What do we mean by place-based change?

The Good Neighbourhood Project is a form of place-based change. What does this mean?

More or less everything we do to improve the world is place-based. How could it be otherwise? 

The attached publication (please don’t circulate yet) provides a new definition of place-based change. It is rooted in analysis of the mechanisms of change identified in the literature. What the research says about how changing place, changes people. 

(Implicit in that last sentence is an idea often ignored by practitioners in this field. The point of place-based change is to alter the place. Change in the place, the context in which people live, work, learn and play, changes the people).

The definition is appended to this piece. I have also included the longer version from which it is drawn.

If we are thinking about changing places (to improve the lives of people), it helps to recognise that places change without our intervention. We worry about gentrification. But gentrification is just another form of place-based change, albeit one where we are neither involved nor altogether happy with the consequences. 

I tried to capture this idea is this short piece based on Robert Seethaler’s wonderful novel A Whole Life.

Finally, what kind of placed-based change does the Good Neighbourhood Project try to engineer? In the attached publication, five types are identified. There may be more. 

It is for the Winch to decide where it and the project fits. To me, the Winch as a whole fits into Category one, continuous local social change. The Good Neighbourhood Project is somewhere between categories two -catalysing change locally- and three -shifting power between state and civil society. 

Deciding where the Good Neighbourhood Project fits matters in a couple of respects. One, there are different mechanisms of change underpinning each category. Second, there are different evidence bases on which to draw.

In summary

The take-aways from this publication for the Good Neighbourhood Project are:

• What is the place we seek to change?

• Are we changing the place (the context around people) or the people?

• How do we tap into the organic and continuous change in the place?

• What type(s) of place-based change are we undertaking?

Shorter Definition of Place-based Change

Place-based change is a set of approaches to social change that focus on the geographic context around people. Place is defined, either by people who live, work, or learn in a shared context, or by the state (an administrative geography).

Place can be hyperlocal or large.

Context comprises social, state, and economic infrastructure of place, requiring

a collaborative approach between these different forms of infrastructure.

The change can be a process -for example relationships between people and between institutions/organisations in place- and/or human development outcomes.

Since relationships in place are complex, the analysis seeks leverage points that have disproportionate impact on the system of relationships within place.

Place-based change takes time, generally between five and 15 years, although some work is continuous.

Fuller Definition of Place-based 

Place based change is a set of approaches to social change (mechanisms) that focus on the context around people.

Place is imagined, either by people who live, work, or learn in a shared context, or by the state (an administrative geography). Place can be hyperlocal or large. The minimum requirement is that most people in place feel a sense of belonging to each other, and/or social bonds with each other, and/or shared meaning, and/or shared responsibility for each other, and/or a sense of ‘together we can’ (community power).

Context comprises social, state, and economic infrastructure of place, and so the work is almost always collaborative.

The approaches can change a process - for example relationships between people and between institutions/organisations in place, and/or human development outcomes, generally at a population level, sometimes for sub-populations. Since relationships in place are complex, the analysis frequently seeks leverage points that have disproportionate impact.

Place based change takes time, generally between five and fifteen years, although there are examples of much longer time periods.