Imelda Havers - Creating the Perfect Neighbourhood Post-Covid 19: YoCo at York Festival of Ideas
How can Covid 19 help us create resilient, co-owned neighbourhoods?
This was what YoCo, Yorspace and My York Central attempted to tackle at our recent event as part of the online York Festival of Ideas. It was a bit strange talking about a tangible thing like a neighbourhood in a virtual, online space, but all credit to our participants that we had a stimulating and wide ranging discussion.
We started with a run through the background to YoCo and the great community engagement work carried out by Helen Graham and Phil Bixby of My York Central. Then, putting this into a pre- and post-Covid 19 lockdown context, we considered a typical journey in the past and how that would compare to one now. We extracted what we wanted to keep from our lockdown life, and why those things were so important. The session was recorded and can be accessed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcP-lsN0rgs&feature=youtu.be (start from 5 minutes in to avoid the rather mundane introductions!). Listen out for James Newton’s inspiring case studies of other places running with the co-owned theme and making it work.
Appreciating the simple things - and other themes emerging
It’s easy to hear what people say and fit it to your expectations, but we were genuinely surprised to hear how passionately and widely shared the YoCo values were throughout the discussion. We heard about “the importance of appreciating the simplicity of what we need to sustain ourselves”, from fresh air to fresh food, personal connections and deeply appreciating your locality.
We learned that journeys consist of multiple parts, “a layered set of experiences”, and that we need the time and space in our lives to enjoy all of them. We heard of the need to find enjoyment in what was rushed in the old life, and of discovering new, small spaces on our doorstep we never knew existed. Rituals unexpectedly came up as something many had discovered: rituals around food, walking barefoot on grass, and “ritualised smiling” at strangers we pass in the street.
Most important of all were the connections which brought all those experiences together - connecting places and spaces, connections between people - and taking the time to enjoy those as integral to our lives.
But there are challenges too…
To counter any assumption that Covid has been a rosy experience for all, we also talked about the potential “demonisation” of the world beyond our front door. It’s important to remember that, for many, their world during lockdown has shrunk to the space between the four walls of home. This is particularly true if people are unable to go out for health reasons, or are shielding. So our new world must create space for compassion, and the time to support people for whom the outside world has become overwhelming or even threatening. Those connections will be needed more than ever as we shape the new world around us.
So how can this shape YoCo, or any neighbourhood?
We need to take these ideas on board, and look not just at the spaces we create, but the connections between them, and between the people too. This is what makes YoCo distinctive, and what other neighbourhoods are learning too. We need to keep the conversation going, and follow talk with action. We can learn so much from other neighbourhoods which have created and reinvented themselves for a resilient future. What seems pretty certain from this discussion is that we need to shape our future post-Covid 19, our chance to do it is now and there is little, if any, appetite for going back to the old world order.
Find out more about other co-owned places at:
Homebaked http://homebaked.org.uk/
Yorspace https://yorspace.org/
Handmade Bakery http://thehandmadebakery.coop/
