Neighbourhood Identity Matters

Before heading out today, I've been spending a couple of hours catching up on all the stuff that's been falling through the net in my Harringay Online mailbox. In amongst it all I thought a couple of articles I'd paperclipped from almost a year ago were worth sharing. Both relate to notions of neighbourhood identity. It's an area that I'm very interested in. I think it's a key foundation stone that needs to underpin so much of the localist agenda that's so hot these days.

One article was by Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries about why neighbourhood identity matters in the USA. Jeffries thought the issue was so important that he was intending to introduce a city bill requiring the city to develop a community-oriented process of community agreement before neighbourhoods can be rebranded or boundaries redefined.

This stands in stark contrast to the cavalier way our local politicians have treated our neighbourhoods, where boundaries are treated as malleable tools to be shaped by personal whim or for political purposes. 

I'd love to see Haringey and other London boroughs support a Jeffries type of initiative with a writ than runs to themselves, TfL and other public bodies as well as estate agents.