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Re-activating public spaces on the Coast. Photo: Georgiana VarnaPART I: CIVIL SOCIETY AND AUSTERITY4
The contribution of Micro-Level Civil Society Initiativesto shaping place futuresPatsy Healey, Emeritus Professor of Town and Country PlanningSchool of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle UniversityCivil Society is sometimes used to refer to a sphereof social formation; state, economy and civilsociety. At a micro-level, it can also mean:a. the array of social groups and societies to befound in an area, its ‘associational life’;b. a base within everyday life from which to launchtransformative protest;c. a sphere for asserting and enriching debate andaction about issues of public concern.Civil society-based community developmentactivities re-negotiate the boundaries betweenstate and civil society spheres, and, may embodyall three of the above meanings, as in my case as aresident involved in community developmentactivism in a small town/village in NorthNorthumberland.The locality where I live would be characterised byrural sociologists as experiencing a transition –from an agricultural economy with a ‘paternalist’socio-political culture to a tourist-based economy,along with land-based industries, IT-basedprofessionals and small micro-businesses.Researchers and policy-makers see the locality as a‘community’ with good capacity for ‘selforganising’.Locally, people express a strong sense of, andattachment to, ‘place’, but we vary in how it isperceived. Some parts are well-recognised,though in a fluid, unbounded way. People refer toa wider area, but this generates much lessattachment. Recognising ‘a place’ is a socialaccomplishment, as places have no objectiveexistence. Mobilising to ‘care for’ a place and itsfuture is a political accomplishment.People also recognise and value a strong presenceof ‘community’ in our locality. There are lots ofsocial activities. People are (mostly) friendly andsupportive. But we are by no meanshomogeneous. There are potential divisions –locals and incomers, young and old, professionalsand ordinary folk, those with good pay andpensions and those with very little to live on, thosewho live ‘down there’ rather than ‘up here’, etc.And people have multiple webs of relations withfamily and friends, which extend to other placesnear and far.So, and partly reflecting the ‘transition’ referred toabove, we are a micro-‘pluriverse’ in transition,rather than the cohesive community whichoutsiders sometimes imagine us to be.I use the term ‘place-community’ to describe whatmany of us care about, however differently. Thoughpeople fill the idea with multiple meanings, itmotivates people to act to ‘care for place’. As anattachment, it exists with other ‘attachments’ and‘identities’ people have. Initiatives to shape futuresfor ‘our’ place-community involve bringing intoattention both ‘place-community’ as an object, andalso recognising ourselves as a subject, a ‘we’, anagency which can act.Civil society-based micro community developmentinitiatives exist in a world shaped by theinterrelating dynamics of state and marketprocesses. Market processes generate someeconomic opportunities, taken up locally withvarying degrees of grasp and grip. But profitmargins are very slim for most. Some marketplayers (eg the large landowners) get involved incommunity development initiatives as part of their‘social responsibility’ – harking back to a paternalistpast. Such enterprises may act as funders,volunteers, trustees of community organisations.Micro-businesses tend to focus on their own affairsand survival, though may co-operate, especiallywhen funding opportunities beckon.The State, along with an array of semi-state bodiesand national-level NGOs, dominate the‘governance ecosystem’ in which micro communitydevelopment initiative takes place. The stateprovides sets of rules and regulations, providesseveral services (health, education, etc), and fundsothers to provide services, along with grants etc forsome community development activities. Itintersects with micro-level civil society throughmany interfaces.This ‘agency world’ is experienced locally as amostly distant and fragmented Leviathan. Somepeople are skilled in getting inside and negotiatingthe boundary between this world and particularinitiatives, usually building person-to-personrelations (‘boundary-spanners’). Others getintensely impatient and irritated, complainingabout how ‘government’ gets in the way.5
Page 1 and 2: CIVIL SOCIETY AND POST-PANDEMICPLAN
Page 3: Civil Society and Post-Pandemic Pla
Page 7 and 8: networks, studies); socio-cultural
Page 9 and 10: All of us in this together. Are we
Page 11 and 12: Habeeba Haque speaking, Community O
Page 13 and 14: Forest Hill, London borough of Lewi
Page 15 and 16: From communities out there to commu
Page 17 and 18: The World through the Window, Lockd
Page 19 and 20: Emergency and the suspension of dem
Page 21 and 22: Leaving aside broader questions of
Page 23 and 24: than 400 people signed up in the fi
Page 25 and 26: after the lock down (reported by Wo
Page 27 and 28: Community responses to COVID-19 als
Page 29 and 30: Rethinking the planning project in
Page 31 and 32: Painting rainbows with the children
Page 33 and 34: A planner’s desk.Photo: Working i
Page 35 and 36: When so many health, social and edu

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