Suburban jungle

The job of developing new communities seemed so simple through much of the 20th century: You built the houses and the occupants did the rest. Dad joined the Rotary Club, Mum held a Tupperware party, your 2.4 kids played with the neighbours’ 2.4 kids and everyone went to the same church on a Sunday morning.

Contrast that with the some of the realities of modern living also featured in this issue: the communities isolated by race or faith and the fractured families that find themselves homeless. It is no wonder then, that today’s community-makers are revisiting suburbia: the very word holds out the promise of an antidote to our often dystopian model of 21st century living.

But will “a verge in front of your house and grass and a tree for the dog,” as John Betjeman described suburbia, be sufficient to create a cohesive community? Hardly. It wasn’t actually enough in the 20th century. But then communities had a social and family structure and a shared consciousness, even if it was only made manifest in street corner conversation about the goings-on in last week’s Coronation Street. Now there is no one structure, no secure family, no single faith and a lot more than two television channels. Pluralism rules.

In the debate about sustainable communities, economic and environmental criteria have taken precedence over the social dimension. Later this month the Thames Gateway Forum will showcase fantastic-looking scheme proposals of all architectural styles, with eco-homes, live/work homes, and parks. Housing providers can give the Gateway all that, but they can’t solve all society’s ills.

Take race, for example, many occupants of the new homes in the Gateway will come from the South-east’s rapidly growing migrant workforce. The BNP election gains at Barking last May shows the potential for community division. To help tackle some of the issues, the DCLG established the Commission on Integration and Cohesion in June with the remit of establishing “how local areas themselves can play a role in forging cohesive and resilient communities”. It may have its work cut out if it is going to deliver the happy-ever-after of the suburban idyll.