These two words could hold the key to social stability

Social Affection - say the words out loud, and reflect on what it means to love a place - and a number of images, stories, senses will be evoked in you.

I saw a documentary on activism around a ridiculous scheme to encircle the city of Cork in a concrete flyover in the 1960s - (imagine the M25, but over the city like a Spaghetti Junction, wiping out 20-percent of the city’s neighbourhoods - it, actually, got planning approval). In it, Irish journalist Mary Leland used the phrase “social affection” and it resonated immediately. She wishes people could be fonder of where they live; the suggestion being that fondness would make us want to fight for the places we care about.

What makes us love where we live? And, importantly, what denies us that fondness? I grew up in Harrow, a place I did not think I loved. I spent time there recently and when I stepped into my childhood Edwardian semi for the first time in many years I felt nostalgia, yes, but also something deeper. I remembered warm experiences, but there was also an appreciation of the location, of the life it afforded, which I realise now can be linked to the proximity of the neighbours, the practicality and connection to infrastructure.

Bouncing around London in search of good value places to rent may make you feel like you cannot connect; but you may have noticed you find some places easier to experience than others. 

A lack of investment, services and support, and engagement opportunities for people can result in anti-social activity and then disaffection. The Quality of Life Foundation has pulled together many pieces of research which touch on these matters.

In my book Building Inclusion (pub Routledge in August) Russell Curtis of RCKa talks about the TNG Youth and Community Centre in Lewisham, where listening and learning about the community not only built in social value, but a revisit to the project years later showed people choosing to reinvest their time there. The engagement aspects of their approach, as well as the design and facilities, now well maintained, has helped achieve that.

We ought to understand how we bond with the places that are important to us. When we reduce places to buildings and the spaces between them, we risk marginalising the essential human dimensions of place that are indispensable to creating those affectionate bonds. These are manifold, complex, and can be difficult to articulate.

Recognising place as a paradigm for our human experience and activating our own agency in shaping the places we care for, requires us to have a shared language to do that. How can social affection for me be translated into something that means social affection for you? Facilitating these connections lies at the core of the Place Literacy Project.

In a volatile world, this is a powerful idea which could hold the key to more social stability. After all, affection - love - can be a fundamentally secure force.

Marsha Ramroop is an inclusion strategist and founder director of Unheard Voice Consultancy Ltd. Building Inclusion - The Book is available for pre-order now out in August, published by Routledge. Additional material by Dr Devorah Block PhD FRSA .