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From inner city experiment to city-region transformation: the unfinished business of co-governance

Experimental zones of East and West

Arriving directly from the Eastern mystic trail, Tolmers was a fantastic experimental zone – a unique vision and orientation, which helped me and many others to make sense and move forward. We tried out many things, by accident or design, which in later decades came under the new banner of ‘sustainability’ – local exchange trading, circular economy, urban ecosystems, etc.. If Tolmers was in some ways a kind of studio extension of University College London, then we should be well equipped for structural analysis of the situation (only later I realized whole sections of urban theory and debate were focused on such things).

Moving to the free state of mind

Escaping the front lines of eviction and fragmentation, I was in search of a place where the seeds of good ideas could grow. As part of the Calder Valley Free State (of mind), we aimed to build on the Tolmers experiments, outwards and upwards. Such experiments were not only material but about cultural empowerment, identity and reason for being. Part of this reflection was to say, ok, this was all great for (relatively) educated and mobile people in central London in the 1970s – how about the unemployed of peripheral Liverpool (1980s), or small town Midlands – or indeed the slums of Asia or Africa? If Tolmers was the seminal time and place as we thought at the time, it could well generate real insights for such challenges.

As to the significance of squatting –

With concepts such as  ‘autonomous cities’, the right to the city, the open city, social justice in the city, social ecology. In later years I began to work in different countries and appreciate some of the complexities and dilemmas of informality in Latin favelas or Indian slums.  For example, colleagues in Cartagena, Colombia had a problem with investing in flood defences for the squatter slums on the periphery – (“they are vagrants and thieves, here today gone tomorrow, why should we send money for them to steal??”). And colleagues in Kolkata, India, observe the autonomous self-organization of the slums and informal settlements, and the brutal reality of mafia gang power, sale of political votes, embedded state corruption, etc.. In the UK this all came to a head in 1980s Liverpool and the classic showdown between state socialism and anarchic co-operativism. Similar frontlines include confrontations with ‘travellers’, illegal raves, and more recently the experience of the lockdown which brought into focus the tension of state order versus self-organization. Setting up the Sustainable City-Region program (City-Region-2020-Integrated-Planning-for-a-Sustainable-Environment) we tried to square the circles but actually it took another decade or more of learning and insight on the human dimensions.   
 

Scrolling to the 2020s….

Much debate and ferment on ‘Urban Living Labs’ and similar zones of experimentation. Countless innovations in socio-eco-enterprise, net-zero value chains, sustainable food places, ‘well-being economy’ and ‘foundational economy’. The digital brings huge opportunities in all this, combined with new models of co-governance, circular economy, etc.. In my journey such opportunities can be framed as ‘Deeper city minds’ and the local collective intelligence – as in the book Deeper-City: Collective-Intelligence-and-the-Pathways-from-Smart-to-Wise. But the challenges are massive and growing – neo-liberal finance, post-truth power grabs, climate change, digital surveillance, to name a few. We are exploring this now in the global Collaboratorium / Laboratory of collective intelligence
 
And if we scrolled forward to the 2050s….

The ‘class of 1975’ is now mainly semi-retired with their book-lined studies. But I still ponder on how to realize these visions and ideas for the pathways to the future….

Read more about the author Joe Ravetz