Prospect: Pro-social Places
From Future of Local Services to the Public
Summary
This concept or 'prospect' (identified in the Future of Local Services to the Public project undertaken by Ipsos MORI and the Local Government Association) incorporates the related themes of the built environment, community cohesion, equalities and diversity, anti-social behaviour and happiness. Seizing the opportunity to build resilient, buoyant and prosperous communities in a context of increasing diversity and variation is essentially a local issue as various forces separating and antagonising people coalesce in different ways in different places.
Definition
The prospect of providers of local services developing communities ‘at ease with themselves’ is one that cuts across a number of key debates among those looking ahead to the future of places in England and Wales. At its root it is defined by the impact of difference, variation and diversity - whether for good or ill - on the happiness and social cohesion of local areas.
While this diversity takes many forms, the recent focus on the issues of global terrorism has often led to an emphasis on its more negative aspects, such as fractionalisation and polarisation, and this being particularly associated with issues of ethnicity and faith. However, differences created by demographic shifts such as ageing communities, declining birth-rates and a predicted shift in the retirement age altering the working population are also implicated. The social and economic make up of communities must also be considered as well as their historical identities.
In the last decade or so the emphasis has swung away from the idea of multiculturalism in the way it was defined in the 80s and 90s around issues of ethnicity sex and (to a greater or lesser extent) class, to a more fluid approach based on understanding the dynamics of likely discrimination throughout the lifecycle and in times of particular vulnerability.
