the transaction costs between people, and
so liberates resources. Instead of having to invest in monitoring
others, individuals are able to trust them to act as expected. It
can also create a social obligation – trusting someone engenders
reciprocal trust. Three different dimensions form the concept of
trust: the trust we have in individuals whom we know very well
(parents/family, colleagues, neighbours); the trust we have in
others (strangers and unknown) we do not know or inter-subjective
trust; the trust we have in the institutions or systemic trust.
The combination of these three elements provides a concept of
trust, which fits into social capital. Trust means that in a
condition of uncertainty an actor will expect to have positive
experiences, with a cognitive sense by means of which he/she can
go beyond the threshold of mere hope. Trust is, at the same time,
both the source and the outcome of social capital. Trust take
times to build up, and it is easily broken. When a society is
pervaded by distrust, cooperative arrangements and agreements are
unlikely to emerge. The presence of the norm of trusting reduces
the uncertainties present in social life. In this way, safety
becomes an indicator of sustainability, because it ensures the
maintenance of a given social order, and provides changes that can
improve the situation. Safety is not in this perspective only the
absence of crime, but it rather is a condition that makes sure the
individual and social equilibrium when we are facing the everyday
risks.
d. Social Norms
Common rules and social norms are the mutually
agreed norms of behaviour that place group interests above those
of individuals. They give individuals the confidence to invest in
collective or group activities, knowing that others will do so
too. Individuals can take responsibility and can ensure their
rights are not infringed. Social norms are sometimes called the
rules of the game, or the internal morality of a social system,
the cement of society. They reflect the degree to which
individuals agree to mediate or to control their own behaviour.
Formal rules are those set out by authorities, such as laws and
regulations, while informal ones are those individuals use to
shape their own everyday behaviour. Social norms usually provide a
form of informal social control that obviates the necessity for
more formal, institutionalized legal sanctions. Social norms are
usually unwritten but commonly understood formulae for both
determining what patterns of behaviour are expected in a given
social context, and for defining what forms of behaviour are
valued or socially approved. Some argue that where social capital
is high there is little crime, and little need for formal
policing. A high social capital implies high “internal morality”,
with individuals balancing individual rights with collective
responsibilities. Where there is a low level of trust and few
social norms, people will cooperate in joint action only under a
system of formal rules.
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The Commons and Pro-activity
The combined effect of trust, networks, norms
and reciprocity creates a good community, with shared ownership
over resource known as the “commons”. The commons refers to the
creation of a pooled community resource, owned by no-one, but used
by all (Hardin, 1968; Ostrom, 1990; Goldman, 1998). The short-term
self-interest of each, if unchecked, would render the common
resource overused, and in the long term it would be destroyed.
Only where there is a strong ethos of trust, mutuality and
effective informal sanctions against “free-riders” can the commons
be maintained indefinitely and to the mutual advantage of all. To
maintain the commons the presence of a sense of personal and
collective efficacy is needed. The development of social capital
requires the active and willing engagement of citizens within a
participative community action. This is quite different from the
receipt of services, though these are unquestionably important.
Social capital refers to people as creators, not as victims.
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Conditions for
increasing social capital |
|
·
Participation in networks and groups |
·
Reciprocity and exchanges |
·
Relations of trust and safety |
·
Social Norms
|
·
The
commons and pro-activity |
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Social capital indicators |
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1.
Participation in local society |
2.
Pro-activity in a social context |
3.
Feelings of trust and safety |
4.
Reciprocity and obligations |
5.
Neighbourhood connections |
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6.
Family and friends connections |
7.
Tolerance of diversity |
8.
Environmental values |
9.
Common goods
|
10.
Personal empowerment |
3. Outcomes of the focus groups: social services, social networks
and the Quality of Life
Social services, housing and the Quality of Life in the area of
Via Maroncelli
The discussion started with an examination of
the quality of life in the area in relation to the existence, or
absence, of urban social services. Most of the participants
focussed on the absence of such services or, more specifically, on
the lack of five types of services:
Ø
Structural social services, such
as a Chemist’s, a Post Office, more efficient public transport.
Ø
Services concerned with looking
after people, caring, again elderly people are often alone,
looking after themselves or dependent on care from outside or
within their family, or services for youth, as groups of young
people are often seem wandering around the area with nothing to
do. Social mediation was requested in order to resolve some local
conflicts.
