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‘Open source’ place-making
There is a growing appetite in industrialised countries orenterprises that merge proft-making with morality and a dramaticrise in the use o digital online technology or social networking.The two trends highlight an increasing attachment to social valuein business and thirst or a new social layer to everyday lie. They mark a change in the way in which we choose to organize and live ourlives, with implications or or-proft and non-proft businesses alike.The two trends recommend a new emphasis in urban policy andplanning towards embracing ‘citizen demand’, aggregating andusing it to make places that unold over time, through programmeso low-cost capital investment.They suggest that there’s value in taking a more interactiveapproach to the design and development o our cities, one gearedto multiple groups, relationships, entrepreneurial networks andmodular use o sites.Think o it as ‘venture urbanism’. Call it ‘open source’ place-making.
THE RISE OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
Throughout the world, social enterprise is on the rise. Dubbed the new ‘ourth sector’, thishybrid orm o or-proft/non-proft business is orecast to have a global value o over £300bn-a-year within 5-10 years.
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Specialist social enterprise fnancial institutions like Charity Bankand Triodos report levels o lending in the frst hal o 2010 equivalent to all o 2009.
2
This isagainst a backdrop o investment by Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Funds in the UK:an estimated £764bn.
3
The political message o the new Coalition Government in the UK is
to put more power andopportunity into people’s hands
, in part by supporting co-operatives, charities and social enter-prises; and by Autumn 2010, a ramework has emerged or this that eatures the rolling back o regional government, ormation o a Big Society Bank, unding support or community organ-izing and promotion o the idea o Open Source Planning.
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Upward trends in obesity, chronic disease and demographic ageing in the industrial countrieshave long drawn attention to the act that the biggest sectors o Western economies by 2020, both by value and employment, will not be cars, ships, steel, computer manuacturing orpersonal fnance but the social sectors o health, education and care.
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The rise o social investment, the policy programme known as ‘Big Society’ and cuts in expend-iture on public management seek to enhance the role o social business in the provision o these services in the UK.
‘OPEN SOURCE’ PLACE-MAKING
A COLLECTIVE APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF CITIES INAN AGE OF BIG SOCIETY, DIGITAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
Author — David BarrieSeptember 2010
David Barrie & Associatesdavidbarrie.typepad.com
•project design & delivery •creative/economic planning•public involvement•social ventures
This essay wascommissioned by
, Scotland’snational championor good architecture,design and planning inthe built environment.
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‘Open source’ place-making
When linked with the rise o the internet as a model or doing business, a modal shit in demandto localism in response to climate change and increasing awareness o the value o community to sustainable development, a orm o business that promotes people, moral resource and alter-native orms o shareholder value starts to look way more than just ‘avour o the month’.I social enterprise is to assume a greater role in the supply o public goods and services, howmight it change the way in which we deliver a key public service: the built environment?
AN ARMY OF NEW ENTREPRENEURS
As social enterprise has grown around the world, an army o new entrepreneurs has amassed inthe shadows o the ‘creative class’ o proessionals, knowledge workers and ‘Bobos’ championed by real estate developers and city administrators in their bid to turn around post-industrial cities.
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This is an army that is committed to what Jerr Boschee, President and CEO o the Social Enter-prise Alliance in the United States calls
merging the prot motive and moral imperative
– and they are oot-soldiers to a cause that is an hybrid o capitalism and ethics, rather than economicclustering, Richard Florida’s ‘Gay Index’ or the capacity o culture, principally the visual artsand the excess capital that ollows it, to re-purpose redundant urban environment.
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According to Boschee, an early explosion o activity took place across the United States in the1970s and 1980s,
as entrepreneurs, small businesses and major corporations discovered social marketsand started social enterprises
, and they were inspired by isolated incidents o private sectorcorporations addressing social need:
They began to run adult day-care centres; educational programs for small children, high-school drop-outs, and adult students; low-cost housing projects; vocational training and job-placement efforts;home-care services for the disabled and elderly; hospice care; outpatient mental-health and rehabilita-tion services; prisons; wind farms; psychiatric and substance-abuse centres; and dozens of other busi-nesses that delivered products and services previously provided by non-prots or government agencies.
