Social change and local action

Eurofound — European Foundation For The Improvement Of Living And Working Conditions

Description

Coping with disadvantage in urban areas
Social policy

Sujets

• Economic discrimination
• Migrant worker
• Quality of life
• Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

• Publié par: EUROFOUND-EUROPEAN-FOUNDATION-FOR-THE-IMPROVEMENT-OF-LIVING-AND-WORKING-CONDITIO
• Nombre de lectures: 24
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

European Foundation
for the Improvement of
Living and Working Conditions
OCIAL CHANGE
AND LOCAL ACTION
Coping with Disadvantage
in Urban Areas
\ Loughlinstown House
.* Shankill, Co. Dublin, Ireland Coping with Disadvantage
in Urban Areas AND LOCAL ACTION
Coping with Disadvantage
in Urban Areas
Gabriel Chañan
Research Director at the Community
Projects Foundation, London
Koos Vos
Director of the Nederlands
Instituut voor Maatschappelijke
Opbouw, 's-Hertogenbosch
European Foundation
for the Improvement of
Living and Working Conditions
Loughlinstown House, Shankill,
Co. Dublin, Ireland SOCIAL CHANGE AND LOCAL ACTION: COPING WITH DISADVANTAGE IN URBAN
AREAS
This publication is also available in the following languages:
ES ISBN 92-826-0212-5 Cat. Number SY-58-90-417-ES-C
FRN 92-826-0213-3.r SY-58-90-417-FR-C
NL ISBN 92-826-0214-1. Number S Y-5 8-90-417-NL-C
PTN 92-826-0215-X Cat.r S Y-5 8-90-417-PT-C
Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication
Luxembourg. Office for Official Publications of the European
Communities, 1990
ISBN : 92-826-0122-6
Catalogue Number: SY-57-89-338-EN-C
© Copyright: THE EUROPEAN FOUNDATION FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF LIVING
AND WORKING CONDITIONS, 1989. For rights of translation or reproduction, applications
should be made to the Director, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working
Conditions, Loughlinstown House, Shankill, County Dublin, Ireland.
Printed in Ireland
The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions PREPA CE
In recent years public policies at both the European and national levels
have looked increasingly towards the local level for actions in response
to social and economic problems - in health, employment, crime,
environment, poverty, race relations and elsewhere. These policies have
identified local people and organisations as active agents in social
provision, but also underlined the contribution of diverse sources of
resources, from the public, private and voluntary sectors (see EF News
No. 19, 1989). A variety of programmes have been established to
facilitate exchange of information and lessons from locally-based
initiatives. However, a range of fundamental questions remain unanswered
- represented by general questions: about the conditions under which
local people can work together in groups and organisations to cope
effectively with a social and economic issues; and about the extent to
which such local action is likely to reinforce, rather than reduce,
existing inequalities.
The effect of social and economic changes on the quality of life,
particularly in urban areas, has been a continuing theme of research at
the Foundation over the last six years. The report on "Living Conditions
in Urban Areas", commissioned at the end of 1984, pointed to increasing
polarisation between those who were becoming occupationally and socially
more mobile, and others - migrant workers, unemployed and older people,
single parent families - who were facing multiple disadvantages and
limited life choices. These disadvantaged populations were also seen to
be becoming residentially segregated, so that they tended to be living in
poorer environments, in the inner cities and on the periphery of urban
areas. Against this background of increasing marginalisation and
constrained resources, disadvantaged groups and local communities were
being seen as an increasingly significant or important mechanism for
improving their own conditions. The tensions and uncertainties
underlying ideas of local community action provided the impetus for a
programme of research begun by the Foundation in the autumn of 1987.
Not the least of the uncertainties were questions about what constituted
local or neighbourhood or community action. Research institutes in four
countries - Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland and Belgium - developed
a common framework to examine the literature and practical experience of
local community action. From both documentary material (the most
important of which is summarised in an Annotated Bibliography) and
interviews with policy makers and practitioners, they sought to analyse
the thinking about neighbourhood and local community life, which lay
beneath policy developments. The national studies examined how social
and economic changes have been beneficial for many people but document
how some have been left behind, often concentrated in disadvantaged urban
areas with social and environmental as well as economic problems. From
many examples of local action, the national studies examined the factors
- policies, people, skills and resources - which appeared to influence
the success, or not, of local action. This consolidated report is based upon the national studies, but seeks to
go beyond them to provide a framework for a more general understanding of
local action. It aims to clarify concepts as well as classification
schemes; it distinguishes different forms of local action and illustrates
how they work in a variety of sectors and settings. However, the report
also addresses critical questions about the scale and scope of local
initiatives, considering which problems can be addressed, which people
are likely to be involved and which resources are necessary for
meaningful, rather than marginal, local action. This consolidated report
is designed to give a relatively brief, but accessible, overview of the
subject. It draws mainly upon the experience in four Member States of
the European Community, and the resulting framework and questions are now
being applied in research (for which the Plan is available) in these and
three other countries - Spain, Portugal and Greece.
The findings of the work so far, reflected in this consolidated report,
were considered by the representatives of employers, trades unions,
governments and the Commission of the European Communities - the
constituent bodies of the Foundation's Administrative Board - at a
meeting held in Brussels in May 1989. The participants underlined the
need for clarity in concepts and typologies employed by researchers,
practitioners and policy makers in this area of local community action.
They urged that, while recognizing the contribution of such action, it
was also important to acknowledge limitations and the need for supporting
and alternative policies and provisions. Policy makers, principally in
government at different levels but also in the private and voluntary
sectors, would, it was felt, be helped by the documentation and
clarifications in the report. Several of the main questions, at least,
have now been formulated more clearly. Evidently, it was agreed, there
is need for more systematic study and evaluation of the role of local
community action, particularly given the substantial social and cultural
differences between Member States. This consolidated report provides a
starting point for such research which is scheduled for completion during
1991. After agreeing some minor amendments, the Evaluation Committee
approved the publication of this report.
Robert Anderson Dublin. February 1990
Wendy O'Conghaile CONTENTS
PREFACE
1 INTRODUCTION: PEOPLE, PLACES AND PROBLEMS 1
Context 1
The present research 3
Outline of the report 5
2 THE POLICY CONTEXT 7
Conception of the research
Levels of policy-making 9
Changing policy contexts 10
3 THE CENTRAL CONCEPTS5
Neighbourhood
Social and economic change8
Coping 2
4 UNIVERSAL ISSUES - LOCAL MANIFESTATIONS 23
Poverty and unemployment
Housing, planning and transport6
The global dimension
Local action - value and limits 31
5 FORMS OF LOCAL ACTION
Three levels of local action3
Households
Informal networks9
Groups and organisations 40
6 INTERACTION WITH AUTHORITIES - AUTONOMY AND PLURALISM 45
Independence and control
Towards a typology of local organisations
Autonomous groups6
'Top-down' initiativesand 'pluralistic'projects 48
Voluntary organisations and staturory services 5
Creating and managing pluralist projects1
Professional support for local action2
7 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 57
ANNEX
Examples of local action in practice 69
REFERENCES 85