Ø
Services designed to improve the
quality of urban life, such as green areas, parks, traffic
reduction, street cleaning and general maintenance of public
places and areas.
Ø
Services concerned with law and
order, city police, who are not able to control anti-social
behaviour in the area. Participants complained about the lack of
any consistent police presence in the area and also criticised the
use of the so-called “vigile di quartiere” (neighbourhood
policeman), who were considered to be useless and inefficient.
Ø
Spaces for local residents to
socialise in. Whether there are or are not meeting points
available in a neighbourhood is really important for the quality
of life of the people living there. Most housing projects were
designed in order to minimize, or even prevent, any chance of
communication between residents, to stop informal, unsanctioned
meetings and to provide minimum facilities for formal gatherings
of people. The way these complexes are designed also limits the
type of activities that can be carried on outside or around the
housing blocks. People begin their life in a housing project as an
aggregation of strangers with diverse habits, cultures, and
backgrounds. Ideally housing complex design should help this group
of strangers to become less ‘strange’, more familiar, help them to
get to know each other and trust each other. Luckily, in this
public housing complex there is a meeting point which has and is
working, over time, to bring residents together, but outside the
settlement there is nothing like it.
Social services, housing and Quality of Life in the area of Via
Pinelli
Unlike the former, residents in Via Pinelli felt that the overall
quality of life in their neighbourhood was relatively good, mainly
thanks to the low density of housing in the area, to the fact that
there are green spaces and very little traffic pollution. Unlike
the residents of Via Maroncelli (who were on average older),
people in Via Pinelli are willing to go without the convenience of
having certain services and facilities “close by” (shops, schools,
offices, means of transport) in order to benefit from “silence”,
“clean air” and a traffic free life. The main problem that
residents in Via Pinelli are becoming more and more concerned
about is the increasingly fast and unregulated process of
urbanisation they see around them. Many buildings, including a
huge shopping centre are currently being built very near to their
neighbourhood, thousands of cubic metres of concrete which do more
to satisfy speculators than to meet real social needs.
Via Pinelli residents talked a lot about the quality of their
housing, perhaps because the buildings they live in are all fairly
new and were built according to the norms of bio-architecture
where housing needs are met in an environmentally sustainable,
eco-friendly manner. These houses, built by Edilizia
Residenziale, are considered to be aesthetically pleasing and
even the way in which the individual buildings are laid out is
appreciated. However, even though they recognise the aesthetic
qualities of the Via Pinelli housing development, residents still
list a series of problems that the houses have, four years after
they were built. The most consistent problems cited are: damp
inside the houses, the poor quality, hence degradation, of the
materials used, the fact that some of the houses get too much sun
and rooms are badly insulated, the fact that there are no
balconies and there are architectural barriers that affect elderly
and disabled people. Indeed, when it comes to the crunch, people
would choose functional buildings rather than aesthetically
pleasing ones. As well as the structural problems, there are also
problems of organising both Municipal services (grass cutting,
rubbish collection, etc.) and of managing public spaces and areas,
for example, the tale of the public meeting areas on the ground
floor, which is told below.
Unsafety and insecurity
In both the neighbourhoods some of the participants claimed the
lack of personal safety in the area due to the fact that there is
a low level of social control exercised by the police there. But
there were considerable differences between the two groups of
people.
Our witnesses from Via Maroncelli complained of the fact that
bands of drug dealers (usually foreigners) operated in the area;
that there are prostitutes on the streets, groups of youths who
behave in an anti-social manner and show little respect for other
people, and bands of petty criminals who commit various kinds of
crimes. They also complained about the lack of any official
agencies, methods or concrete action taken to control these
situations, particularly as they were increasingly aware of the
powerlessness of any private attempts to enforce some sort of
social control. There was a general feeling of being abandoned by
the institutions. The problem of security and of personal safety
seems to have become one of the main themes in the context of the
quality of life in the city in general, and this was confirmed by
people’s reactions here too. We have already examined this problem
in an earlier piece of research which showed that concern about
personal and social safety is relatively high. The problem is,
however, how that feeling of not being safe should be interpreted.
