Social infrastructure
Sociologist @EricKlinenberg says “social infrastructure,” physical spaces + organizations that shape the way people interact, is as important as traffic systems, water + sewage, etc…
I think so too. “Social infrastructure” is a lens thru which we can look at our upcoming Official Community Plan review.
Civil society. What Victoria architect Franc D’Ambrosio calls “human scale and humanistic” urban design. #ocp2020ycd
In Jane Jacobs’ Dark Age Ahead Ch4 Science Abandoned she contrasts Klinenberg’s research into the 1995 Chicago heat wave that in a single week killed 739 people with “worse than useless” research by the Centre for Disease Control that “blamed the victims.”
Heat Wave, A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
He paired-matched adjacent Chicago neighbourhoods, one had had 40 deaths per 100,000 population, the other 400 deaths per 100,000 population. His findings formed the basis for what he came to call “social Infrastructure,” demonstrably stronger in one neighbourhood than the other.
Social infrastructure is not “social capital” — a concept commonly used to measure people’s relationships and interpersonal networks — but the physical conditions that determine whether social capital develops.
“I needed to explore the hidden networks and taken-for-granted systems that support — or, in some cases, undermine — all variety of collective life.”
“… all social infrastructure requires investment, whether for development or upkeep, and when we fail to build and maintain it, the material foundations of our social and civic life erode.”
“… social infrastructure provides the setting and context for social participation, and the library is among the most critical forms of social infrastructure that we have.”
The library’s “extensive programming, organized by a professional staff that upholds a principled commitment to openness and inclusivity, fosters social cohesion among clients who might otherwise keep to themselves.
Klinenberg debunks, if not the thinking behind, certainly the anti-social application of, crime prevention theories such as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (hostile #DefensiveDesign) and “broken windows (stop-and-frisk). “We have other more effective and less expensive ways to reduce crime today. And a growing body of scientific research shows that some of the best options involve investing in social infrastructure.” #ocp2020ycd
In all neighbourhoods, commercial establishments are important parts of the social infrastructure. “As Jane Jacobs and [urban sociologist] Ray Oldenburg famously argued grocery stores, diners, cafés, bookstores + barbershops draw people out of their homes into streets + sidewalks where they create cultural vitality + contribute to passive surveillance of shared public space.”
“…we are only now coming to terms with how much damage deindustrialization and the decline of blue-collar communities did to the body politic, how fractured and distrustful we have become.” Klinenberg, Palaces for the People”
The architecture of division extends beyond our screens and onto the sidewalks, streets, and shared spaces where we make and unmake our communities every day. It’s encroaching into the entire social infrastructure, polarizing us at a moment when we need to build common ground.
No one questions the urgent need for investments in the nation’s outdated systems for transit, electricity, energy, and storm protection. But are the dire health problems that stem from shoddy social infrastructure any less pressing or dangerous?
“Campus design is a civic art that resonates w/ meaning + significance,” Harvard scholar, campus designer R. Dober. “Greeks had agora, Romans the Forum, Middle Ages cathedral + town square, Renaissance palaces + enclaves, 19th century centers of commerce transportation + gov’t.”
The college campus is uniquely our generation’s contribution to communal place-making and place-marking.”#Nanaimo needs a strong @VIUniversity presence downtown.
This gave me pause. It’s from the Introduction of Klinenberg’s Palaces for the People. “Jane Jacobs and other prominent advocates for improving urban life argued that entrepreneurs, not governments, should build the spaces that support our social interactions.” I’ve read — and re-read — Jacobs extensively. I’ve read more books + essays about her than I could count. I’ve not before encountered this claim. Citation in notes attributes it to the “classic text” The Death and Life of Great American Cities, w/out citing passage or chapter. It’s a curious statement and I wonder if I’ve misunderstood his meaning. Especially in light of Jacobs’ profound examination of the evolved instincts and habits of our commercial and guardian selves in her 1992 book Systems of Survival.
"Before we lift the next shovel, we should know what we want to improve, what we need to protect, and, more important, what kind of society we want to create.”