Birkbeck Talk: Community Planning Elites and Spatial Inequality – An analysis of planning related community activism in the London Borough of Haringey in the 1990s

Wednesday 3rd November, 12.30 – 2pm
Council Room, Birkbeck College Main Building,
University of London, Malet Street / Torrington Square,
Bloomsbury London WC1E 7HX
[Near Euston Square, Russell Sq, and Goodge St tubes]

Talk / discussion by Bryan Fanning – all welcome

This paper presents an analysis of planning related community activism in the London Borough of Haringey [in the 1990s – currently being updated] drawn from a longitudinal study of planning, regeneration and the politics of community participation.

The paper identifies a strong contrast between the prosperous west of the borough and deprived localities to the east in relation to the nature, extent and effectiveness of activism.

In the affluent west, organised networks of amenity and single issue groups forced levels of institutional accountability that contrasted with indifference by the local political elite to community views on planning issues in Tottenham and other deprived areas to the east of the borough.

In the west of the borough, the community groups achieved the status of consultees on planning issues, a status that complemented a formal structure of institutional consultation.

The realpolitik, described by various community activists, planning officers and councillor interviewees, was that the Council treated west and east differently when it came to development proposals, the sale of council-owned land, the location of social housing and the protection of designated open space.

The paper should be relevant to those interested in regeneration, community development, activism, planning and local government as well as urban social polarization.

Professor Bryan Fanning is the Co-Director of the Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative (MCRI) and a member of the School of Applied Social Research at University College Dublin.

He is currently an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies at Birkbeck.  His previous books included Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2002),  New Guests of the Irish Nation (Irish Academic Press, 2009) and Immigration and Social Cohesion in the Republic of Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2011 forthcoming).

As editor his previous books include Immigration and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland (Manchester University Press, 2007), as co-editor Theorising Irish Social Policy (University College Dublin Press, 2004) and Care and Social Change in the Irish Welfare Economy (University College Dublin Press, 2006).

He is currently co-editing a volume Globalization, Migration and Social Transformation: Ireland in Europe and the World, to be published by Ashgate in 2011 and co-writing a book based upon research in the London Borough of Haringey, Planning, Regeneration and the Politics of Community Participation.

This is a joint seminar between the Human Geography cluster (Birkbeck) and BISR

Free and open to all – no registration