Often it is neither related to any specific crime that may have
taken place within the area, nor to any episodes of victimisation
or attacks undergone by the residents. Rather, as we shall see
when analysing other opinions, the roots of this feeling of
non-safety can be found in the types of relationships in the area
and in the poor quality of the environment. Basically the theme of
security/non-security lies at the heart of the worry and concern
expressed during the discussion, fears which, as can be seen from
the video enclosed with this paper, can only partly be connected
to the fact that a large group of immigrants lives nearby. Even
though images referring to “conquering the area”, to “invasion” by
groups of foreigners did emerge from the focus group, such fears
are only partly attributable to the problem of the “other”. Here
is what one group member said:
·
“If I don’t think, I could say that I live well here, but in
reality there is always the problem of security: I can meet
either foreign immigrants or Italians round here and I am equally
afraid of both. If I think about Via Anelli, where they
(immigrants) are concentrated I am afraid too because I
think that if they have taken over there, then they could, little
by little, take over here in this area also. And nobody
checks on these things. I don’t entirely trust even the people I
do know, there’s an underlying distance. Because of this we tend
not to support each other. Security isn’t only being protected
against threats but also feeling secure with others”.
These fears show, on the one hand, that a sense of belonging may
develop as a reaction to the arrival of outsiders and, on the
other, that this identity tends to blame the “other” for all the
social frustrations of the absence of institutions and
unsatisfactory, or non-existent, social relationships. People feel
that they have been left to fend for themselves and this is the
main cause of existential uncertainty and personal insecurity. As
a witness said:
·
“If the institutions don’t look after us then we begin to feel
abandoned, frustrated and insecure. Fear doesn’t arise out of
nothing, but it develops in this type of situation”.
·
“…fear is a problem of solitude…… because here the other is the
other!”
The people who live
in Via Pinelli are less concerned about insecurity and unsafety.
This is probably due to the fact that the neighbourhood is fairly
isolated, cut off, from other areas, that people do know each
other and that the terraced houses, built according to
bio-architecture standards, are mainly occupied by professional
security workers (policemen and policewomen, prison warders, tax
police). Only a couple of focus group members expressed some
doubts about security:
·
People
come from outside and cause problems; they even stole a park
bench!
·
All that is needed is for a Police patrol car to pass by
regularly.
However, apart from these generic complaints, criminal activity is
considered to be a minor problem by residents in the area,
certainly not one of their main worries. There was some concern
expressed about crime but this seemed to depend more on the fears
stirred up by the alarmism of the mass media than on perceived
criminal activity in the neighbourhood.
Neighbourhood social networks
What is interesting in the outcomes from the
focus group of Via Maroncelli is that there are no prevalent
social networks in the neighbourhood. Both weak and strong
connections are at work there. Using the former classification we
can identify both “bonding” relations among members of local
groups or between residents in the housing complex and “bridging”
relations among neighbours and distant friends, associates and
colleagues. What is weak is the “linking social capital” or, in
other words, the capacity of both individuals and
the community to control resources, ideas and information from
formal institutions beyond the immediate area of the community.
This weakness is the result of a low level of participation in
common local issues. What could be very useful for the people
living within a public housing complex, and in places nearby, are
networks with weak connections. These ties cut across the
boundaries of the public housing complex, reaching people who live
in other social and urban spaces or, simply, outside the public
housing area. These weak ties serve to connect different groups,
allowing these latter to pursue professional, economic, political
and cultural goals. They also increase the social cohesion within
the neighbourhood, reinforcing collective action and opening up
new horizons for public housing tenants (Granovetter, 1973). When
discussing the quality of the social relationships in the area,
participants showed three distinct types of attitudes.
Firstly they complained about the limited nature of their social
bonds, revealing a sense of spatial isolation which may well be
partly due to the way the area was initially laid out: it is
bounded, cut off, on at least three sides by busy roads and by big
commercial and industrial buildings. As one of the focus group
said:
·
“As regards the feeling of identity in the area in relation to its
boundaries, here we sometimes feel like prisoners”.
·
“In my opinion it is not the case of someone from the outside who
wants to break us up or damage things, rather it’s something that
happens within, something that comes loose, disconnects, inside,
because it has been forced on us. In a small area if someone wants
to cut loose then they tend to be put on one side; here you can’t
do that because that person is inside. However, I can’t say that
my life here is all that bad”.