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The response o agencies in the United States at the time was to push more o the responsibil-ity or meeting social needs on to the non-proft sector, while simultaneously slashing ederaland state unding or human services.In the UK, a country with a powerul tradition o mutualism and state provision but weak cul-ture o philanthropy, a similar but less rapid and individuated trend has taken place. In recenttimes, it has witnessed the trebling in value o the charities sector, the rise o developmenttrusts to support regeneration and renewal – or example, the Royds Community Association– social enterprise provision o social care – or example, Turning Point – the birth o social businesses such as the Big Issue, ethical attractions such as the Eden Project and the osteringo devolved neighbourhood and community schemes by municipal authorities.
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Social entrepreneurs such as John Bird, ounder o the Big Issue and Jamie Oliver, co-oundero the Fiteen chain o training restaurants have become lions o popular culture – with anemphasis upon them as charismatics, rather than CEOs like Georey Canada o HarlemChildren’s Zone in the United States.
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Ideas or social business grown in the UK have been successully exported abroad – with versions o the Big Issue now available in nine countries around the world and The Hub,
a multi-sited incubator for social innovation
, in twelve.
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If social enterprise isto assume a greater role in the supplyof public goodsand services, howmight it change theway in which wedeliver a key publicservice: the builtenvironment?
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‘Open source’ place-making
In parallel with growing numbers o new social businesses in the UK, there has been agrowing inuence o ‘citizen-driven partnership’ as an alternative to the central designand delivery o governmental services.
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Certain policy thinkers have had a key inuence upon this, such as Proessor StephenGoldsmith at Harvard Kennedy School, sociologist Amitai Etzioni, economist Richard Thaler,David Halpern o the Institute or Government, Geo Mulgan o the Young Foundation and writer Charles Leadbeater.
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Initiatives that emphasise community involvement have captured the public imagination,such as Time Banking UK and The Big Lunch.
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Public institutions and Government have been impressed by the participation o people inthe social sector in initiatives such as the Balsall Heath Forum, Southwark Circle, Teach First,NHS Choices and the St Giles Trust.
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With a persistent lack o trust in politics, social problems, inequality and unprecedentedchallenges to public fnance, these initiatives and others have impressed strategists inpublic policy and emphasised the value o user-driven and user-ocussed involvement asorces or change.This has been accompanied by an ideological shit in political culture away rom socialsecurity to ‘social productivity’: a trend emphasised by the new Coalition Government andits proposals to limit benefts, implement ‘open source’ planning, introduce ‘social income bonds’, support public sector co-operatives, boost volunteering and turn the ‘civil service’in to the ‘civic service’.
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The rise o social enterprise and ‘social productivity’ has important implications orregeneration and renewal in the UK. They prioritise human relationships, transactions o social, not just commercial value and shit the narrative o renewal rom the provision o space to services, with sites acting as places that enable change, rather than dictate them via a masterplan.
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The rise o social enterprise and ‘social productivity’ presses or a new narrative in urbandevelopment; but beore opening up this story, there’s a parallel phenomenon in contemporary culture that needs to be considered.
THE INTERNET AND RISE OF THE‘RELATIONSHIP ECONOMY’
The appetite is insatiable just now or using the internet or social networking and as a toolor creating ertile communities and new entrepreneurial networks.At present, there are 51m users o the internet in the UK – 82% o the population. One in every our and a hal minutes spent by people online is on social networks and blog sites. In July 2010, the social networking website Facebook passed its 500 millionth user – 24.2m in the UK Five o the ten astest-growing online brands over the last year in the UK, in terms o uniqueaudience, relate to social and proessional networking. A new member joins the business-orientated site LinkedIn approximately every second.
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The rise of socialenterprise and‘social productiv-ity’ has importantimplications for regeneration andrenewal in the UK
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'Open Source' Place-making
Essay arguing for a new approach to the development of real estate, informed by the rise of non-profit enterprise, the internet economy and sustainable development. Commissioned by UK agencies Architecture + Design Scotland and the Scottish Centre for Regeneration, as part of the Sustainable Communities Initiative of the Scottish Government.
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