Amazing: the think tankers have been boning up on their space syntax again - people talk too much of economics; if we all just had porches, things would be fine... Pxx "This piece is adapted from a book published this week to mark 50 years of social research undertaken at the Institute for Community Studies (now the Young Foundation). Porcupines in Winter: The Pleasures and Pains of Living Together in Modern Britain is published by the Young Foundation, price £12.99. Youngfoundation.org.uk" - @ The Guardian's society section... http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguardian/story/0,7843,1688233,00.html Yet there are many things that governments can do to
strengthen social bonds. They can decentralise power; they can encourage more personal relationships between the state and citizens - for example, through jobcentre workers who act more as supportive colleagues than as coercive bureaucrats; nurses and doctors who put patients' needs first; or community support officers who get to know the people they serve. They can reinforce the bridging of common institutions - schools, GP surgeries, or libraries - that cut across divides of class or race.They can promote urban designs that make it easier for people to relate to each other - for example, with outward-looking homes, with porches and front gardens, sloping roofs and variety, with lines of sight on to public spaces, rather than into each other's windows. They can encourage good connections to the outside world, but also introduce measures to slow down road traffic within the community, which seems to affect how much neighbours talk to each other. And they can
encourage very local media on the web, which have turned out to be one of the most powerful tools for strengthening very local mutual bonds.The recent debate on "respect" exemplifies the possibilities and the limits of government action. Respect and recognition matter to any community, but they are influenced by what people do together, by the resources they control, and the networks they inhabit. The structures of respect that defined a traditional society have partially waned. But modern respect has not evolved sufficiently to take its place. Few communities provide enough opportunities for people of different ages or classes to do things together, which is the practical basis for mutual respect. Casual denunciationsPutting this right will not be easy. Although coercive laws can bring down the worst examples of antisocial behaviour, casual denunciations of "yobs" will do little to reinforce respect and may, at worst, be counterproductive, since
they form part of a pattern that has led to less respect of the poor by the rich (who are dismissed as "chavs") and less respect of the young ("yobs") by the middle aged.The best way to strengthen respect is through activity: projects and tasks that give people reason to recognise each other as human beings, rather than as categories.The politics of recent years has been almost obsessively focused on economics. Over the next few years, we need to turn our attention once again to the social - to what it is that makes us able to live together well.  
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