Thus it would seem that there is the desire to set up a large
network of people who would be able to develop joint, communal
actions for the good of the local inhabitants and, furthermore,
that the links formed could then be loosened or broken so as to
exclude those who neither fit in nor inspire trust.
Secondly, the group members had noted how weak links, for instance
those marked by indifference, sometimes create awkward situations
and social distance for some categories of people, especially the
elderly and children. As one participant said:
·
“The ease with which one can live is very important because we are
on the outskirts of a city: you don’t know everyone and it is easy
to lose contact with those who move away. Even young people today
don’t spend their lives in the area, but go to other areas to meet
up. Thus it becomes very difficult to get together. And elderly
people, if they are lucky enough to live to a good age, shut
themselves up in their homes. And some of the young people do meet
in the Church Hall, but why should everyone have to go and meet on
Church premises?”
·
“…you can live quite contentedly here but you never really get to
know your neighbours, if you are prepared to ignore things then
you can indeed be quite happy here …”.
Usually, distance in relationships does not produce interpersonal
trust, it does not involve actors in common activities, rather it
allows for a limited degree of reciprocity, an accumulation of
“chits” which the actors hope will permit such reciprocity. The
possibility that actions might be repaid in some way is encouraged
both by the norm of reciprocity which is part of moderately dense
social bonds, and by the actors’ hopes that they will create a
feeling of being indebted in the person who has been helped. But
this type of relation based on a “utilitarian” exchange was not
enough for our witnesses who wanted bonds based on deeper shared
meanings and values.
·
“If you give something you don’t necessarily have to have
something back in exchange, if you give something you give it
freely. To expect reciprocity is dangerous: the
spaces are narrowed because for anything you give there
must needs be a personal repayment or compensation.”.
It is easy to identify the desire to exchange freely without
forming “debts”, something, which is always associated with
commerce and trading, and to limit the “utilitarianism” and the
opportunism that social exchanges may entail. Rather, witnesses
would like to see a more widespread, general reciprocity, one
which allows for a continuous series of exchanges. In this latter
case, the favour does not have to be repaid immediately or the
debt instantly paid off. We could call this behaviour as
“something for nothing” (Gouldner, 1975). Friendship, kindness and
tact are aspects of relations that imply long term, widespread
reciprocity, they do not have to be immediately repaid but work,
over time, to create a situation which will benefit all the actors
involved. This type of reciprocity serves to reconcile the two
opposites of individualism and solidarity and makes it possible to
control any opportunistic behaviour that may develop within
collective action.
The third, and perhaps most commonly held attitude that emerged
during the focus group meeting, concerns participants’ overall
satisfaction with their existing social relations. This
satisfaction would suggest that the general, widespread,
reciprocity described above does, to some extent, already exist:
·
“For example, I always leave the keys with a neighbour when I go
away”.
·
“Relations between us are excellent, so long as someone behaves
then there is nothing to say. I have a lot of friends both here in
the area and outside. Sometimes we invite each other to dinner”.
·
“I could say that we are a happy enclave. I live in a block with
six other families, we get on well together and I certainly cannot
complain about a lack of socialisation.”
·
“It is difficult to cultivate social relations when you work. Thus
I have few, but important, relationships”.
What is clear from the above is that most people think that they
do have good social relations. To a certain extent they do trust
their neighbours and acquaintances, they do help each other, leave
keys with each other, and meet up, but these interpersonal links
do not necessarily develop into social activities which require a
certain degree of willingness to take part in actions for the
public good: But we will return to this later.
Basically, people’s experiences of relationships in the area show
that there are both close and distant relations, both familiarity
and non-relations and that these experiences simultaneously feed
the desire for closeness and for distance. On the other hand, the
existence of, or the desire to develop, a plurality of relations
can create the conditions for strategic action which would be able
to modify the negative aspects of local society. We can add other
pairs of dichotomies to these, for example,
“individualism/sociality”, “trust/diffidence”,
“isolation/participation”, opposites which highlight and describe
very clearly, the reality of the existential and relationship
tensions that the actors experience every day.
