Community dialogue – which we defined as the ‘words between us that help to hold things together’ – is going on all the time in shops and schools, online and in offices, in parks and over dinner, on buses, in factories, front rooms and kitchens… anywhere people meet. It pays to listen in when you can and – perhaps for the reasons suggested elsewhere in this guide – to listen for the voices of people you don’t normally hear, in particular?
As a local leader, you’ll also be aware of the particular places and times people and communities meet in your neighbourhood:
- all communities have their own meeting places and times. Not many are called ‘community centres’ (though some are). Real community centres are probably the places people feel a sense of belonging? Sometimes it’s said they are the places people feel they can just ‘pop in’. Which might be why food and drink often feature – there’s a reason why every TV soap opera has at least one pub and a cafe at its heart (even though in many real life city neighbourhoods, these days, the role they fill might be taken by a place of worship or a club)?
- all neighbourhoods need places and times for communities to meet each other. Again, there are community centres and places called ‘community hubs’ at which community groups can come into contact with each other. But not everything with ‘Hub’ written over the door is necessarily a place different communities meet; some of them belong too much to one community. One thing that seems to mark out a community hub is that it is the kind of place you can go for lots of reasons and none in particular; and, again, food and drink often plays an useful role: if you can’t get so much as a cup of tea, no one is going to stay around to chat for long?
(If you know and are comfortable with the jargon involved in describing ‘social capital’, you could describe the difference between community centres and community hubs as being that one creates ‘bonding’ and the other ‘bridging’ capital. If you aren’t familiar with this jargon and want to know more about it, then have a look at this briefing (it’s in PDF format) which the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development put together. Or you could look up Prof Robert Putnam – his book Bowling Alone, published in 2000, brought the phrase ‘social capital’ into everyday use.
Community Hubs and Diversity
Not all neighbourhoods have a community hub – a place where different communities can meet. Sometimes centres that were built to serve that purpose have come to belong to a particular part of the local community – but, with some effort, they can be made more common ground at particular times of the week or in parts of the building. For example:
- a two storey church has its space for worship on the first floor and makes the ground floor meeting rooms and kitchen welcoming for use by different communities. Church members see the act of welcoming as being an expression of their faith, rather than putting leaflets and religious symbols on the walls downstairs in the building.
- a community resource centre which includes women-only craft space creates an alternative entrance so that everyone can access IT classes. The Muslim group which runs the centre sees both integration and preserving community values and identity as important.
The more diverse a neighbourhood is, the more benefit there is to be had from a place that serves as a common meeting place. Bear in mind, however, that:
- almost all neighbourhoods in cities like Birmingham are diverse by national standards
- and ‘diverse’ means having lots of different communities – not having lots of people from a particular minority.
Every neighbourhood does better for having a community hub (which doesn’t have to be a place with ‘Hub’ written over the door). It’s worth reviewing where acts as a hub in your neighbourhood and thinking how you could help it do the job even better?
Now, you may want to take a look…
Back at why conversation matters
The ideas that places benefit if most people are no more than 3 Steps to Power
at World Cafe – which is a meeting style you might recognise, but which is not always done well
How to have a good conversation
OR – follow the menu on the right to have a look at other parts of the guide.