In Via Pinelli the relationship model at work is different from
that of Via Maroncelli. In Via Pinelli there are two groups of
tenants each of which are based on rather different relations,
bonds of friendship and collaboration. The two groups have formed
around the key persons on the estate who we identified and then
invited to the focus groups. The two groups are also physically
separated in two different sets of buildings. If one were to
describe the style adopted by the two groups one could say that
one group is characterised by the spontaneity of its relations,
Rabelaisian type friendships, while the other is marked by a far
more rational, or better “reasonable” conception of rights and
duties, as in the reciprocity found in common action. In Weberian
terms one could say that the first group privileges values of
friendship and solidarity, reinforced by specific and declared
class membership (the members of this group declare themselves to
be left wing and workers), while the second group is closer to the
rationality of the aims where the aims and the results are more
important and not shared values. The
members of the group are held together by a minimal and negotiated
link. Bonds based on such negotiation mean that living in the
community does not require the individual to belong or to make any
emotional investment in relations; rather the community is merely
a space for supporting social interactions and resolving common
problems.
The “rationalist” group is made up of 19 family nuclei all of whom
live in the same block and who are united by their common efforts
to manage and run the block. Because there is no formally
appointed administration for the block the tenants have organised
themselves by allocating agreed, set roles to each person. This
means not only that they have organised the maintenance of common
areas (cleaning stairs and corridors, seeing to lighting on the
stairs, landings and in the entrance hall, garden maintenance) but
also that they have agreed upon common rules regarding how common
spaces should be used (times when noise is permitted and when it
is not, time and place for other work and managing the heating
system). This system of rules covers almost everything and offers
the basis for mediating the conflicts that used to arise before
the code of behaviour was agreed on. The system also means that
maintenance costs less in the long run and certain forms of energy
are being used more rationally. As some of this group said:
·
We set up a kitty to pay for maintenance which otherwise would be
far more expensive if we did it individually, things like changing
light bulbs or cleaning the stairs.
·
We agreed that 40W bulbs were adequate on the stairs and there was
no need to use 60W bulbs.
·
We worked out when people were at home and set the timer programme
for heating accordingly.
Even though it may
seem somewhat exaggerated at times, this detailed, precise and
responsible co-operative approach to block management has meant
that the diverse needs of the families living there have largely
been met. The absence of the institutions both triggered this
self-management approach which has created a model of
participation that is seeking a non-conflict way of managing
problems linked to living alongside others:
·
The most important thing is that from the outset we all had a
common aim: to be well.
·
We began to take decisions together and to look for the best way
to organise ourselves: there were some disagreements but in the
end our efforts to mediate were successful.
·
Those who hadn’t wanted to join in at the start soon did, once
they realised the advantages of managing things together.
This relationship model which seeks to ensure functionality for
each individual is built up by a series of monads that interact
with each other in order to achieve a specific objective: that of
ensuring the good functioning of the system. There are not
emotional or ideological elements, no inter-personal likes and
dislikes between the members of this group. Participation is based
on exchange relations and on rationally evaluated and weighted
pooling of personal time, very ascetic relations that seek to
guarantee the well being of everyone, individually. In other
words, don’t cause problems for your neighbours.
On the other hand, as we have said, the relationship model
developed within the other group aims to create the situation
where people live well together, that is, it is based on
sharing and on the consolidation of inter-personal relationships.
In this latter case there is no specific allocation of tasks and
duties, nor are there explicit rules. One of the most usual ways
of meeting is over a hand of cards, which is, however, only an
excuse for meeting:
·
It is true that some people don’t even play cards, but they still
come and meet others, it’s a way of having a chat.
The differences in these two models of sociality reflect the
social origins and position of the members of the two groups. In
the first case, the group is made up of employed people who spend
much of their day at work, outside the neighbourhood, and only
return home in the evening, after work. As explained above, their
social references and relations are mainly outside the housing
development. They are office or white collar workers who find it
hard to come to terms with the idea of living in council housing.
Sometimes they implicitly let it be known that they are better
educated or have higher social standing, something that emerges
from their attitudes and from their life-style (they do not use
dialect, they emphasise the fact that they are white-collar
workers or are busy studying or involved in cultural activities
and they have both a healthier personal lifestyle and respect the
environment to a greater extent). They do not wish to be
assimilated into, or be identified with, the other group of
residents.
The second group is largely made up of pensioners, blue-collar
workers and people, often disabled, who receive assistance from
Social Services. Their day revolves around life within the
confines of the neighbourhood, as many of them are unable to move
around unaided (either because they have no means of doing so, no
driving license, or for reasons of age or invalidity). Contacts
within this group are based on interpersonal relationships and
people find many reasons for meeting: whether it be for a game of
cards, for dinner, just to chat, or to help those who need moral
of personal support for some reason, they’ll find a reason to
meet:
·
We often invite our neighbours to eat with us; sometimes we have
even spent Christmas day or Easter together, just like relatives
do.
To use the Rabelaisian metaphor again, if one were to ask these
people what sort of life they long for they might well wish to
live in the Abbey of Théleme: “Their lives [that of the members of
the Abbey] were not dictated by laws, statutes or rules but
unfolded according to each one’s desires and free choices. They
would get up when they decided to or felt like it; they eat,
drink, work or sleep whenever they want: no one wakes them; no one
forces them to eat or drink or to do even the slightest thing.
Gargantua had established this”.
But leaving aside 16th century burlesque literature, we could say
that the two lifestyles expressed in the two groups do produce
different habitus, that is, different “systems of
generating models that are likely to be applied, by simple
transference, to very different practical situations”. As Pierre
Bourdieu argued, life-styles are the systematic products of
diverse habitus that, perceived through their reciprocal
relationships, on the basis of habitus models, become the
system of signals based on social position. The dialectic between
conditions and habitus is the catalyst for the alchemy that
transforms the distribution of capital, the result of a power
relation, into a system of perceived differences, with discrete
features, that is, into the distribution of symbolic capital
(Bourdieu P., 1983, pp. 118-139).
Indeed, disparity of lifestyles is not simply a
given fact, but often expresses more as it establishes both the
identity of the person and their social and individual
representation. The fact of belonging to one group and not to
another is not an accident and it becomes especially clear in this
case where a lot of energy is put into highlighting the
“differential distances”. As when making any choice, the object
chosen is always the product of an identification operation. Goods
(including forms of sociality) should be seen as “distinguishing
marks”, as the visible parts of the iceberg of global
social processes. Goods are used to identify others by, that is,
they serve to classify into categories: marking is the
right word in this case. Identification can be done privately, but
here we are concerned with public identification. Goods are
evaluated on the basis of an agreement between consumers” (Douglas
M., Isherwood B., 1984, pp.79-89). This clearly reveals the social
nature of consumers’ actions; indeed consumer choices acquire a
meaning and a social function that, contemporaneously, both
defines differences within the social hierarchy and confirms that
the subject belongs within a wider context and is integrated
within the dominant values.
Given the differences
we found, it is not hard to see why, in Via Pinelli, there is no
Residents committee like that in Via Maroncelli: setting up a
committee means electing representatives who are able to mediate
and find ways of getting residents to agree. The fact that in Via
Pinelli there a variety of different points of view, which we have
simplified into two main models, makes such unity impossible, or
rather, it is not seen a priority by the residents concerned.
Lastly, it should be remembered that the Public Authorities do not
encourage Residents to set up committees. Institutional
inefficiency and the fear that people will set up groups that are
really strong enough to demand their rights, only exacerbate this
situation of division and ongoing conflict between the groups of
tenants, quite apart from the diverse lifestyles and priorities
they have.
Systemic and interpersonal trust
Another aspect which emerged from the
discussion in both of the neighbourhoods is that of trust and
diffidence. There are two types of trust: “institutional or
systemic trust” and “interpersonal trust” (A. Mutti, 1998, p. 38).
By “institutional trust” we mean the trust that citizens have in
social institutions for as long as these institutions continue to
offer concrete responses to their demands, to take decisions and,
to put such decisions into practise so as to guarantee a certain
degree of existential stability, A lack of institutional or
systemic trust reveals the instability of the natural or social
order subjects are involved in and, obviously, implies that there
is a certain degree of uncertainty about the routine events of
daily life. Interpersonal trust corresponds to the expectation
that Alter (the other) will not manipulate communication,
will give a real, and not biased, representation of their own role
and behaviour and of their real identity. Basically, the
expectations of |
